You have to think – With every ‘home’ team winning this weekend, but none of them actually playing at home, does that also mean every away team simultaneously won and lost this weekend?

Geelong 11.7-73 defeated Brisbane Lions 6.10-46 at the SCG

Forget about going unbeaten at Kardinia Park for 4 years:

Unbelievable – It’s on a par with the New York Yacht Club holding the America’s Cup for 132 years running.

As for the game, remember when the Lions were 22 points up in the 2nd Quarter?

About 30 minutes later, I didn’t.

It was a huge turnaround from the Cats, when you consider the circumstances – Mitch Duncan and Quinton Narkle both gone with hamstrings within 6 minutes, Gary Rohan put on report for nothing more than a late spoil on Starcevich, followed by hitting Lester front-on and actually getting fined for it, as the Lions kept the unrelenting heat on their feline counterparts, apparently determined to live up to this fabled Fitzroy banner:

Ah, banners were different back then… fair to say nobody’s going to be making them in Victoria anytime soon.

The high point for the Lions in their 2nd Quarter barrage was that Lachie Neale goal, which was classic backyard material come to reality.

2 goals just before the half to Sammy Menegola (Who really stepped up after Duncan went down) and Tom Hawkins pulled it back to a very manageable 10 points for the Cats, and the old ‘Dwayne Pipe’ Russell would’ve described at least one of them as the firestarter.

Another thing I remember about that 1st Half was Bruce McAvaney commenting about how Gary Ablett looked like he was struggling, despite the fact that Gaz kicked the opening goal from outside 50 with ease.

Of course, Bruce was once a race caller – You’d think he of all people would know about the risk of going the early crow.

“Gazza’s struggling” wasn’t quite Bill Collins and “Kingston Town can’t win”, but Gazza strolled out and kicked the goal that put the Cats in the lead for good in the 3rd Quarter.

There was one person who seemed to be struggling…. and he was in a studio in South Australia.

The weirdest part of all was that despite the margin being a very convincing win to Geelong, Brisbane won 3 quarters to 1.

It was just that Geelong managed to make their winning quarter the thick, juicy meat of a 9 consecutive goal sandwich.

Oddly enough, the Cats still haven’t won a 2nd Quarter all year, but they are in 2nd on the ladder, and that’s what matters.

Chris Scott was only off by 10 months… Charlie Cameron didn’t have much of an impact.

Collingwood 8.11-59 defeated Hawthorn 3.9-27 at GIANTS Stadium

Forget about him pinging his hamstring, Jono Patton is every Hawks supporter who had to sit through this crapheap.

Speaking of The General being in tears because he’d suffered another injury, Channel 7 seemed to show an inordinate amount of time fixating the cameras on a man crying.

It was as if the producer was getting turned on by the sight of a man crying.

The worst score of the Clarkson era at Hawthorn, and with the way the Hawks have played in the past fortnight, I’m not the least bit shocked.

Pathetic, miserable, hopeless, shitty, unskilled, stagnant football… the complete opposite of what made them great, and it won’t be changing anytime soon.

Before things descended into horror, the debutants were everywhere – The Hawks had Will Day, grandson of 1971 Premiership player Bob Day, and Josh Morris, backing up from a big performance for the Roosters against the Cowboys on Thursday night, while the Pies debuted Atu Bosenavulagi, whose great aunt is married to Joffa, and apparently the only one of the four who mattered was Will Kelly, son of 1990 Premiership hero Craig ‘Ned’ Kelly.

What a ride Friday was for Kelly – Starting the night by joining the prestigious first kick, first goal club:

And it ended with him suffering the mother of all dislocated elbows, ending his season.

Still, like a good captain and a good servant, Scotty Pendlebury was nice enough to tie his shoes for him in the rooms.

The Pies pretty much sealed the game with a 5 goal to 1 opening term, putting behind their Bold And The Beautiful plot of a fortnight, and in a game as ugly as Kelly’s limp left arm, the scores post Quarter Time were 3.10 to Collingwood, to 2.9 Hawthorn.

Summing up the Hawks performance, Brodie Mihocek, who once again matched his career high of 4 goals, and also took the lead of the Coleman Medal, became the first player in 22 years to score more goals than the Hawks in a game.

Mihocek yourself before you wreck yourself.

I noticed the article from Jake Niall in The Age about not fixturing Hawthorn in prime time slots, in the wake of Friday night.

If you ask me, if the AFL want to make people happy, don’t take the Hawks off the prime time slots…. just take them off TV altogether.

Fremantle 12.7-79 defeated St Kilda 11.7-73 at Metricon Stadium

Freo – The American Prime Time Specialists.

It was the first Dockers-Saints game without Ross Lyon coaching since 2006, and it was almost fitting that the game turned out to be a quality contest.

At quarter time, it was the Saints playing that newly discovered entertaining brand of balls to the wall footy at it’s absolute finest, and they seemingly had Freo done to a dinner thanks to a 7 goals to 1 opening quarter, leading by an easy 36 points…

Only for the ‘lowly’ Dockers to pull off the comeback of the year, going to a level that even the Saints simply couldn’t match for the next 2 Quarters, first cutting it back to 13 points at the Half, and them swallowing the Sainters alive by keeping them SCORELESS in the 3rd term, and the Dockers really should’ve had the game on toast at the final change, but they missed 3 very gettable set shots.

Just to get to that point was massive from Justin Longmuir’s team, considering they lost 4 players after that Adelaide win (Among them Griffin Logue and Jesse Hogan), Nat Fyfe was underdone, and they were down 2 players for the 2nd Half – Hayden Young was done with an ankle injury, and Sean ‘The Fridge’ Darcy, who was Freo’s best player in the 1st Half, was gone before the half after being concussed by a crude bump from Ben Long, putting Long on report.

Didn’t even bother going for the ball = Give him 3 games… and a haircut.

So with Freo getting out to an 18 point lead, and having kicked 10 of the last 11 goals, this remarkable game looked over, but momentum is a funny thing, and the moment Tim Membrey didn’t shank a set shot and put one through with 6 minutes left, the Saints got a run on, Gresham kicked another goal, and then Zak Jones tied the scores thanks to Michael Walters being a bonehead and not understanding where the mark was.

To think kicking the wrong way from the opening bounce wouldn’t be the worst part of his afternoon, although having said that, Sonny was an instrumental part of Freo’s comeback, and he was probably best afield.

But, with time running out and fate against them, Freo produced one last slick movement forward, and Justin Longmuir, under the guise of young Lachie Schultz, managed to smuggle himself onto the field to finish off the Saints with a late goal once again.

I’m impressed that Schultz was able to slot that… usually he goes around claiming he sees nothing and knows nothing.

The Dockers held on, and flying back to Perth on the back of their greatest ever quarter time comeback is the kind of thing that ignites a season.

It was the second time this year the Saints have crapped the bed and blown a 30+ point lead, but credit to them, they made it entertaining.

West Coast 10.7-67 defeated Adelaide 5.4-34 at The Gabba

Bravo to Reilly O’Brien for being a typical big dumb ruckman, and generating at least a flicker of interest in what was an average game.

Because of big ROB having “A mare” with a dodgy iPhone, Nic Naitanui gave us something close to the pinnacle real life shitposting… brought to you by Telstra.

Given the build-up, all interest in the game was between the lumbering giants of the middle – To put it simply, Nic Nat beat O’Brien all ends up in the ruck (So did Oscar Allen, who isn’t even a ruckman), and he had him covered for scoreboard impact:

Although, O’Brien did have Nic Nat covered around the ground (19-7 disposals), and he took 9 marks, which was primarily the result of filling in defence, where the Crows once again spent the majority of the game.

Other than that, I found it a fairly straightforward win to the Eagles, who broke the game open with 3 goals in 3 minutes in the 3rd Quarter to make it 3 consecutive wins against a slightly improved Crows team, who are now being greeted by a man named Owen.

Owen Six.

Then again, I had nausea from the night before.

Melbourne 12.8-80 defeated Gold Coast 9.9-63 at GIANTS Stadium

It was a 16 month wait for Izak Rankine to debut, and it didn’t even take 10 minutes to get a reminder of why he’d been so highly regarded after being drafted No.3 overall, with his first touch of the ball.

And his second goal was a lovely piece of improvisation:

Rankine finished up with 3 goals, and could easily have kicked 5 or 6 with better set shot goalkicking, but this game was about the Dees finally doing something right for 4 consistent quarters, and it appears that MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, getting the hell out of the plagued fishbowl that is the capital of Victoria could turn into a real positive.

It was only the Suns without Rowell, and the game did have that typical Demon touch of crappy disposal, but the Suns seriously challenged them, closing to within a point multiple times, and unlike previous weeks where they’ve failed to punch their way out of a paper bag come the 4th Quarter, they were able to stand up and hit the scoreboard with their usual glut of Inside 50s.

To cap off a rare ray of sunshine for the Dees, with the game sealed, Harley Bennell kicked his first goal in the red & blue after the siren, and it sparked joyous pile-on that nobody has seen at Melbourne in almost 2 years.

Essendon 9.13-67 defeated North Melbourne 7.11-53 at Metricon Stadium

At what could’ve been North’s home ground as recently as 12 years ago, it was always as if the Dons were one step ahead of the boring old Shinboners, in a competitive that was somewhat let down by dodgy goalkicking from seemingly everyone… except David Zaharakis slotting a pair of goals from tough angles.

Despite prognostications of doom, Zacka has not quite hit the cliff.

While Zaharakis did it up forward in the absence of The Package with 20 touches and 3 goals, a player who caught the eye was Jordan Ridley with 18 touches and 7 marks off half-back, playing his 15th game with the poise of a 10-year veteran, Cale Hooker creamed Ben Brown, Andrew McGrath became the main ball winner and got 24 touches in a best on ground display , but on the downside, Dylan Shiel, who had already been tagged out of the game by Luke McDonald, saw his time at the pointy end of Brownlow markets abruptly ended by his own doing, after coming in with a high bump on Curtis Taylor, earning him an invoice from Michael Christian, reuqiring him to spend the next 2 weeks in solitude for a bump to the head.

Cam Zurhaar would’ve got him in the sternum.

After the game, Devon Smith was interviewed by Channel 7, and fired in a subtle North are minnows joke:

“It is a bit of a rivalry build up for them, but for us it’s just another game.”

Bit rich for a club who’ve gone 5,790 days without winning a final (In which time North have won 5) to sprout that, but on the hand, hahahaha, Norf, what a bunch of poor minnows.

In what was a day for banter, McDonald came in with the fabled facemask gesture towards Conor McKenna, who may or may not have had COVID-19.

How is that any different to the classic Sam Mitchell jab gesture towards the Bombers back in 2015, or Dustin Martin doing the coke snort gesture to Shane Mumford last year.

People get pissed given the state of the world, most of us have a laugh, he probably gets a fine, we all move on.

Port Adelaide 9.9-63 defeated GWS 6.10-46 at Metricon Stadium

Carrara – The One True Portress.

Toby Greene’s 150th game, and Heath Shaw’s 314th game, moving him past uncle Tony for the most games in the Shaw family.

It was as memorable as the Giants’ Grand Final.

In a game played in perfect conditions, the game never really lived up to any great heights, but after the Giants charged at the Pear and took the lead, Port smacked them right between the eyes with their big Dixon, and I’d be a fool to not include Kane Farrell sinking the Giants with a classic left-footed rocket from 60m out.

Amazing – He did a Trent McKenzie on Trent McKenzie’s old home ground with Trent McKenzie watching 25m away.

With no players debuting or celebrating a milestone, Port decided it was Kenny’s turn to get a Gatorade shower.

So Port are still on top and back in form, although they will have to leave their home ground and play in Adelaide for the rest of the year, while GWS are back to being no good and mentally scarred by the 2019 Grand Final.

Richmond 4.10-34 defeated Sydney Swans 3.8-26 at the Gabba

With the pissing rain in once Beautiful Brisvegas, combined with 8 first-choice Tigers out, and Sydney having no tall players to pick, the game was as pretty as putting lipstick on a pig.

The 2nd-lowest scoring game in the AFL era, and Richmond became the first team in the AFL era to win despite kicking 1 goal after quarter time.

If I could sum up how painful the game was to watch, based on a moment from the game, it would be this:

Out on the full and a face full of concrete for Callum Mills.

Josh Kennedy was lucky that he tore his meniscus in the 1st Quarter…. He may be gone for several weeks, but at least he got to sit undercover.

Compare that to Isaac Heeney, who hurt his ankle and tried playing the game out, only to hurt it again during the final term.

The Tigers kicked 3 goals in the opening 10 minutes, before any hope of entertainment was sucked away when Horse deployed a residential tower lockdown of a gameplan.

Get numbers back to stop Richmond scoring, chip the ball around, hug the boundary, barely go up the corridor, and keep it close.

Everything people find annoying about about the modern game….. and bordering on the stereotype of every Swans team since 2005.

And the funny part was Richmond seemed happy enough letting them do it, knowing they had the Swans absolutely clamped down at their own end by playing a spare man themselves.

Dimma, it wasn’t just your opposition, you were both just awful.

Longmire will point to the fact that his team kept the Tigers to 1 goal after quarter time as definitive proof that strategy worked, but the Swans kicked a pissy 3 goals for the game, so don’t give me that “Oh but they gave themselves a chance to win” crap – They were NEVER winning that game.

Carlton 16.7-103 vs Western Bulldogs 7.9-51 at Metricon Stadium

HOLY MOLY, TIME FOR A GROUND INVASION, A TEAM SCORED 100 POINTS!

AND CARLTON HAVE SHOT UP TO 8TH…

APPARENTLY THAT IS NOT A JOKE, CARLTON ARE ACTUALLY IN THE TOP 8 AFTER A HOME & AWAY ROUND FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 7 YEARS.

HAIL RICHIE, HAIL THE GREAT MAN, HAIL!