So unfortunately, because of the ongoing plague, regular American sports such as basketball, baseball and hockey have been postponed. You could watch soccer/football, but ultimately that might be a bit weak for your liking and you want sport with a bit more aggression

That leaves the Americans with

AUSTRALIAN RULES FOOTBALL!!!!!



Beloved by one Pat McAfee

https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl...aa20bb31696738

McAfee was taken aback watching a game from March before the plague hit our country, ironically involving two of the worst teams.

He did an interview with Mason Cox, who is an American who is doing relatively well in the league as a key forward/striker/goal scorer (he is trash compared to the top echelon of players at the position, but he fulfills a role at a team that is pretty good, so good for him.



If you want to watch the best highlights ever from that American guy, they are here in the 2018 Preliminary Final (roughly equivalent to the AFC/NFL title game in terms of being one game away from the Super Bowl/Grand Final.

His team were big underdogs for that game, but he played a great game and helped them with the big upset. They then lost to my team (West Coast Eagles) so thanks for helping us win the title by knocking out the big guns for us.



The season recommences in approximately 48hrs time, with 9 games a week for a few weeks with a flexible fixture in case the Rona comes back, with a finals series expected to start in October.

WHO SHOULD I SUPPORT?

The league has 18 teams, so there are choices in regards to which one you would want to pick. My suggestions and NFL comparison based on one random anecdote are below

ADELAIDE CROWS


Colours: Navy, Red, Yellow
NFL Comparison: Jacksonville Jaguars circa Del Rio

Adelaide had been a good team circa 2014-2017, culminating in a an appearance in the Super Bowl in 2017 (despite having just lost their best player in a want to leave trade). Over the 2017 and 2018 seasons, they hired a company to improve results which included a preseason camp to toughen up the players, which ended up backfiring as basically every player tried to leave in disgust in the following years.

https://au.sports.yahoo.com/stunning...215030658.html

This week, two team mates had a fight in practice

https://www.afl.com.au/news/442065/w...ws-at-training

They will be bad, so don't go for them

BRISBANE LIONS

COLOURS: Maroon, Blue, Yellow
NFL Comparison: Early 2010's Lions/Bengals

After having had the last 10 years of complete mediocrity, they managed a good season last year to make the playoffs, but went out in the first two rounds (Australian football playoffs aren't straight knockouts, higher finishing teams get a second chance).

This would make them like the Bengals or Lions when Dalton/Stafford got them to the finals the first few times, and it looked like the franchise might finally turn around long term. The answer with this team is it probably won't, particularly since off field questions remain and there are rumours that some players want to leave

CARLTON BLUES

COLOURS: Navy Blue
NFL Comparison: Oakland Raiders

Team storied in tradition and a bit of cheating historically. Got in a lot of trouble for cheating the salary cap in the early 2000's and have been a rubbish franchise since.

They have a star player now and a few handy other players, but the rest of the team is so bad pound for pound they will be unlikely to win more than 25% of their games the next two years. Whether they will trade away Cripps like they did Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper is up for debate

COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES

COLOURS: Black and white
NFL Comparison: Dallas Cowboys

The weird thing about Aussie Rules is that over half the teams are based in one city. And this team is the biggest in that one city.

They are a pretty easy team for an American to go for, as they have Mason Cox playing for them (who was a walk-on at Oklahoma State in basketball) to go for.

Despite being the biggest club, they haven't had much success recently (Championships in 2010 and 1990 the only ones in the last 60 years) but always get the primetime games and the attention, even if their on field play doesn't deserve it. They also always get the ANZAC Day and Queen's Birthday game slots (roughly equivalent to Thanksgiving) to stay in the media spotlight.

They will be pretty good this year, but the questions remain as to their depth in their last 6-8 players out of 22 in the matchday squad.

ESSENDON BOMBERS


COLOURS: Red, black
NFL Comparison: Modern day New York Jets

It's a bit easy to compare the metal planes with the metal planes mascots, but the correlation between the teams goes a bit further than that.

Essendon haven't won a playoff game in 15 years (8 teams make playoffs out of originally 16 teams, now 18 teams as of 2012), and haven't come close to a championship in 20. A lot of their star players frankly aren't that good compared to what they are hyped up to be (honestly, how is Namath in the HoF, I understand the story etc.. but come-on).

Essendon also have a good history of messing up in the draft (Scott Gumbleton, which gives me a reason to post this.



FREMANTLE DOCKERS



COLOURS: Purple and White
NFL Comparison: Probably the Marino era Dolphins since 2000.

NFL comparison is a stretch (could substitute the Rivers era Chargers) but I will take it.

Matthew Pavlich was a legend of the game and the league when he came to the Dockers, but in his 16 year career they could only make the big game once, and they lost.

Fremantle have been on the rebuild ever since Pavlich retired in 2016. They now have one league wide star in Fyfe, but whether they will be able to create a contender around him before he gets passed it is up for debate. This team will be pretty bad this year, but might be good if you want a slightly hipster choice for a team that could be good in two years.

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I will do the other 12 teams tomorrow, but if anyone wants to get into watching AUSTRALIAN RULES FOOTBALL!!!! This is the thread to do it in.

so we're not allowed to talk about NRL here?

Sure why not. Its an Australian sport athon

Never got to this but good game on now if anyone cares.
Dockers well improved and fun to watch.

Only thing I want at this stage is an explanation how the eagles could lose to the suns?

1) Night time footy. We always suck in conditions that are slippery and humid, so sure enough we based ourselves in Queensland for the duration of the hub of games. That was stupid

2) We (I go for Eagles) went in way too tall for the game. Going smaller is the way to go, would have Josh Kennedy on a very short leash.

3) Matt Rowell is legitimately the second coming of Jesus. Most incredible first couple game player I have seen since Judd in 2002. Big, strong, good decision maker and a good kick, as well as an ability to go find the pill. Honestly reckon he is getting tagged within a few weeks.

Conor McKenna of the Bombers has the Rona.

GG Essendon vs Melbourne tomorrow, and maybe some other games as well.

*sigh* on the west coast of USA, getting WWE re-runs instead of a scheduled 9 PM match my time.

COVID-19 still in charge?

One game of the 3 today was postponed because of a positive COVID yeet, the other two games had the timeslot changed for TV purposes.

Gold Coast vs Adelaide just finished.

Port Adelaide vs Freo in two hours.

Matt Rowell is the one

lurking

They should make him Health Minister given the way he healed himself of the virus in two days

Uh OP, regarding Brisbane Lions, what rumours have you heard that some players want to leave? Seems like the opposite to me?

Yeah that is news to me too but not overly surprising if it was true given how homesick players become playing for the lions.

Can't talk about Collingwood's recent lack of success without mentioning this:

Runners-up: ..., 1960, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, 2002, 2003, 2011, 2018

unlike last weekend, no cancellation for our viewing pleasure on the West Coast of USA on a Saturday nite.

so few observations after 1 quarter of Brisbane-Adelaide...

- Adelaide stinks or Brisbane is really good
- I though the "fans in the stands" I was seeing was a Euro-soccer style graphic of digital fans. Turns out there really are fans there. Weird to see these days.
- Does Adelaide normally wear the current Germany flag on their uniform? Just looks unusual, not trying to start a political debate.

Adelaide stinks AND Brisbane are that good (apart from goal kicking).
When the West Australian hub opens in 2 or 3 weeks should have up to 60k fans there by the end of July.
That's the Adelaide away strip.
https://shop.afc.com.au/

Adelaide uniform is also navy blue not black. Usual uniform is a navy blue base with yellow and red hoops.

My team (Eagles) suck so much this year. We are terrible and traded away our first round draft pick this year in what is looking to be a steal for Geelong.

Re: Lions

Had heard a few stories of Witherden and Neale wanting out (source pretty clued on and has broken some decent goss for me) but since then Neale has reaffirmed wanting to stay and Witherden has lost his role so not a bad thing. I expected them to fade but they have been good.

Tim Kelly was still in the top 5 performers in the Eagles team on the weekend (and I think close if not in the top 5 for the match).

As for Geelong, I must admit they look like they have gone a totally different direction with their playing style after being Hawthorn. Granted they still need another tall forward (hoping Jenkins is that) and their ruck isn't sorted due to Stanley's injury (but I thought Fort did a decent enough job of it yesterday).

Still 2010 is enough for them to crow about...

very sad night on Friday with my Roosters losing two starting forwards for the rest of the season to ruptured ACLs. Both non contact injuries on the shitty pitch that is full of sand to accommodate 3 games a weekend. Having also ended my career with an ACL injury, I find them really difficult to watch

one guy is an up and comer who'll be missed but the loss isn't critical...the other is one of our consistently best players who also sets the tone with giant, maniacal play and hits.

Shitty pitch that got the ok for two more matches that round. I think it was just hard luck rather than blaming the ground. But as a souths supporter and someone that would like to see some competition for the Roosters as genuinely they are quite ahead of any of their rivals it might not have been such a bad thing for the Roosters to show that they can still turn in the same kinds of performances they have been doing to date without those 2 players (as bad as that sounds because AFL wise I know that feeling with Stewart being injured for Geelong in their game against the demons).

yeah, I mean we'll never know for sure and seeing 2 ACLs in 15 mins is variance...whether the pitch was bad or not... but too much sand on the pitch does create stability problems ime.

I also think we'd have come back to the pack a little anyway - no way we can hold this peak through the end of October, but Radley really is a big loss - the back row looks a lot less intimidating without him. I think he'd have played Origin this year too

Tom Stewart is a big loss too - is it weird that he's 27 and has only been playing first grade for 3 years?

Late bloomer in life like a few other cats and ex-cats I suppose (Tim Kelly for one didn't get started in the AFL till like he was 23).

While my recording failed and I didn't get to see who won between the roosters and the storm, that game was the very advertisement why it is being broadcast on an international stage as it was truly a great game.

Storm won in Golden Point.

the hits and intensity were throughout and that last ten minutes was something else. Brutal as a Roosters fan both to lose after the penalty/drop goal combo with 2 mins left but more so just because of the numbers of handling errors we made and the attrition on our team. No one can survive a season playing like that