With 114 out of 207 home and away games now ticked off, we find ourselves in a new phase of the season. The hopeful, the patient, the philosophical – those cheerful characters once so prevalent – have all but disappeared.

In their place, seemingly at every turn, we are now met by the irate, the outraged and the downright furious.

If ever there was a round of football to mark this turning point, it was last weekend’s Round 13.

Kicking things off, there was Thursday night’s disappointing performance by the Adelaide Crows. Former Crows player and local radio personality Stephen Rowe had had enough, launching on FiveAA.

“That list management group has to 100 per cent go in the Bunsen burner”, he declared. But rather than pursuing this efficacious, albeit baffling approach to administrative cleansing, he predicted that they would merely “throw an assistant under the bridge”.

Rowe continued to struggle with his idiomatic line and length – it’s tempting to say that he was as mad as a hatter – but you could certainly get the gist of what he was saying. Something was rotten in Adelaide and he was terribly angry about it.

Friday saw the Lions’ feelgood resurrection of their season continue against the Bulldogs, but on Saturday the dark clouds returned.

In a triple-header of controversial finishes, the Giants, Eagles and Suns all suffered defeats to Victorian opponents.

There was plenty of anger on display in the coaches’ post-match pressers but it was very much of the suppressed variety. We all know the reason for this – AFL regulations prohibit officials from making public comments about umpires or their decisions. Of course, it doesn’t stop journalists from asking them.

First up was a grim-faced Giants coach Adam Kingsley.

“I suppose it was a good game”, somebody offered.

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“Depends where you were sitting”, Kingsley shot back ominously. But that was all we would get.

On the free kick that ultimately decided the match, Kingsley insisted “I didn’t really see the free kick so I can’t comment on whether it was a free kick or not”.

While this begs the question of what Kingsley was actually watching at the time, nobody thought to ask it. When looks can kill, it’s best to move on.

Eagles coach Adam Simpson had less success in hiding the hurt. Egged on by the West Australian press pack, he drew upon a gut-wrenching combination of dumbshow and circumlocution to say what he wasn’t allowed to say:

Reporter: “The holding the ball decisions, I guess, the big talking point…”

Simpson: [Snorts and shakes his head, eyes down]

Reporter: “How did that feel to you?”

Simpson: [Continues shaking his head] “Can’t – nup – I can’t comment. Ahm. But yeah. [Voice catching with emotion] Can’t comment.”

Like all good analysts, the press gave it a little time, then returned to the subject. There was some attempt to make the discussion a more general one about the holding-the-ball rule.

Simpson shook his head again and played with his ear lobe: “… I dunno. It’s pretty hard to ask me after what happened tonight but – yeah…”

He went on to discuss the difficulty that players have in adjusting to rule changes on the fly. Discussion about the players offered reporters yet another opportunity to probe the wound – “What was the players’ reaction to that free kick?” To which Simpson replied, “Nah, I’m not talking about that free kick any more – um – because I’ll get in trouble.”

Finally, there was the Suns’ loss to the suffocating Saints.

Some coaches hold a status (did somebody call it statesmanship) in the game that provides for a certain amount of leeway. So, AFL regulations or not, Suns coach Damien Hardwick was going to give it to us straight.

“Look, it was clearly, in my view, a free kick that was unwarranted”, he claimed with a shake of his head.

Yet while Hardwick simmered at length over what should happen when two guys are grabbing each other, one could not help but detect a deeper, stronger undercurrent of bitterness directed toward none other than his rival coach Ross Lyon.

“It was a terrible game of footy … a horrific game of footy. We’re a part of it [doubtfully] but it’s not a game that I love… the Saints just strangled us… it’s what Ross does really well.”

In fairness, from what we have just witnessed, Ross is not the only one who is good at bottling it up. But if the coaches are necessarily constrained, we the people are not.

I flicked through the comments section of The Roar match reports on Saturday night to get a feel for the public mood. Nestled amongst the seething fury and outrage, I was particularly drawn to a post by ‘Damo’:

“To all the young kids out there, don’t pick up the footy, it’s not worth it.”

After a Sunday in which everybody got more or less what they deserved, the long weekend concluded with Monday’s Big Freeze, the AFL’s showpiece charity match between two of its least charitable teams, the Magpies and the Demons.

At the end of last season, the Demons were brimming with righteous anger toward the Magpies, who they considered had stolen a premiership from their grasp, brutally ending the career of a star player in the process.

Not to mention their role in triggering the Gawndy experiment.

However, rage can be a difficult thing to maintain. In the absence of any real aggression from the Demons, it was Magpie villain-par-excellence Brayden Maynard who seemed to have a bee in his bonnet.

Employing a combination of crunching tackles, fierce bumps and rude gestures, it was clear all afternoon that Maynard was eager to leave his mark on the opposition.

The final score: Pies 89, Dees 51. A further blow to the Demons’ sagging finals hopes. If their form slump continues much longer, they may be the next ones contemplating bridges and Bunsen burners.

And so that was Round 13. It seems that as soon as one round ends, the next is upon us. Round 14 will feature a chance for the Crows to ease the pressure valve – against the all-conquering Swans.

The Bulldogs are somehow favourites to beat the Dockers, who already have a pretty large chip on their shoulders. The Saints will try to strangle the Lions.

And six teams have the bye. I’m getting angry just thinking about it.