West Coast's woes go from bad to worse after losing at home and Nic Naitanui succumbing to an Achilles injury that now requires surgery, while there's hope on the horizon for Fremantle fans, whose youngsters tamed the Lions with a ferocious display at the Gabba, while almost $3 million was raised at The Big Freeze at the G, where the Dees broke their Queens Birthday hoodoo to inflict more pain on the Pies.
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Our crack(pot) panel returns to run the rule over round 12 of the AFL.
The panel:
Brendan Foster (WAtoday's resident grumpy old man); David Prestipino (WAtoday wine writer and footy tragic); Nick Alviani (Radio 6PR producer); Steve Allen (Radio 6PR producer and stats guru) and Tim Carrier (WAtoday social media guru, fantasty footy addict).
Fossy:
1. There are rumours some Eagles players swapped their boots for high heels at three quarter time. That's not a disparaging comment towards women but goes a long way to explain why West Coast were flat-footed during the final term.
2. The AFL should give Crows one-man excitement machine Eddie Betts a cut of ticketing and TV profits, as he is bringing punters through the turnstiles and to their television sets.
3. No Nic Naitanui. No finals for the Eagles.
Nicko:
1. Why do players try to pass off when they are within scoring range? Josh Kennedy, Lachie Weller and Tom Lynch tried to do the 'team thing' over the weekend that resulted in turning the ball over.
2. After their 108-point loss on Friday night, the good news is Essendon don't play another Friday night game for the rest of the year. The bad news is they have a Thursday night game against West Coast in round 15.
3. It wasn't hard to pick the player of the round this week. Patrick Dangerfield brought his own ball to Etihad Stadium, with 48 touches and two goals.
Paddy Dangerfield had one of the greatest games of AFL on Saturday.
Presto:
1. The Kangas need a big scalp in the next three weeks to shed the tag of pretenders. They've been ladder leaders all season but were roo-ful against Sydney (3rd) and Geelong (2nd) in the past three weeks, with acid tests against Hawthorn this Friday and then Adelaide and West Coast away.
2. All Dockers fans could hope for after a 0-10 start to the season was a silver lining... they've found at least three in two weeks now. Matt Taberner can be the forward Freo needs (when the ball is kicked to him), while Lachie Weller (pick 13, 2014 draft) and Connor Blakely (pick 34, 2014)) are better than most top 10 draft picks from that year. Heave ho.
Lachie Weller was picked up at 13 by the Dockers in 2014.
3. A rivalry was born on Sunday in the most important AFL game played in NSW... Spotless Stadium was a sell-out for the first time and a once trivial rivalry became real, as GWS demolished the Swans by 42 points in its 100th game to send a shiver through the competition. Puppets they are not, the Giants have arrived.
Timbo:
1. The Dockers definitely aren't tanking. If they keep playing like they did against Brisbane and Essendon, they could cause a few problems for some teams fighting for the finals, starting this week at home to Port.
2. The Eagles premiership chances are hanging by a thread. West Coast can't afford to drop any of their next seven games (all of which you'd think they will start as favourite), if they want to stay in the hunt for the crucial double chance in September.
3. North Melbourne could become the first team ever to drop out of the top 4 after leading the league at the halfway point of the season. Don't believe me? In the run home the Kangaroos play Hawthorn twice, the Crows and Eagles away, the Bulldogs, the Giants and the Swans. With injuries starting to bite they could potentially lose all of those games.