We’re back for Round 18 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 18 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 18 started with the Fremantle clash against Geelong, which saw a very disappointing effort by the home team. The 28-2 marks inside 50 disparity was the fourth most ever seen in the AFL, with the Dockers also registering just 299 disposals being a season low.
It was also the first time this season that Fremantle have had a game where not one player was able to have more disposals than their age. 21yo Andrew Brayshaw with just 21 disposals was the best for them in that respect.
Geelong, who went into the match with eight players over 30, obviously have a much harder task in terms of this stat and they have had the most games this year without achieving more disposals than their age - having done this five times.
To show how much tougher it is for them, they had a total of 414 disposals in a Round 14 win against the Bulldogs, but every player came up short against their age.
An unfortunate injury to Essendon youngster Harry Jones paved the way for a special slice of AFL history.
With the Bombers having debutant Sam Durham joined in the side by Brayden Ham as the late replacement and experienced forward Devon Smith also in the team, the Bombers became the first AFL team to have three players with deli meat in their name all in the same lineup.
Ham and Durham both had good matches, however Devon - which depending on where you reside might be otherwise known as Polony or Fritz - must have been a bit off as he had just the six disposals.
For those older readers they may remember Essendon being sponsored by Don Smallgoods back in the late seventies and early eighties - it might just be time for Bombers to rekindle that partnership.
Congratulations must go to the Sydney Swans who have become the first AFL team to beat the three West named teams in consecutive weeks. In Round 16 they beat West Coast by 92, in Rd 17 they defeated the Western Bulldogs by 19 and on Sunday they turned around a quarter-time deficit to over-power Greater Western Sydney by 26 points.
In a sign of these COVID times they also beat all three West teams in the East - winning in Geelong at GMHBA, Melbourne at Marvel and the Gold Coast at Metricon.
Connor West the son of former Sandover medallist Robbie West, who played for West Coast and the Western Bulldogs, had a great debut on the weekend in picking up 19 disposals.
Unfortunately he fell just shy of a special AFL record held by Matthew Richardson who had 20 disposals on debut. 'Richo' as he is known, is the son of Alan Richardson and both played for Richmond.
He holds the record for a father-son player who shares his name with his club in having the most disposals on debut. However, the good news for Connor West was that he did do better than the other father-son in Rhylee West, the son of Scott West who had 14 disposals for the Western Bulldogs in his debut.
The Useless AFL Stats team recognised several memorable moments from the round. On Friday night Jack Riewoldt became just the second player to kick six goals in his 300th game, joining Eddie Betts.
Aaron Hall had 0 contested possessions but an amazing 28 kicks to break the record held by former Kangaroo Aaron Mullett who had 26 kicks without a contested possession.
Callum Wilkie kicked his first score in an AFL game, registering a behind in the second quarter for St Kilda in his 58th game - he was sitting 3rd behind Tom Clurey 109 games and the forgotten Joel Hamling 86 games for most AFL games without a score. His effort was barely noticed by any teammates, although Eddie McGuire did try and pump it up at the time.
We also saw Marcus Bontempelli have an AFL record 15 clangers for the Western Bulldogs.
However, our most memorable effort was that produced by Sam Walsh who with 39 disposals, a career best, and a match winning goal was rightly awarded the full 10 coaches votes in the Blues win over Collingwood.
That all that pales into insignificance compared to the heat map that was proudly displayed on the AFL app. Without requiring censorship what we can say is that it was very phallic and it is definitely the best heat map we have ever seen.