The only guide to the round that admits it’s completely unhelpful. What it lacks in insight, it makes up for with wild theories and detours onto unrelated topics.

It’s your unhelpful guide to Round Fifteen. 

Thursday

Essendon vs Greater Western Sydney (MS) Seven & Fox7:20pm

The good news for Bombers supporters is Matt Guelfi’s taxi has finally arrived back from Perth and the crack medical staff at Essendon are working on balancing the humours in his body.

The bad news is Jake Stringer, Joe Daniher and Orazio Fantasia are all outs, meaning Essendon are a Bomber with no bombs to drop. 

Missing all those players and returning from a rather insipid performance in Perth, Essendon now face off against the Giants, with a strong likelihood that a loss here will end any hopes of them playing finals. It’s not looking good.

Before appealing to the public to raise money, Israel Folau used to just hit up the AFL, who like those donating to him now, were all too willing to back a crazy cause that made no logical sense.

The Giants have moved on from the days when hiring someone completely unskilled in the game was their modus operandi, now they trade those people off to Carlton.

Greater Western Sydney haven’t been to Marvel Stadium this year, something many of us wish we could say. They’re currently travelling along very nicely and should have no trouble here.

Friday

Geelong vs Adelaide (GMHBA) Seven & Fox 7:50pm

Geelong’s season is spiralling out of control after their loss to Port Adelaide, they now sit in lowly first place with a damning record of 11 and 2 and an embarrassing percentage of 146.0.

It’s enough to have Cats fans wondering if it’s worth paying any more attention to season 2019.

Most likely, coming off the bye, the Cats needed the Power to slap them awake, and now Geelong will get on with the job of securing the 2019 premiership.

While the Cats are a team the majority of people believe in, the Crows are not a team you’d bet anything of importance on, at least that was the advice Jaidyn Stephenson gave me.

Adelaide have been on a nice run recently, but travelling to Geelong will test anyone, especially the Crows who haven’t won there for 16 years. 

The Crows said they replicated what it’s like playing in Geelong at training this week, which I can only imagine involves play being interrupted constantly by local candidates throwing millions of dollars at the club to try and capture a marginal seat.

Geelong to win.

Saturday

Hawthorn vs West Coast(MCG) Fox 1:45pm

When Jeremy McGovern tried to kill Matt Guelfi by pushing him into a chair and then a fence, like he was one of the Hardy Boyz, he probably didn’t expect the tough questions that would follow.

Like when he sat at the Tribunal and was forced by the AFL’s counsel to admit there was a difference between a chair and an AFL player.

These are the sort of tough questions an AFL player might be asked these days.

Do you know the difference between a chair and a person?

Do you know the difference between a rock and a person?

Do you know the difference between consent and rejection?

Tough questions to answer.

It was argued if McGovern had performed the same action in the middle of the ground there wouldn’t have been a problem, which is like me saying that me walking around nude wouldn’t have been a problem if I’d done at home and not at parent teacher interviews.

In the end, McGovern misses this and the Hawks get a bit of a break there, not that I think it will be enough.

Hawthorn have been a bit distracted with the whole ‘everyone is getting Alastair Clarkson’ carry on.

Clarkson was a bit too keen to shutting down talk of going to Carlton. I mean, say ‘Sorry, I’m already seeing someone’ not ‘and even if I wasn’t, I’d still never date you.’

Eagles to win.

Sydney vs Gold Coast (SCG) Fox 4:35pm

Last year the Swans lost this game which was as amusing as it was shocking. Having the Suns as your bogey team would be embarrassing, so the Swans will want to win here.

Like Hawthorn with Clarko, Sydney are dealing with the ‘will Longmire go to North’ noise.

Apparently, North have offered Longmire the GDP of Belgium in what the media are again calling a ‘Godfather offer’. I think we’ve learnt that when it comes to North, they’re not Godfather offers, as they can be refused.

They’re more Fredo offers, easily refused and often not taken seriously. 

Sydney have bigger problems at the moment, with Buddy out. Many Swans supporters will say ‘we play better with him out’ and it’s hard to disagree, we all saw their wonderful start to the season. 

For the Suns, this is their chance to lose ten in a row. It’s an exciting streak they’re putting together, and I hope they know that we call believe they can do it. 

Swans to win.

Collingwood vs North Melbourne (MS) Fox 7:25pm

The Pies were off the boil last week and to be honest, they can be off the boil here and they’ll still win. 

In fact, perhaps that’s Collingwood this year, winning despite only playing a few good quarters each week. 

Really, that’s what most of us try and do at work, get the job done on the least amount of effort, if you can make it work, why wouldn’t you? 

But in reality, people eventually notice if you only do half of something.

Port Adelaide vs Western Bulldogs (AO) Seven & Fox 7:40pm

After beating league leaders Geelong, a loss to the Bulldogs would certainly fit Port Adelaide’s ‘brand’.

The Bulldogs were good last week, although most of the discussion afterwards was about how bad Collingwood were. It’s never good that when you play well, people go on and on about how poor the other side played.

Bulldogs captain Easton Wood came out this week and said he’d be happy to take a pay cut if it meant the AFL got out of taking gambling money. 

This sort of moral leadership means he’ll never work in AFL House. Doesn’t Easton know that the only thing better than money is more money?

What’s next? Not let kids gamble? I bet Easton has all kinds of crazy left-wing ideas like that.

Port to win this one.

Sunday

St Kilda vs Richmond (MS) Fox 1:10pm

In a surprising display of common sense, the AFL has decided that Marvel Stadium’s roof will be closed during day games for the rest of the season.

You see, if you give the AFL several years, they occasionally make the right decision. The good news is we didn’t have to make two documentaries to get them to do this.

The sad news is that I’ll miss being blinded by the sun and instead have to actually watch St Kilda play.

We are now in peak ‘which coach is getting sacked next?’ season and Alan Richardson is certainly a top candidate. 

The best bit about being sacked by St Kilda is you no longer have to watch them. It’s a pretty big incentive to leave.

Richmond have lost three in a row and I firmly believe they need to make a Godfather offer to get Alastair Clarkson. 

It’s the only way forward, the Tigers haven’t won a premiership since 2017. The board needs to get serious.

Richmond to win this.

Brisbane vs Melbourne (G) Seven & Fox 3:20pm

Melbourne seemed to realise the season had started last week, and it was nice to see.

I guess arriving at the party late is better than not showing up at all.

The Dees are very unlikely to make the finals, but they can ruin it for other teams. That’s the best thing to do in life, if you’re not going to be able to go to something, make sure you ruin it for others.

Brisbane look like they will play finals and a win here would be very helpful. The Lions absolutely smashed St Kilda last week. It was brutal to watch but was certainly helped by the Saints playing a brand of footy so incompetent it shocked me, a Melbourne supporter.

The Lions spent the week re-signing their jumper sponsor, an online bookmaker. Easton Wood might be willing to show leadership on gambling but when he turns around there may not be too many in the AFL following him.

Brisbane to win.

Fremantle vs Carlton (OS) Fox 5:20pm

Freo go into this with Jesse Hogan, Rory Lobb and Matt Taberner all out with foot problems.

Could the Optus Stadium surface be the cause? I’m no expert, which is why I feel confident saying ‘yes’.

Not knowing how complicated something is makes it very easy to give firm answers. 

It means the Dockers are back to not having much of a forward line, but luckily, Michael Walters was cleared of headbutting this week, as it was ruled unintentional. 

We’ve all unintentionally headbutted someone at some point in time.

Carlton has certainly been more competitive under David Teague, but they couldn’t have been less competitive than they were under Brendon Bolton.

The only way was up; it’s just where’s the ceiling? Travelling to Perth is certainly a good test of how much it was the fact the Blues are rubbish or did they just hate Brendon Bolton? 

Fremantle to win.

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