Weโre back for Round 16 of Zero Hangerโs weekly โfiveย useless statsโ series.
Every week Aaron Delaporte fromย Useless AFL Statsย will take a look at the most useless statistics from the weekend just gone, the absurd, the ridiculous and just the plain outrageous.
Round 16 did not disappoint with a plethora of Useless Stats to choose from however these are the most captivatinglyย Useless Statsย 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 theย Unnecessary Statness Podcast.
Gold Coast stun Richmond
Gold Coast's upset win over Richmond was the first time they have ever beaten a defending premier. The closest they had got previously was a 14pt loss to Geelong in 2012.
The real interesting stat however from the game was the fact that both teams kicked the exact same amount of goals each quarter, being 2, 3, 3 and 2 as the match progressed.
In 15,911 AFL/VFL games, this is just the eleventh time this has happened - a 0.07% strike rate. Gold Coast's poor kicking saw them lead by 6,6,9 and 10 when the siren went. The 10-point margin is the second best of these 11 occurrences.
Had they kicked a few more behinds they could have challenged the 1944 Round 15 effort of Melbourne against Geelong where the Dees kicked 8.21 to 8.8.
Tiger Kings
Max and Ben King became the sixth set of identical twins to post back-to-back wins against the same team in AFL history, after Ben with Gold Coast followed brother Max the week before with St Kilda in beating Richmond.
They are however just the second set to do it against the reigning premiers, joining the Selwood twins, Troy (with Brisbane) and Adam (with West Coast), who beat Hawthorn in Rounds 12 & 13 2009.
The others twins to achieve the back to back wins are Shane and Darryl Wakelin, Nathan and Mitch Brown, Nathan and Ryan Lonie, and Jake and Kade Kolodjashnij - who were the previous twins to do it - beating Fremantle in Rounds 17 and 18 2016 respectively.
Bad day to be a Brayshaw
Conversely it was certainly a bad day for the Brayshaw family last Saturday. Angus Brayshaw was part of Melbourneโs upset loss to GWS, whilst younger brother Andrew followed in his older brotherโs footsteps with Fremantle when they went down to Carlton just a few hours later at the MCG.
Unfortunately for them they now become the first brothers to have losses in different teams at the MCG on the same day - this however is a particularly useless stat given there have been less than a handful of MCG doubleheaders in history with a couple of others occurring in the 80โs.
Kennedy v Kennedy
It was a special day for both Josh Kennedyโs as they set a new bench mark for players with the same name on the same number of games on the same day.
With both playing their 273rd game, this is well ahead of the next best tally set by the father and son pairing of the Gary Ablett's. Gary Ablett Jnr joined his father when he played his 248th game back in 2013.
There are literally close to a hundred players with the exact same name over the 124-year history of the AFL, but having them play each other is very rare and on the same number of games ever rarer again.
In fact this was just the fourth time. In 1943 Ron Smith for Collingwood and Ron Smith for North Melbourne played game 24 against each other, then in 1946 Phil Ryan for Hawthorn and Phil Ryan for Collingwood played game 49 whilst in 1971 two Peter Browns debuted against each other one for South Melbourne and one for Geelong.
It would be truly amazing if they could both see out another season and match up again for game 300 together - hopefully West Coast would fair much better in the rematch.
Sydneyโs multiple multiples
Apart from all the crazy stats about West Coastโs terrible recent run of form and that of playing in Geelong, incidentally my favourite is that West Coast have been out scored 2.5.17 to 31.12.198 in second quarters over the last decade at Kardinia Park.
Anyway, the Eagles' game against Sydney saw another extremely rare event for an AFL game.
Sydney, in kicking 18 goals, had eight multiple goal kickers with no other playing kicking a single major. The goal scorers being Franklin and Heeney with three, whilst Amartey, Dawson, Gulden, Hayward, Papley and Wicks all kicked two.
This is only the fourth time a team has had eight multiple goal kickers without a single goal kicker which is the most in AFL history. The AFL record for most total goals with this stat belongs to Carlton, who set it in Round 12 2001 by kicking 24 against Essendon. Jarrad Waite had five for the Blues, whilst Casboult, Gartlett, McLean, Simpson and Walker registered three each with current players Eddie Betts and Marc Murphy kicking two.
