Footy is a passion, not some cold hearted, spread sheet dominated rational exercise.

On a Monday, you want an irrational reaction. You want emotion to trump reason.

What you really want is idiotic hysteria.

You’ve come to the right place.

St Kilda (57) v Essendon (118)

The main things I remember from this game was St Kilda being embarrassingly awful and some great marks from Joe Daniher.

When Joe Daniher looks at Jake Carlisle, all he sees is a ladder.

The best football breeding program in the country, the Danihers, just continues to churn out stars.

Joe was always a scary prospect, but like his attempts to grow a moustache, he has been patchy.

In recent weeks, it's all been coming together (his football not the moustache).

Where once opponents could rely on his inaccurate kicking, he seems to have done something no other footballer has ever done, fixed it.

The Saints just didn't show up. I guess playing Richmond the week before, and then Essendon was like going from Rookie to All-Star setting on NBA2K17 and missing all the steps in between.

It seems being told you’re ‘in the conversation about the premiership’ is the new ‘has the full support of the board’.

Geelong (88) v Hawthorn (85)

The Hawks and the Cats wound back the clock and played this like it was a knock out final, which for Hawthorn it was.

Early on, Patrick Dangerfield copped a horrifying injury, which the commentators diagnosed as ‘death’ but wound back to ‘sore leg’.

The remaining torso of Patrick Dangerfield was sent forward and despite playing the third quarter in an iron lung, tore the Hawthorn defence apart.

While it was an incredible performance, his kicking for goal was terrible. He kicked 5.6 making him more wayward than an AFL executive.

For the Hawks, Tom 'Hawthorn's entire midfield' Mitchell had 43 possessions and was again impressive, while Isaac Smith again showed his aversion to beating the Cats, missing a goal right at the end in what is now an annual tradition.

It meant Luke Hodge didn't get the fairy tale finish in his 300^th game, due to him exceeding the quota for fairy tales in a single career.

Port Adelaide (127) v North Melbourne (57)

North Melbourne's slow moving train wreck of a season continued, and this time they couldn’t even be bothered losing in heartbreaking fashion.

So bad were the Kangaroos that their board started trying to get the ‘Brad Scott to Collingwood’ rumours going again at half time.

North looked more disinterested than I do when someone is telling me about a dream they had.

“And then the people were trees, and Abraham Lincoln said I need to stop fighting with my mother. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Please go away and never talk to me again.”

Port’s ability to smash the bottom teams remains in check, and they used this training drill to pump up their percentage.

As a result, the top four is now made up of no Melbourne teams, one from Sydney, one from Geelong, one from Adelaide and one from China.

Gold Coast (88) v Collingwood (103)

Collingwood’s ability to never get bad enough to force change is something to be marvelled. The Pies just bob along not being great but not being the worst. It’s a strategy many people use at work.

“I may not be that good, but I’m better than Derek.”

This was hardly a convincing win by the Pies, considering the Suns were two players down from early on, one of them being co-captain Steven May.

The Gold Coast certainly gave it their all, but they’re the Suns and they can out-average even Collingwood. It is another nail in the coffin for Rodney Eade, which at this stage is more nails than coffin.

For Buckley, it’s probably over, but you never know, that Eddie guy seems to really like him.

Buckley said after the game ‘the footy gods were smiling on us tonight.’ That’s the problem with the footy gods; it’s hard to tell if they’re smiling on you or laughing at you.

Greater Western Sydney (83) v Sydney (96)

Sydney came to a standstill on Saturday night. Oh, not for this game, it’s those lock out laws that have killed off the nightlife up there.

This was a great game. The Swans are now officially ‘back in the hunt’, meaning they’ll probably lose every game for the rest of the season.

The night got off to a poor start for the Giants, when it was announced Jeremy Cameron was out and would be replaced by Tendai Mzungu. Not exactly a sentence to fill a Giants fan with confidence.

Things got worse for the GWS, with Matt de Boer going off with a concussion in the first quarter.

Despite these setbacks, the Giants got very close, repeatedly coming at the Swans.

Sydney though, have this guy called Lance Franklin who is a solid player, and he booted four goals, to be the difference.

You have to wonder, if Cameron played, would this have been a different outcome?

You also have to wonder, who is this Roxy Jacenko the media keep trying to get us to care about?

I admit that’s not related to footy, but it’s been bugging me. I barely care about people who are famous for a reason.

Melbourne (70) v Adelaide (116)

Selling games to the Northern Territory has regularly resulted in ‘home’ losses for the Demons, but in the past, that wasn’t such a big deal. They just got lost amongst all those other losses.

This season it starts to be concerning, with the injury ravaged Demons having to fly up to Darwin to play, rather than face the Crows on the MCG.

I’m not sure it would have made a huge difference, the Crows were just too good, but it’s a problem the club needs to deal with.

With so many outs, Melbourne had to dig deep to find someone to do something stupid, as is their new tradition. Bernie Vince decided to step up with not one but two questionable incidents that will be reviewed by the match review committee.

In a separate, none-Vince incident, Rory Sloane was knocked out, then came to, refused the stretcher, and had to be convinced to go off by Tex Walker and Eddie Betts.

That's tough.

Personally, I was amazed he refused the stretcher. If someone offers me a chance to lie down, I take it, whether I'm injured or not. In fact, lying down doing nothing is probably my favourite thing to do. It’s why I don’t fear death.

The AFL field does have a few perks. People are always bringing you drinks, there are all the massages you want, and you can get carried around like a Roman Emperor.

It's like a wonderful 80s nightclub, which also used to involve a lot of getting concussed.

In the end, this was an in form Crows side against a team beset by injuries. The Crows though deserve to be top of the ladder, they’ve had their bad moments, but in an inconsistent season, they’ve been slightly less inconsistent than the rest.

Richmond (112) v Brisbane (81)

The good news for the Tigers faithful is they didn’t lose this; the bad news is they toyed with the idea.

Richmond were again reminded that without Dustin Martin they are an average team. It was Martin who was the difference after the Tigers had consistently failed to shake the Lions.

The Lions were certainly giving it their all, but it was the Tigers own turnovers that were their biggest opponent.

Time and again, Richmond went forward, only to invent new and exciting ways to turn the ball over.

So wasteful were they, that at half time they were just eight points in front.

Martin would grab the game by the neck tattoos in the third quarter and finish the game with 40 possessions, two goals and 14 clearances. It’s not a stretch to say without him this would have been a loss to Richmond.

Carlton (62) v Western Bulldogs (82)

The Bulldogs did just enough to ensure a victory here, keeping their finals hopes alive but not impressing anyone in the process.

Early on, the Blues got out to a fast start, and it looked like Beveridge might storm out of the box and start playing. But the Dogs got moving, and by the second quarter, things were in hand.

Carlton tried but were like a boxer without a knockout punch; the Dogs could just deal with them without having to worry too much.

We’re at the point of the season where we can start to be thankful that another season has almost past and Carlton are still largely irrelevant.

Not that there haven’t been some worrying signs. For starters, their hovercraft didn’t sink this year, and they seem to have learnt that the idea is to hold on to your best players and not trade them away.

Could Carlton once again be a good side? Worryingly, I think they could, making this year one to savour. The last of the summer wine.

Fremantle (44) v West Coast (74)

Fremantle could not hit the side of a barn yesterday. In fact, if you’d have lined up all the barns on Earth they still would have struggled to hit them. They kicked 5.14, which is quite surprising for a team allegedly made up of professional athletes.

When the Dockers weren’t missing shots, they seem to be kicking the ball to Shannon Hurn, who won the Ross Glendinning Medal.

Kicking the ball to an opponent has long been understood as a damaging thing to do, but like smoking, some people don’t seem able to drop the habit.

While the Eagles were good, when your opponent seems to be actively working against their interests, you should win.

They play Collingwood next week, and while the Pies can be as inaccurate in front of goal as anyone, it’s not something you can rely on every week.

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