Mark Harvey has always has his critics. He has certainly made plenty of enemies on and off the football field over the years and he certainly didn’t endear himself to the football community with his tantrums over not getting a head coaching job earlier. Harvey’s time eventually came but the general feeling was that he wasn’t going to get the time that other new head coaches had been granted in the past. This year was always going to be crunch time for Harvey so with the Dockers’ recently demonstrated improvement; his legions of knockers have already started to get a little nervous.

Collingwood supporters could have been forgiven for packing up their bags and walking out of the MCG at quarter time against the Crows last Saturday night. They were ambushed by a team that was playing high on confidence and had a defence that was always going to make a miracle comeback very difficult. 888sport had the Pies as long as $7.00 in, in the run betting, and no one was getting in the queue to back them.

Something happened to the Pies at the half time break that can’t be explained. Even though the score board suggested their season was drawing to a close they came out and played a nearly perfect quarter of football and saved their season in one breathtaking performance. They nearly self destructed again in the last quarter, but somehow found the line and won the unwinnable game. This weekend they find themselves one game away from a Grand Final and their opposition is none other than the Geelong Cats.

We are half way through the AFL season and what a year it has been so far. The big story has to be the St Kilda Saints and the Essendon Bombers who have both proven the football betting markets wrong by fantastic starts to the season.

The betting markets offer no real surprises with Geelong firmly entrenched as the clear favourites to win their second flag in three years. 888sport.com has the Cats at $1.91 to win the Grand Final. This is one of the best prices going around for the Cats and they should be nearly impossible to beat if they play at their best.