So it’s late March and we’re up to Round 2 or 3 or whatever. What have we learned so far as the new season unfolds?

Carlton continue to be the ‘gift that keeps on giving’. Their epic Benny Hill-like collapse against the most unlikely of Richmonds in Round 0 was to my mind ‘art in its purest form’; and following on from the highly gripping (poor word choice?) dick pic scandal of their now ex-president Luke ‘No Stone Unturned’ Sayers, ensures Carlton still have a mortgage on being the most entertaining team in town, for all the wrong reasons. Some Pie fans on social media have now taken to referring to them as ‘Carltoon’. (Cue Kamahl: ‘Why are people so unkind?)’ But I want to offer a personal thanks to the Blues because as a committed and passionate lifetime Carlton hater, I just love what they put out: from their entitled expectations, their whining about injuries, their lashing out at the slings and arrows of fate, their cannibalisation of their board, coaching staff and players and the pitchfork and firebrand calls to ‘Sack Vossy’, they make for the best comfort reading on social media by a mile.

Somewhat like the above but nowhere near as dramatic or entertaining I would include: Essendon and Melbourne. These teams offer a similar brand of entertainment but without the pure animosity, entitlement and hubris of the Blues. I do, however, enjoy what I like to call a good ‘howl down’, that is, the moment where the unfortunate players exit the MCG after an ignominious defeat and the fans line up above them and spew a veritable tsunami of anger, abuse, hatred and vitriol (suggesting decades of frustration and more than just football is involved) at what are after all, young men playing a sport. I have to admit, when it comes to howl downs, Melbourne and Essendon are just so fun to watch. And the shaking ‘cinema verite’ phone camera moments we get to enjoy on Facebook or X held by some fan at a boiling point of rage close to insanity are just pure gold.

At this early stage, and I write this fully conscious of the fact that every AFL season will have its snakes and ladders: Hawthorn look really good. And most of us would agree, this is NOT good for football. If there’s one club that has already had it’s share of success, it’s the poo and wees. They really need a good dose of the same humility the rest of us have to swallow (and is so healthy for Carlton), Port and Fremantle look about the same (agonisingly frustrating) and for that reason I worry about the possibility of Ken Hinkley being lynched by his own fans. The Eagles, North, Gold Coast and Adelaide look set to move north. Not to the Northern Territory but ‘up the ladder’. And the rest of us would say ‘about bloody time.’

Sydney look like as you would expect, they are carrying scars from last season. Brisbane and the Giants look like they will be contenders again.

And Collingwood supposedly are now the umpires’ darlings and getting a free ride from the men in yellow. This is of course based on one game against the Bulldogs where we achieved an unbalanced free kick count. And the usual wave of irrational hatred and tantrums from the ocean of anti-Collingwood morons who can only ever see things through their anti-black and white lenses. They are of course the same idiots who were convinced that Maynard, whilst in mid air, conspired with malice-aforethought to try and kill Angus Brayshaw and deserved life imprisonment, the same clowns who wailed like three year old banshees throwing their toys out of the cot when Lachie Neal was given advantage at the end of the 2023 Grand Final but saw no problem with Brayden Maynard not being awarded a block in the 2018 Grand Final. They are clowns, the cretins and the court jesters who manifest like mosquitos on social media drowning out common sense with their mindless hate, blocking and abusing anyone who disagrees with their viewpoint, one of the few remaining legitimised forms of hate speech left to our society, anti-Collingwood diatribes.

To them I say: drown in your salty tears losers. Haters gonna hate. And GO PIES.