We’re back for Round 13 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.
So don't despair if you had a shocker with the footy tipping in Round 13 just sit back and enjoy some more captivatingly Useless Stats from the week just gone.
Round 13 2021 proved to be one of the toughest ever for footy tipping with the teams sitting 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th on the ladder in Adelaide, Collingwood, Hawthorn and North Melbourne all gaining premiership points - the only time this has happened since the introduction of an 18-team competition.
It is just the second time the bottom four teams have done this from Round 13 or later in a season with the only other occasion being Round 13, 1976 - when Melbourne, Richmond, South Melbourne and Fitzroy caused upsets over Footscray, Geelong, Collingwood and St Kilda.
The last time the bottom four sides gained points in any round of the season was Round 3, 2002 when Port Adelaide, Geelong, Hawthorn and Carlton all recorded their first wins of the season.
The round was capped off fittingly with the departing coach of Collingwood Nathan Buckley joining just Sam Gravenall as coaches who defeated a team on top of the ladder in their last game as coach.
The Pies' win prevented Buckley from becoming the only person in V/AFL history to have 100 losses as a player and coach without a Premiership flag with his coaching record ending at 117 wins two draws and 99 losses.
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Buckley finished his AFL career with 117 wins as a player and 117 wins as a coach. The formerly mentioned Gravenall has the next highest identical record as a player and coach but his career was a touch shorter having just seven wins as a player and seven as a coach. Gravenall played 30 games with St Kilda from 1903-1910 and coached Essendon for just 12 matches in the 1922 season.
Despite the draw against GWS, North Melbourne not only look set to conquer the bottom of the AFL ladder but they have become the first team to conquer the bottom of the alphabet.
For the first time in history an AFL team played with surname initials covering the last four letters of the alphabet with Walker, Xerri, Young and Ziebell and/or Zurhaar in the Roos Round 13 side.
Unfortunately bad list management prevents them from extending the record to the bottom five as Ed Vickers-Willis was delisted last year and they have no other V players - perhaps they can recruit Vlastuin, Viney, Vardy or Vandermeer next season?
Former Bulldog and current GWS Coach Leon Cameron has equalled the record for most draws at different venues as a player or coach following his team's draw against North Melbourne on the weekend.
Cameron’s venues were the Western Oval, Waverley Park and Princes Park as a player and the Showgrounds, York Park, Docklands and Bellerive Oval as a coach.
The record of seven is now equally held by Alex Jesaulenko (MCG, Arden Street, Western Oval, Lake Oval, Victoria Park, Waverly Park and Princes Park) and Jock McHale, whose seven venues are completely different to Cameron’s in the MCG, East Melbourne, Victoria Park, Brunswick Street, Punt Road, Corio Oval and Lake Oval.
GWS become the first team to draw at three different non-victorian venues, whilst North Melbourne become the first team to draw sitting in 18th position on the ladder.
The ruck dual between Max Gawn and Max Lynch saw the most hit-outs ever by two players named Max in an AFL game. Surprisingly, Gawn's 20 hit-outs was trumped by Lynch's 23 - for a total of 43.
However it was far from the max of two players with the same name.
This occurred in Round 3 2017 when Matthew Kreuzer and Matthew Leuenberger did battle - Kreuzer with 30 hit outs and the big Berger with 43 for a combined tally of 73.