We’re back for Round 17 of Zero Hanger’s weekly ‘five useless stats’ series.
Every week Aaron Delaporte from Useless AFL Stats will take a look at the most useless statistics from the weekend just gone, the absurd, the ridiculous and just the plain outrageous.
Round 17 did not disappoint with a plethora of Useless Stats to choose from however these are the most captivatingly Useless Stats from the round just gone.
Want more Useless Stat content? The team at Useless AFL Stats have just released a Podcast you can check it out now via the Unnecessary Statness Podcast.
Round 17 was also a big one for milestones with 11 players celebrating one which included three captains in Max Gawn, Nat Fyfe and Dayne Zorko.
This is just a couple shy of the AFL record of the 13 milestones, which occurred in Round 18 2014 - Interestingly Lachie Henderson played his 100th game in that round with Carlton and his 200th on the weekend of course now with Geelong.
The opening game on Thursday also saw four of those milestone players in action, with Charlie Spargo 50 games, Ed Langdon 100 games, Max Gawn 150 games for Melbourne and Steven Motlop 200 games for Port. The consecutive 50-100-150-200 milestone, is the 6th time this has occurred in AFL history and the first since Rd 2 2009 between West Coast and Port which included Matt Rosa’s 50th for the Eagles and Shaun Burgoyne’s 150th for the Power.
The Eagles thrilling win over Richmond at Optus Stadium in Round 13 has seen a dramatic downturn in form for both sides as neither has won since.
For Richmond they recorded their fourth consecutive loss which broke a run of 1,513 days since that last happened which was in Rd 9 2017 just before they went on to win the first of their three flags.
If the Tigers continue their current form, they are on track for a new record for worst performance by a back-to-back premier, with Adelaide 13th place in 1999 after flags in 97 and 98 in their sights.
West Coast are now also just another loss away from losing four in a row - they last did that way back in Rd 7 2014 and will need to beat Adelaide this weekend to avoid breaking a 2626 day run. Not surprisingly Geelong holds the current record for not having four losses in a row - they haven’t done this since Rd 6 2006 - a remarkable 15 year stretch or 5548 days and counting.
The media heavily touched upon West Coast’s terrible Kardinia Park record last week, but it seems the Eagles may have another hoodoo after going down to North Melbourne on a rainy Monday night.
Whilst Monday night games are fairly rare, the Eagles have played just six of them and have lost the last five - prior to the Kangaroos defeat they also lost to Richmond by 41 in Rd 10 2013, North Melbourne by 20 in Rd 11 1999, Richmond by 52 in Rd 8 1997 and Melbourne by 20 in Rd 11 1988.
Their other hoodoo may also be against teams with predominantly white jumpers - they are now the only AFL team in 2021 to lose to Geelong, Sydney and North Melbourne with the combined margin a staggering 199 points. They also suffered a big defeat to the Bulldogs who wore a distinctly white away strip.
So it could be the more white in the jumper the easier it is to play against the Eagles as Jaidyn Stevenson rocked the long sleeves for some extra white and had a career best 38 disposals as best on ground.
The old saying of one soldier out and one soldier in was never more evident than in the Essendon v Adelaide game. Tom Doedee who took the full force of the stocky Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti and was forced to ‘retire’ from the match after the heavy hit.
Doedee's stats to that point of the game were five kicks, two handballs, four marks and one tackle. His replacement on the field was Ben Davis who ended the match with five kicks two handballs four marks and one tackle.
This is the only time in the history of AFL substitute rules a team has managed to have one soldier out replaced with one soldier in to replicate their basic stat-line in a game.
AFL commentators Dwayne Russell, Garry Lyon and Jason Dunstall picked up on Zach Tuohy’s tweak of the moustache which he has seemingly incorporated into his set shot routine.
It seems like it works because the Irishman slotted both goals, one of them from a horrendous Liam Stocker kick-in which must be a contender for the biggest clanger of the season.
The team at Useless AFL Stats are of course a big fan of the moustache and were surprised to hear Tuohy called his moustache colour Moroccan Sunset. We went to the trouble of not only identifying Tuohy’s exact moustache colour, which is in fact Spicy Mix, but we also checked off on Tom Stewart as Sante Fe, Bailey Dale with Dark Tan, Jake Lever with Moccaccino, Tom Liberatore with Cioccolato and finally Taylor Walker as Brown Pod.