Numbers...you can't trust them. The Romans knew what numbers were up to and wouldn't have a bar of them. You can put your faith in a nice sturdy X but a 10, it's shifty. The only thing more iffy than a number is a statistic, they'll cut you open and rob you of your kidneys before you can say "aren't you supposed to drug me and put in a bath of ice first?". Unfortunately we're hooked on numbers though, we need them to work out how many kicks David Mundy had this week...and probably some other stuff too. The Dockerland Labs spent the summer pondering the problem and eventually, when the cricket was over, the fridge was empty and the clicker broke in everyone's pen, they came up with a solution - the stats cloud. A quick glance and you'll pretty much know everything about a game of football that there was to know, at least all the boring bits about it. The bigger the player's name, the more kicks, or marks, or tackles he had compared to his teammates.Â
Fremantle are expected to struggle to win the flag this season after being knocked out of the finals by Port Adelaide at Subiaco Oval tonight. Barring some sort of King Ralph style incident at the Preliminary Final photo shoot, the Dockers will finish their season without any silverware and be forced to settle for the 2015 through 2019 flags, in a revisement of the 5 year plan. Freo had Port Adelaide beaten in the first half but they buggered around with the footy in front of goals, kicking 11 points in the opening half to take a 4 goal lead. With no key defenders and Ibbotson busting his arm, the Fremantle back line were always going to be up against the fast finishing Port Adelaide and a 6 goal third quarter from the Power had them back in the game for the last change. Fremantle’s goal kicking skills again abandoned them in the last quarter with another impressive tally of points, while Port dropped in another half a dozen goals to sneak home by 22 points.
Have your say on how the Dockers players performed on the weekend by rating each player from zero to five or just pop in and have a look what everyone else had to say about the team.
Fremantle’s shock loss to Sydney last weekend threw the playing group’s preparations into turmoil for this weekend, with many of them wasting perfectly good but non-refundable accommodation in the south west after expecting the week off. No they’ve been forced into a semi-final or ‘chump round’ as Ross Lyon likes to call it and they’re not happy. They are, however, very professional and almost all of them have agreed to front up this weekend - even Michael Barlow who was unable to keep up his ‘I need crutches’ routine and finally succummed to walking on his own two feet. Hayden Ballantyne dug deep though, and was able to stay silent for the entire week and convince everyone he had a broken jaw. An effort that deserves the week off. Nik Suban will come in to replace the little bloke and, presumably, will be just as mouthy and just as keen for a goal. Port Adelaide haven’t bothered to make any changes after their effort against the Richmond Witch’s Hats last week.