Footy Footy Footy

Sigh, I’m at the end of day seven of this stupid cough. How much longer is this gonna last? I’m really frustrated that it’s now cost me two weekends of really doing anything with other people, and that I’ve been pretty much miserable for now the last eight days. If you could pray that I would be able to regain my health as soon as possible I would be grateful.
So yesterday after reading the text of President Bush’s wonderful convention speech, I turned my attention to other important issues — the footy finals! Yes, this weekend is round 1 of the AFL finals (playoffs). The AFL does its finals a bit differently than sports back home, so here’s a quick rundown. The AFL is made up of 16 teams (10 of which are from Melbourne and its suburbs), and the top 8 make the finals. The top 4 are granted the all-important “double-chance,” which means that they can lose once in the first round and still hope to make the grand final. The first weekend only eliminates two teams. The top 4 play each other in qualifying finals (1-4, 2-3), and the next 4 play each other in elimination finals (5-8, 6-7). The winners of the qualifying finals get a bye the second week, while the losers of the qualifying finals host the winners of the elimination finals, with the winners then moving on in the third week to play the winners of the qualifying finals in what are called the preliminary finals. The winners of those two games will then play the AFL Grand Final on Sept 25th at the MCG in Melbourne. Got it? Good.
Last night I went over to Farrer Hall to watch the Brisbane-St Kilda qualifying final (2 vs 3) with BradWa (there are two Brad’s in CU, so we call them BradWa and BradWe). Anyways, the Brisbane Lions have won the last three Grand Finals, and are looking good to go for their fourth consecutive premiership flag. They absolutely destroyed a very good St Kilda squad 149-69 at the Gabba (in Brisbane), in a game that wasn’t even as close as the score indicates. The Saints scored some meaningless goals in the closing minutes to get the margin back to under 100 points to lose my a more “respectable” 80 points (hehe). Earlier this year Brisbane annihilated the Adelaide Crows by 141 points. Simply stunning. It’s gonna be tough for anyone to dethrone Brisbane. And then this afternoon, while doing some reading for class, I saw an incredible elimination final, pitting the Melbourne Demons against the Essendon Bombers (5 vs 8), an all-Victorian final at the MCG. Each side had huge runs through the first three quarters, but then the lead changed a number of times in the 4th, before Essendon pulled out victorious, 104-99. In the other elimination final tonight, with the Sydney Swans hosting the West Coast Eagles (6 vs 7) in a torrential downpour that hampered play, Sydney won 75-34. I didn’t watch that game though, as instead I watched the Roberts Hall Saturday Night Movie, “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” Such a good movie, even after seeing it several times! But tomorrow afternoon is the other qualifying final, and the one I’ve actually been waiting for, with the Port Adelaide Power hosting the Geelong Cats (1 vs 4). There are quite a few Geelong fans here in Roberts, so it should be fun to watch it with them in front of the big screen down in the entertainment centre! The loser of that match will play Essendon next week, and St Kilda will play Sydney. I’m such a sports nerd…
And yes, despite all this footy I have gotten a start on my paper for the Aussie Landscape class, I should hopefully be able to finish that before the Geelong game tomorrow afternoon. I might even have newfound energy and motivation if I were to suddenly not have this cough tomorrow. A guy can dream, can’t he?