Monday, March 31, 2014: The Fred Astaire of football teams

With their large feet and inability to balance without the use of a tale, dancing is not a popular pastime among the kangaroo population. The kangaroo is scrappy rather than classy; powerful, graceless beasts that are very difficult to knock over. Perhaps more akin to Barry Hall or Wayne Carey than Boomer Harvey or Lindsay Thomas.

Faunological digressions aside, what we are looking with this new breed of Arden Street Kangaroo is an altogether different beast than it's macropodic namesake. The Fred Astaire of football teams, if you will, the whole league forming a circle to watch them tread the boards, effortlessly transitioning between team in crisis and Premiership contender, fleet of foot and vague of promise. 

When you break the Kangaroos season down to it's two intricate pieces, you will probably see the same thing as us. A mid-table team that was plunged into crisis by a team much better than it, only to rescued by beating a team much worse. ie. the status quo, just surrounded by a lot of media white (and blue) noise. 

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Here at the Smother, we like to take steps to ensure we keep our brains sharp. Staving off mental degeneration and Alzheimers through games of chess, crosswords and sudoko is an important part of our workplace health & safety programs, and preparing ourselves for the inevitable challenge of life after Smother. 

The challenge is, of course, keeping these brain games enjoyable and relevant. Though in previous years we've been able to do that with small challenges like attempting to decipher Brian Taylor's confused screaming from the commentary box or assigning any sort of value to Fox Footy's War Room, the AFL and Ticketmaster have combined to give us a rather enjoyable mathematical brain-teaser that you can play at home. 

Simply read the following situation, and answer the following question:

Mark likes football, and decides to take his two friends to the Collingwood v Geelong game on Saturday Night at the MCG. Mark is an AFL member, while his two friends are not members. The game is a Category A (unreserved game), and Mark wants to sit in the General Admission Section of the Great Southern Stand. Mark ends up choosing a Category 6 reserve seat, and chooses to pay via credit card and opts to save money via printing the ticket off himself. 

a) based on the above situation, calculate the total price for Mark's ticket and the two tickets for his  friends. Remember to take into account the Category A pricing increase, his AFL 'upgrade' fee, credit card payment fees, the fee for printing his own ticket, the booking fee, GST, etc....

b) based on this calculation, how likely is Mark to watch the game at the pub instead?

There was a time, I seem to recall, when going to the football was a relatively simple exercise, capable of being a reaction to a spur of the moment decision. These days, with booking a ticket requiring the planning of expertise usually reserved for international travel or NASA research missions, Foxtel's prices are looking really, really good. 

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Monday Wrap

Thursday:
Richmond 98 defeated Carlton 86

Friday:

Hawthorn 90 defeated Essendon 86

Saturday:

St. Kilda 95 defeated GWS 88
Port Adelaide 127 defeated Adelaide 73
Fremantle 87 defeated Gold Coast 39

Collingwood 89 defeated Sydney 69

Sunday:

Geelong 93 defeated Brisbane 68

West Coast Eagles 123 defeated Melbourne 30

North Melbourne 83 defeated Western Bulldogs 54.

Ladder 

Team - Points - Last 2

West Coast - 8 - (WW)

Fremantle - 8 - (WW)

Port Adelaide - 8 - (WW) 

Geelong - 8 - (WW) 

Hawthorn - 8 - (WW)

St. Kilda - 8 - (WW)

Essendon - 4 - (WL)

GWS Giants - 4 - (WL)
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Richmond - 4 - (LW)

North Melbourne - 4- (LW)

Gold Coast - 4 - (WL)

Collingwood - 4 - (LW)

Carlton - 0 - (LL)

Sydney - 0 - (LL)

Brisbane - 0 - (LL)

Adelaide - 0 - (LL)

Western Bulldogs - 0 - (LL)

Melbourne - 0 - (LL)

In the news...

Essendon defender Court-ee-neigh Dempsey will miss weeks after injuring a hamstring in the VFL. While Hawthorn's Luke Hodge is no certainty to play Fremantle on Friday with a groin injury. 

Also at Hawthorn, Jordan Lewis has abandoned his career in the arts after admitting he was embarrassed by his theatrical dive against Essendon on Friday night. ""I do remember it and once I saw it I didn't really like it, to be honest" he Luis Suarezed. 

Meanwhile Brisbane's Coach Justin Leppitsch has taken a Gen-Y approach to his teams 0 and 2 start to 2014. "If you start worrying about that you don’t concentrate on living in the moment." he Hashtag-YOLO'd. 

And finally, back to Arden Street where Roos coach Brad Scott has installed himself as the number one enforcer for club Godfather Brent Harvey. "I've got a choice. I can ignore it - and he certainly ignores it - or I can stand up for him. And while I'm coaching this footy club, if anyone wants to come after Brent Harvey, they can come through me." he said.