Is the eight sewn up in AFL’s extended season?

UNDER normal circumstances, Round 22 usually signifies the end of the home and away season. If you’re playing finals footy, you can finally look forward to the emotional, intense, cutthroat atmosphere of September, whilst the rest can finally get around to fixing that pesky squeaky drawer and pruning the roses.

But no… this is 2011 where it has to drag on for another 2 weeks because of an odd number of teams and Andrew Dimetriou wanted a gold plated urinal in his powder room. With the final 8 just about sewn up, it will be interesting to see how teams approach the last remaining games.

The Pies have commissioned a former NASA engineer to help them with solutions and methods of overcoming the two-hour time zone difference in Perth when they take on Freo this Friday night. They shouldn’t have too much trouble to defeat the Dockers, after the Western boys indicated that they had had enough and not only threw in the towel against the Kangas, but chucked in five flannels, two bathmats and a doona as well.

The Hawks get the Doggies on Saturday at the G, and it wouldn’t matter if Buddy played with Cyril on his shoulders like Master Blaster from Mad Max, Hawthorn can’t be budged from third spot. As for Dogs, they got the job done against Port but the Power couldn’t beat an egg at the moment.

The Cats come back after a week off and play host to Sydney. The Swans will be confident after a great win over a semi contender in the Saints, although the dreaded plane/bus combo down to Geelong should have the Bloods looking for the nearest bottle-o by the time they get there.

Saints and North is an interesting prospect, as both need a win to stay alive, even though history shows that anything below fifth ends up as sacrificial fodder for the footy gods.

The Eagles fly a bit further, this time to Brisbane. The resurgent Crows get a visit from the equally resurgent Tigers although all this resurgence is for nought. There might actually be more seagulls than spectators at the Demons and Suns match and Essendon play Port. Well it says that in the fixtures anyway…

Catch all the AFL action at the Walkabout Shepherds Bush.