It’s always a bit weird when your team gets eliminated from the championship hunt, isn’t it?  I mean, there are still games left to be played, in my case one, but a little air has been let out of the tires. Call it the Finals refractory period, if you will. Nevertheless, we push forward for one more week until the AFL season is completed.  It’s been a great one.

Welcome to Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat!

We start off with the Preliminary Final between the host Adelaide Crows and the visiting Geelong Cats. The two had split the season series, each winning by about 20 at home.  Thus, I tipped the Crows to win by 20 in the Footy Tipping Contest. I once again played the Russian Roulette game of waking up at the Three Quarter Time mark and tuning in to see what the score is.

It came up with a 45 point deficit/bullet.  Oh well.  It was a tough proposition from the get-go and, truthfully, the Crows have been the best team in the competition all year.  They simply decided to show it on the biggest stage yet while the Cats decided to revert to their fumbly sluggish start, come back and make it interesting midway, only to falter and get blown out in the end ways.  The final margin was 61.  Here are the highlights:

The second Preliminary Final was on North American Friday Night at close to midnight Pacific.  I was able to tune in for the first half before the long workday took its toll.  During that first half, Richmond started off very strong to the roar of the 94K Tiger fans at the MCG.  The official attendance was 94,258 which means there were a few Giants fans, but honestly not many.

Despite the noise and crowd support for the Tigers, the Giants were able to come back and take control of the game midway through the first.  Unfortunately, they could not greatly convert their dominance into points.  The two teams went into halftime separated by only a point.

I blame myself and my need for sleep for what happened next.  The Tigers absolutely rolled over the Giants in the second half en route to a 103-67 win. BFC, I’m sorry, man!

Here are the highlights:

Thus, the Grand Final is now set as the Richmond Tigers will go against the Adelaide Crows for the AFL Premiership!

The beauty part is that the game will, as is tradition, be held in the afternoon in Melbourne, which means that we can watch it here at a decent hour!  Game information is as follows (time is Pacific time):

Friday, September 29, 2017

Grand Final – 9:30 PM – Adelaide Crows v Richmond Tigers at the MCG

I will do a full preview in conjunction with fellow Geelong Cats member tWBS on his Sexy Friday post.  That will also serve as the liveblog/open thread for the game.

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Footy Tipping Contest

I don’t know exactly what happened to our good friend Litre_cola.  Maybe he got into the dog’s oxy stash, I don’t know, but he forgot to put the footy tips in!!  This, along with a 2 for 2 weekend, has given me the championship in our Footy Tipping Contest!

Here are the standings with only the Grand Final to go:

BIG props to Blax and Dolph for going hard all the way to the end! Well done, boys!  As for those of you that did not put the footy tips in (and I count four), you get your just desserts:

Anyway, thanks to everyone for playing along and for Dolph for joining in halfway and making a real run at the rest of us.

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That’s all for this week.  I anticipate a full pro-Tiger MCG and a really intense game next week with a lot of scoring.  I look forward to seeing you on the Open Thread!