Fremantle’s Travis Colyer, Rory Lobb and Matt Taberner celebrate the upset of the season over GWS. Photo: GETTY IMAGES
Let me guess. You’re struggling with your footy tips this season. Well, you’re not alone, and I’m fairly sure I know what the problem is.
You and countless other keen followers of the game have been caught out by an early-season outbreak of “home ground-it is”, a rare condition that has seen AFL sides losing games they were expected win on their home grounds in epidemic proportions.
What started as an unusual trend in the opening two rounds has built up a head steam, culminating in a just-completed round five where seven of the nine games were won by the away team.
It was bad news for the vast majority of footy tipsters, with the exception being those absent-minded goofs who forgot to put their tips in but are lucky enough to be in a tipping comp where you automatically get the away side if you fail to submit your selections on time. It’s fair to say that those miscreants fared far better than the conscientious majority.
Amongst their ill-gotten gains was correctly tipping two games that may well be vying for upset of the season by the end of August.
To put it mildly, Port Adelaide’s victory over West Coast was unexpected. It would have been a shock had the reigning premier lost at home to the competition’s best-performed club, but given that Port had itself lost at home when raging favourite against a depleted Richmond, the pre-game odds that saw West Coast installed as a 1/10 favourite seemed justified.
The Power’s win over the Eagles was heralded as the shock result of the season, yet it reigned unopposed for less than 24 hours.
GWS had won its previous four encounters against Fremantle, had never lost to the Dockers at home, and had saluted in its last nine matches at Manuka Oval against all opposition. To top that off, the Giants were coming off arguably the greatest win of their short history, a come-from-behind performance at of all places, the Cattery.
The case for a Giants win was as overwhelming as the odds were underwhelming. GWS started the game at 1/15, which according to bookmakers made them a greater certainty than Winx was in her famous final race.
Thankfully, games of football are decided neither by a bookmaker’s ledger nor by precedent. Fremantle headed to our nation’s capital with a clean slate and a surprisingly attacking mindset and departed with a priceless four premiership points.
When you throw in St. Kilda defeating Melbourne at MCG, the Pies trouncing Brisbane at the Gabba and Hawthorn falling to Geelong, also at the ‘G’, you start to start to question the wisdom in age-old footy tipping truisms such as “when in doubt tip the home team” or “never pick interstaters in Victoria”.
To be fair, lamenting pundits must concede that the upsets in the latest round didn’t come as bolts out of the blue. The trend suggesting that the old home ground fortresses of the AFL may be crumbling has been with us since round one.
From the first four rounds of this AFL season here are the “Dirty Dozen”, 12 results that blotted the copybook of tipsters who lean towards the team in black shorts.
1 – Port Adelaide beats Melbourne in round one and records 11 more scoring shots at the MCG.
2 – The Hawks, without Tom Mitchell and new recruits Tom Scully and Chad Wingard, easily account for the Crows in Adelaide.
3 – Adelaide bounces back to overpower Sydney at the SCG in round two.
4 – Brisbane shocks North Melbourne at Marvel Stadium.
5 – The Bulldogs overrun Hawthorn at the MCG
6 – Adelaide returns home only to be spanked by the Cats in round three.
7 – Sydney records its only win for the season to date in Melbourne, against Carlton.
8 – West Coast proves last year’s grand final win was no fluke by defeating the strongly-favoured Collingwood at the MCG.
9 – In a major shock, the Suns travel to Marvel Stadium to inflict the Bulldogs’ first loss of the season.
10 – Sydney stumbles again, this time to Melbourne, which records its only win of the season thus far at the SCG in round four.
11 – As previously mentioned, GWS emerges triumphant over Geelong in round four at Kardinia Park. It’s the Giants’ first win at Geelong’s home ground in their history.
12 – Speaking of firsts, Richmond lines up for the first time without Dustin Martin, Alex Rance, Jack Reiwoldt and Trent Cotchin since the four have been on the Tiger’s list, yet still defeats Port Adelaide at the Adelaide Oval.
When you add the “Dirty Dozen” from the first four rounds to the horrors of round five, you can see why footy tipsters are shed of all confidence, and I’m afraid that for those waiting for things to get easier, the wait may be in vain.
Firstly, we are we in the midst of a fascinatingly even season of AFL football, making tipping winners extremely difficult. Secondly, and of greater concern, it appears that the once-safe option of putting a tick next to the team named first is out, because based on rounds one to five, the old home ground advantage just ain’t what she used to be.
