The Finger Points Outwards - No. 81

STATISTICS: ‘Ugly ducklings’, and another lesson in how the human brain is bad at making statistical inferences.

AUSTRALIAN RULES FOOTBALL: Are AFL food prices all that unreasonable?

COMIC BOOKS: Free comics! Courtesy of the British Library’s Comics Unmasked Digital Anthology.

AFL Power Rankings: Round 9 2014

RISING UP

The schizophrenic Roos move up to fifth (barely) after thrashing the Brisbane Lions. As said before here, North Melbourne looks to have taken a slight step back from last season, but they are getting over the line for the win more often and look well-placed to get the finals spot they missed out on in 2013.

FALLING DOWN

Richmond loses half a dozen ranking points and its spot in the top eight after kicking every shot it had on goal last week through the behind posts. Its 2013 form is what keeps the Tigers in ninth spot – based on 2014 form alone they would be ranked in twelfth spot.

(That bitterness you can detect is me as a Tigers supporter finally getting tired of football. Crisis blah blah crisis blah crisis crisis. Who even cares? I would rather pull out all of my toenails with a toothpick than watch Footy Classified tomorrow night.)   

ALSO OF NOTE

Fremantle take back second spot from Geelong after beating the Cats in Matthew Pavlich’s 300^th game. The Dockers have faced some tough opposition early on in 2014 and their performances actually have not been as ‘mediocre’ as their coach recently claimed.

 

AFL Power Rankings: Round 8 2014

RISING UP

West Coast picks up a few ranking points and a ranking spot after thrashing the GWS Giants.

FALLING DOWN

Nothing of note really. Boo to the bye rounds.

ALSO OF NOTE

Just a reminder: even teams that do not play can change in ranking points as the system reassesses the relative strength of their previous opponents.

AFL Power Rankings: Round 7 2014

RISING UP

The Gold Coast Suns achieve their highest-ever ranking with a big win over the Kangaroos in Melbourne. The Suns move up from 15^th to 12^th this week, gaining seven and a half ranking points from their impressive win.

FALLING DOWN

A few teams take big hits this week: St. Kilda from their 100+ point mauling against the Hawks, North Melbourne from their aforementioned loss to the Suns, Brisbane from their big loss at home to Sydney, and Adelaide from losing at home to the 17^th ranked Demons.

ALSO OF NOTE

Hawthorn is now rated as being four goals ahead of anyone else … although that gap may magically disappear when they play the Cats again.

The AFL Team of the Second Century

This week, the Herald Sun ‘rebooted’ the VFL/AFL Team of the Century that was selected in 1996, updating the ‘best’ team to include players up to the present day. It is a topic that I have often thought about, as have many others, but the difficulty of course in undertaking the exercise is that I have never seen most of the players.* Whereas if I did it for the AFL’s second century, that is 1997 onwards, I can claim to having watched all of the players.

I found the team pretty easy to select actually. One difficulty was what to do with players who crossed ‘centuries’ like Wayne Carey. Though Carey only played half of his career after 1996 it seems to me ridiculous not to have him included in either the AFL Team of the First Century or the Second when he has clearly been better than any other centre half-forward that has come after. Similarly I also put Tony Lockett in, as while other full-forwards have kicked more goals since ’96 (Matthew Lloyd in particular) none of them would generally be rated above him, and Lockett played enough seasons after that date to make his selection defensible. I also considered Glen Jakovich, but Jakovich did not make a single All-Australian team after 1996, and the difference between him and my selection Justin Leppitsch was not large enough to overlook that point. So here it is:

B: Gavin Wanganeen (Ess/PA), Matthew Scarlett (Geel), Dustin Fletcher (Ess)

HB: Andrew McLeod (Adel), Justin Leppitsch (BL), Corey Enright (Geel)

C: Nathan Buckley (Coll), Michael Voss (BL), Chris Judd (WC/Carl)

HF: James Hird (Ess), Wayne Carey (NM/Adel), Mark Ricciuto (Adel)

F: Lance Franklin (Haw), Tony Lockett (Syd), Ben Cousins (WC/Rich)

R: Dean Cox (WC), Robert Harvey (StK), Gary Ablett (Geel/GC)

I: Dane Swan (Coll), Nick Riewoldt (StK), Matthew Pavlich (Fre), Adam Goodes (Syd)

I think this team captures pretty much every significant player since 1997, except possibly Jonathan Brown. But if Brown came in, then I think the player that would have to come out is Nick Riewoldt. And given that Brown only has one All-Australian selection to Riewoldt’s four, and Riewoldt also has an AFL Players MVP to his name, I am sticking with the St. Kilda captain. Luke Hodge for Corey Enright also made me think a bit, but I stuck with Enright because he is a ‘true’ defender, and there are enough midfielders slotted elsewhere.

Of course by the time the AFL Team of the Second Century, or the Bicentennial, is picked most of these players will be well and truly forgotten. It will be up to a few to argue that Gary Ablett was talented enough to adapt to using jetpacks in the forward 50.

*PS: For what it is worth only Wayne Carey, Gary Ablett Jr., and Michael Voss would force their way into the team for me, at the expense of Jack Dyer and Greg Williams (with the bench expanded to four players).

The Finger Points Outwards - No. 80

COMIC BOOKS: Dave Eggers does a comic strip about bison.

SPORTS: Legoland depicts David Moyes’ departure from Manchester United.

MUSIC: A defence of Alanis Morissette’s ‘Jagged Little Pill’.

AFL Power Rankings: Round 6 2014

RISING UP

They may not have moved up any ranking sports, but Port Adelaide gained the most points this week with their comfortable win over the #2 ranked Geelong. Apart from GWS, the Power has improved far more than any other team so far in 2014, and are a decent chance to grab the #2 spot for themselves in the coming weeks.

FALLING DOWN

I do not know what is worse as a Tigers fan: Richmond losing the most ranking points this week, or Richmond now being ranked ninth. Let’s just move on ...

ALSO OF NOTE

Brisbane’s ranking points: -17.5570; Gold Coast’s ranking points: -17.5571! Off the top of my head, I am pretty sure that is a Wooden Finger AFL rankings record.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro

I saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier last weekend, and thought it was about as good as a Captain America movie could be.  For me that puts it up with the first two X-Men movies, the first two (original) Spider-Man movies, and the first Iron Man movie as Marvel film adaptations that pretty much make the most out of their material. A lot of the movie draws from what I believe to be the greatest run of Captain America comics ever, writer Ed Brubaker and artist Steve Epting’s run in the mid 2000s. That run used essentially all the best Captain America supporting characters there are – the Falcon, the Black Widow, Nick Fury, and Agent 13 – all of whom make significant appearances here. It also repositioned Cap as an action/espionage type hero, and that is the approach wisely taken in The Winter Soldier.

The second Captain America flick also supports my view that Marvel stories are better once the characters have been established and you are thrown into the middle of things, as this movie hits full speed almost right from the start. Scarlett Johansson has her best outing as the Black Widow yet, and Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Redford, and Anthony Mackie all put in solid performances.  The mystery of who the Winter Soldier is will be no mystery to recent readers of the comic book series, and even in the movie it is not really treated as much of a revelation, but it does add some emotional weight to a character and movie that might otherwise be a little on the wooden side. Some reviews have made a bit out of the political themes in the movie - as if it is a major surprise that Marvel films would venture into that territory - but they do not take over the film, and one can also enjoy it is a straightforward action flick. The WWII homage of the first Captain America movie was not a bad way to go until the character and his surrounding universe was more established, but this is much, much better.

After watching The Winter Soldier I then walked three cinemas down the hall and sat through the second (or fifth, depending on how you look at it) Spider-Man movie.  Rise of Electro has a few more flaws than The Winter Soldier, not least its name. Although I struggle to figure out what other subtitle might work (The Rage of Harry Osborn?), just leaving off a subtitle altogether seems to me preferable. The character of Electro himself does not fully work either, while actor Jamie Foxx makes a reasonable go at it, the character seems like a sideline to the main Peter Parker/Gwen Stacy/Harry Osborn drama. Which, as many have noted, gives you a sense that there is not too much new to see here – even those who have only seen the movies know about OsCorp, and scientific experiments, and what the Brooklyn Bridge in the background means.

But a few points of credit here. One, the movie comes up with what I thought was a clever twist on Spider-Man’s origin, in particular why Peter got powers after being bitten. Two, assuming you have not read spoilers, the resolution of the Gwen Stacy/Green Goblin plot will keep most viewers second-guessing right up to the very last moment, even those familiar with the comics. Three, for all its strengths, you could pretty much tell what sentimental words were going to come out of Peter’s, or Mary Jane’s, or Aunt May’s mouths in the original trilogy, whereas here the dialogue – particularly between Peter and Gwen – often throws you slightly off-base. Which is enough to make this worth a look, even if just on DVD. Unlike other Marvel movies, you can probably skip the credits though.