Footy is a passion, not some cold hearted, spreadsheet dominated rational exercise.

On a Monday, you want an irrational reaction. You want emotion to trump reason.

What you really want is idiotic hysteria.

You’ve come to the right place.

West Coast (83) v Geelong (70)

Geelong once again returned to their trick of not trying early on, then attempting to make it all up in a rush.

This is also my approach to human relationships, and like Geelong, I’ve proven time and again that it doesn’t work. The difference is, I’ve stopped trying to form human relationships, while Geelong are contractually obligated to keep playing.

The Cats strategy of only using Patrick Dangerfield in the first half was probably a mistake. He gave winning it all on his own a good crack, but it seemed to work much better when his teammates participated as their job descriptions indicate. As far as I’m aware, none of them are hired on a part-time basis.

The Eagles, keen to return to the days when they can at least win at home, came out strong and were up at one stage by 36 points in the first half. Now, it’s nearly impossible to lose from there, (isn’t it Richmond fans?) but the Eagles had a good go at it.

There was a bit of spite in this game, in fact, it was a round of spite, which could be a great new themed round, ‘Spite Round’. Perhaps the MRP could take that week off and let scores be settled.

Anyway, at one point Luke Shuey cleaned up Dangerfield, and this morning the Victorian media are doing their best to get him suspended for life. I though the Geelong Advertiser’s call for him to be jailed was a bit over the top, but they raised some good points.

Joel Selwood did get reported for elbowing Sam Mitchell in the back of the head but boy, it was the most courageous elbow when someone isn’t looking that you ever did see.

North Melbourne (72) v St Kilda (89)

The real battle in this game happened off the field. It was me fighting sleep as I watched arguably the most boring game of the season. OK, it’s not even ‘arguably’.

I probably should tell you about the game, but most of the details left my mind almost as soon as they happened. Like when you listen to your co-worker telling you about their weekend.

“So, then my boyfriend Daryl said ‘but that’s my caravan’, and we all laughed.”

“Sorry who’s Daryl?”

“My boyfriend, you’ve met him three times.”

“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

Vaguely, I remember North being about as interested in the contest as most people are towards the salad that comes with a chicken Parmigiana.

Perhaps playing in this game was as boring as watching it, at least that’s the impression the Kangaroos players gave.

The only highlight of the night was watching St Kilda booting 1.7 in the third term, effectively slowing down to let North catch up.

Even then, North couldn’t capitalise. I guess you can lead a Kangaroo to water, but you can’t make it drink.

Anyone that managed to watch this game in its entirety is a hero, although looking at the crowd, not many Saints or Kangaroos fans did.

Richmond (71) v Sydney (80)

Can you believe it? Well, of course, you can. Everyone can believe it. Worst of all, it seemed the Richmond players believed it before it even happened.

All those nervous sideways glances between Tigers players in the dying stages that said, ‘it’s happening again, and we know we can’t stop it, and worst of all they know that we know, that we can’t stop it.’

In fact, I knew they’d be trouble for Richmond when Wayne Carey and Matthew Lloyd both named Damien Hardwick as coach of the year last week.

Hardwick has said before that the club would learn from things like this, but it’s becoming apparent that they are slower learners than that group of kids my school locked in the basement every time the exams that benchmark schools were held.

Sydney didn’t even start well. They were down by 36 points in the second quarter, but they must have looked at their opponents and thought, ‘we are on here’.

Things started to get spiteful out on the field, with Alex Rance and Lance Franklin being centrally involved. Rance at one point falling over when only slightly pushed. A wonderful summation of Richmond, actually.

Passionate Tigers supporters would have spotted the problems as early as the second quarter when the Swans managed to start to limit Richmond’s forward movement. By the third quarter, it was evident the Swans were in the ascendency.

Hardwick, never a fan of a Plan B, watched as the Swans begun to choke the life out of the Tigers, and choke they did, in a way that shouldn’t be funny anymore but for some reason still is.

Port Adelaide (121) v Brisbane (81)

These bye rounds spread over three weeks are terrible. Talk about killing all excitement from the season.

It would be better to just have one week of no footy and get it over with. Play an AFL Women’s all-star game in that week and make it a big showcase.

Instead, I was forced to watch Port play Brisbane. I mean, I wasn’t forced at gunpoint of anything, although I was once held at gunpoint and I preferred it to watching this.

While I wasn’t forced to watch it, as the AFL’s thirteenth best satirist, I feel a solemn duty to watch each game.

You see, I know that you, dear reader, are desperate for my profound insights into this game, which you also don’t care about.

Wait, you probably won’t even read this. Instead, you’ll just read the section on your team. That’s OK, I often just copy-paste old reviews into games I think no one will read. I’ve been doing that in GWS games for three years now, and no one has noticed.

The game was not particularly interesting as it never looked like Port were in trouble, while at the same time Brisbane wasn't bad enough for it to be funny.

Instead, it was just an error-filled mess with no prospect of anything, particularly interesting happening.

The only things of note were Eric Hipwood booting some freakish goals and Jared Polec injuring his hamstring.

Apart from that, be glad you have things in your life that meant you were busy while this was on.

Gold Coast (73) v Carlton (83)

The Sun can play tricks on you, like the mirage that the Suns were turning things around in recent weeks.

Rodney Eade said after the game, "It was very poor, wasn't it?" Like he wasn’t in some way involved. I guess he won’t be soon enough.

The Suns looked the lesser side all day, despite a brief resurgence late in the game.

Carlton were just tougher, hungrier and more skilful.

Gold Coast’s major problem is they ran into Liam Jones. Jones stops everything.

Trump should forget the wall and just plonk Jones on the border.

Scientists have even shown that time slows down around Jones.

This week, Liam stopped Tom Lynch by holding him to ten possessions and one mark, with no goals. That’s hard to do, as Lynch is arguably the best key forward in the game.

It didn’t hurt that the Suns' midfield delivers the ball to the forward line like an Uber Eats driver with a one-star rating.

The Blues are regularly winning, and it terrifies me.

I look back at the past twenty-odd years as a golden age for Carlton haters, an era that sadly appears to be in its twilight.

They don’t even appear to be cheating the salary cap, and there’s not an environmental ambassador amongst them.

Could the Blues be on track for their first ever legit Premiership?

Western Bulldogs (56) v Melbourne (113)

Tom Bugg put something on Instagram before the game, and it’s got people either upset or amused, which is the outcome of everything ever posted on social media.

It certainly got the Bulldogs upset, so much so they didn’t play yesterday in protest.

Before and after the game, Luke Beveridge took time out to insist the Western Bulldogs aren’t suffering a premiership hangover.

It’s understandable why he’s so keen to do this; their last premiership hangover lasted 62 years.

If it goes on that long, Beveridge will be 108 when he wins his second flag. Coached don’t last that long, well Hardwick might.

The Dogs though just seemed way off all day. Not in terms of an off day, they just didn’t seem close to Melbourne. That’s just strange.

Melbourne are now fifth on the ladder. I didn't even know there was a fifth on the ladder. Sure, I'd heard rumours.

Like how I’d heard there’s a ‘Gold Class’ in the cinemas or VIP areas in nightclubs, I never expected them to be true, let alone see them.

Melbourne’s challenge is to repeat this against a top side now, but it’s certainly uncharted territory for them. They won an important game, at Etihad and played a full four quarters.

What could happen next?

The answer is anything. This is a season so crazy; it should be given its own show on Sky News.

Bye: Adelaide, Collingwood, Greater Western Sydney, Essendon, Fremantle, Hawthorn

You can help support me in producing this ridiculous nonsense I churn out on a regular basis. My aim is to keep as much of my stuff on this site and available to everyone and not behind paywalls. Find out more here: https://titusoreily.com/support-titus