Monday, 17 March 2025

No closer to an answer

After another turbulent off-season, the Melbourne Football Club returns in The Season That Could Go Anywhere. Like any good show you don't get the ending in scene one, so viewers remain in the dark about which direction we're headed in. Despite the farcical 2023 Semi Final With Water nature of defeat here, I think we'll be ok. Not clearing my calendar for September yet, but until the inevitable injury plague strikes there was a lot to like here. 

Despite suspensions, mysterious late injury withdrawals, and the sort of wild selection gamble usually done by teams in crash rebuild build, we held our own against a top premiership contender and kicked a better score in the wet than most weeks in perfect conditions. Yes, it ended in our shot at a sealer being returned down the other end at warp speed for a backup ruckman who was once banned for smashing non-WADA compliant gear to kick the winning goal, but most of the lead-in was a step up from the dross seen at the end of last year.

The worst thing about this result is that you can't properly judge it until you see what happens next. If our performance against a good team in the rain translates to a not-as-good team under a roof next week then you'll take it as a learning experience and consider the season started at 1-1. If not many will switch the time-honoured coping strategy of trying to sack somebody.

I've had a few pointless emotional reactions to selection over the years, but have never been more confused about how to feel when it was revealed that we'd be playing five first gamers. I wasn't for or against the idea, but my rapidly crumbling brain was unable to compute this unusual scenario. It didn't feel like the thing a team would do if they were still clinging to contention and trying to convince various star players not to leg it at the end of the year, but when you really think about it how many of the unselected were you really fanging to see playing? May as well test our depth right at the start and hope for the best. 

Obviously the first thing I did was scramble for the record books to work out if this had ever happened in my supporting lifetime. We've had more first game for the club players in recent times, but those numbers were boosted by bulk imports from other clubs. This time it was lightly played ex-Brisbane/Duran Duran man Harry Sharp + five players with zero combined AFL games. Turns out the last time we did something this drastic was Round 1, 1966, when seven newbies ventured to Moorabbin, and simultaneously helped kick off their premiership season and our 20+ year rebuild with a 76 point loss.

This worked a lot better, and 5/23 players is a much less drastic ratio than 7/19, but I went in poised with topical varieties of the Peep Show "Four naan Jeremy, that's insane" to cover it either being a smashing success or an all-time memorable disaster. It didn't qualify for either, but worked well enough in difficult circumstances. Who knows where they'll all be by the end of the year, it's impossible to judge them as a group when you've got two high draft picks who'll get every opportunity, two mature-age recruits who'll probably be the first dropped if things turn sour, and a third year key forward who probably won't learn much more by playing Reserves. Various comments on the (relatively) fantastic five to follow. 

Just when you thought it was safe to concentrate on the 2025 home and away season, there was one final boot to the unmentionables from an off-season with more stitch-ups than the Pfaff factory. Out went Steven May an hour before the game with a fractured larynx apparently suffered at the last training session before the real stuff began. Surely no team has ever had two players with this rare and very specific injury in the same summer. I'm all for the nostalgia of bringing back Nathan Jones and Mark Jamar but did we employ Gareth John (yes, him again) as a consultant? It's reportedly not as bad as Gawn's was, and he seemed to have well and truly gotten over it by now so fingers crossed there's no long-term effect. It will be impressive if he's pictured necking beers while out injured this time.

Speaking of dated classics, what was with the putrid modern song they played before players ran through the banner? I was willing to go with Enter Sandman and Hells Bells because they set an appropriately ominous tone, this was footy's worst musical moment since Collingwood tried to jump on the Port Adelaide community singing bandwagon. Any chance of just playing the Grand Old kenting Flag when players enter the arena and run through the banner?

The good news for the club is that barely anybody heard it echoing around a stadium at least 75% empty (and I'm not convinced the official crowd figure was entirely rort-free), as any combination you like of the weather, the Grand Prix, and lack opposition supporters, contributed to just 23,000 turning up. Not ideal, but in the end who gives a rats? Various neutrals had fake emotional breakdowns over the vision of empty stands, pretending that it was an affront to the dignity of the game when they were really just using it as a cheap excuse to pot opposition fans. Would another 10,000 people be the difference between us finishing the season and folding? We're playing in a competition with billions of dollars of non-gate money revenue, not putting on a Broadway show.

Obviously, a lot of people on the ground floor were undercover due to the likelihood of being battered with rain, but the MCG did their bit to publicly throw us under the bus again by closing level four of both the Ponsford and Southern stands. I'll reluctantly accept that one of them wasn't necessary, but having people dotted around either would have made the crowd seem a bit less shit. It's their ground so they can do whatever they want, but Brad Green should have been on the phone to the MCC boss at quarter time saying "thanks for nothing numnuts". I'd feel better if they explained that the club somehow saves money from this arrangement, but until then reserve the right to feel upset on behalf of other people who don't like being around people. 

Maybe the ex-People's Ground could drop some money into their timing system, which fritzed out in the first quarter and left one clock showing 87:33 and the other 00:00. This is the third game in a row where something weird has happened to the scoreboards either at the ground or on TV, and we haven't even got to play in a game with those bullshit new Fox Sports graphics.

I went into this game with absolutely no expectation, but was willing to entertain the prospect of an uplifting victory. That didn't quite happen, but there was still a lot to like. For example, the starting centre bounce reunion of Gawn, Oliver, Petracca and Viney. I was just happy that they still exist as a group, but Petracca pelting straight out of the middle Perth '21 style was fantastic. Maybe he was channelling anger that no bastard was there when he could be playing in [insert marquee fixture] and could easily be found trying to escape at the end of the year, but it is offically confirmed now that there are no remaining physical effects from last year's injury disaster. The Freo practice match was one thing, but the big test was returning to the scene of the incident in a fully-fledged game, and he came through with flying colours. I'll wait 50% of the season before worrying what's going to happen at the end of it but reserve the right to jump at shadows based on unsourced media reports about his future.

The express exit from the centre that left GWS midfielders spinning around on the spot like Wile E. Coyote led to a situation unprecedented in modern times, when Matthew Jefferson crumbed a contest and goalled with his first kick after just 16 seconds. Goal time records only go back to 2001, so it's a stretch to claim it was the fastest debut goal of 'ever' but it sure demolished the known competition. 

We went on to recruit two of the players on this list, and (according to him anyway) nearly signed Scott Lycett. Pavlich would have come in handy.

Hopefully for Jefferson's sake, kicking a lightning quick goal on debut won't be the main thing he's remembered for 10 years from now. Let's revisit if I'm still writing this/alive in 2035. Ironically, he was the debutante I was least sure of. Before May's injury I'd have gone full conservative and played full conservative Tom McSizzle in attack instead. 

Despite Jefferson kicking another via more conventional means later, I still think there was something in this idea. It's not a knock on Jefferson - who I will not in any way be following the club's advice to call 'The Magician' - but concern for protecting van Rooyen with experienced senior players, especially when he was joined by a first gamer also learning to be a resting ruckman, and another whose only AFL related appearance was one half-baked scratch match for another club. You can win plenty of games with the forwards we put out on Sunday, but only if you give JVR and Fritsch enough support. Give it a couple of weeks in the dry and then we can slam the panic button with righteous fury. 

When we followed the opening goal with Sparrow marking with the flight of the ball in a way that would have seen him paralysed 30 years ago I was ready to believe in magic. He missed the shot, but the GWS kick-in was their only possession of the first few minutes. Not the first time we've had a good that's gone up in smoke when the other team finally started to get a kick, but that's the game isn't it? 

The real problem, and one that came back to haunt us, was that once we got the ball forward and didn't kick goals, we were cut from arsehole to appetite on transition. This was no help to a group of tall defenders that did everything required of them when the ball wasn't flying down there at warp speed. Lever was the best of them, but in a shock news flash that should have led every TV news bulletin in Australia, premiership defender Harrison Petty is a very good defender. It's a shame he can't attack a ball coming at him from our players like he does off the boot of opponents, but he did more good things in this game than about 18/20 last year and it really is a crime how long we left him swinging in the wind when he became clear he couldn't regularly play forward. Our 2024 season was probably dead after the Alice Springs debacle, but you can't tell me we wouldn't have got more benefit out of him and McDonald swapping ends for the rest of the year.

Their first goal came from a poke through an open square (also how we got about half ours), and the second via the first unmitigated shambles of the year after turning a Gawn free kick out of the centre into nervy looking switches across half back, finally ending in a failed attempt to centre it. It might not have been the day to bang it forward and hope for a mark but even without Pickett there would have been more chance of crumb in front of our goal than theirs. Later, Petty was nabbed for deliberate when his allegedly 'missed handball to a teammate' hit the behind post. There was general outrage in the stands but no way he wasn't trying to disguise blatantly rushing a behind so it was just bad luck that it landed in a spot where the umpires had to do something.  

I was surprised when Langford was named as sub, especially when Jack Henderson hadn't played either our practice games before being selected, but after a summer of being more excited about him than Xavier Lindsay the roles reversed in a quarter. I'm prepared to be wowed by both of them, but after good not great pre-season form, Lindsay was fantastic here. Clean in getting and giving the ball, stronger than expected at the contest and I would like to subscribe to him for several years to come. Maybe they were deliberately staggering the introduction of Langford but he wasn't helped by coming into the game just as the biblical rains started, and about two minutes before his teammates all ran out of juice. If he doesn't start next week I'll riot/complain on the internet.

Speaking of Henderson, he cropped up for literally the first time late in the quarter with a much-needed goal just when it looked like we'd run out of goalkicking puff 16 seconds in. This was also his first kick, meaning the Jefferson goal now appears in two great statistical anomalies. Not only the fastest on record, but the first time we've ever had two first kick/goal players in the same game - much less consecutively. Ye olde VFL records are obviously sketchy, but from what we know the new record of two in a quarter replaced the 10 matches between Brock McLean and Colin Sylvia in 2004. Mind you, we did increase the probability of this happening by picking a zany number of potential candidates.

I'm going to come across like the No Fun Police in this post, but I wasn't keen on the Riverdance extragavanza after our goals. I know the game was dedicated to Jim Stynes (let's see if it's our first home game again next year or conveniently moves to other unpopular fixtures that need a few thousand extra on the gate) and that he didn't mind leaning into Irish stereotypes when not flogging bananas but all this lacked was somebody dressed as a leprechaun. I'll admit that by the time we got rolling in the third quarter the crowd was going wild for it, but let's just leave it at once per year thanks. I saw somebody seriously suggest this is done every home game, which would be the biggest crime against matchday entertainment since the trumpeter - and at least if you had to listen to him we'd won. Imagine the sad scenario of them shuffling away after a 28th minute consolation goal in the last quarter of a 75 point loss? Horrifying.

The second quarter was what I'd expected coming in, we were holding up reasonably well in defence but couldn't craft a goal for shit. They eventually came, but all from open play scramble. Nothing wrong with that, and I didn't expect any kick/mark/goal revelations in these conditions, but we can't play like this all year. You'd blame the rain if it wasn't for three years of evidence that this is just what we do. It might have statistically been close to JVR's worst game, but I'm ready to punch on to defend his contribution due to helping bring others into it. In the second quarter he made room for Sharp to belt one through an open goal, then for Petracca to kick the cover off a snap. 

Even on an off day in unsuitable conditions, where he's credited with -10 metres gained, this was van Rooyen having some impact. It's more than you can say for Fritsch, whose 150th game was the disappointing milestone equivalent of being kicked in the dick at your own birthday party. He's won our goalkicking several years running and holds certified legend status for you-know-what, but is stuffed without bigger forwards taking the focus away. He had no space here and couldn't make any. It wasn't good, but he's got plenty of season left to recover.

Somehow after the second Petracca goal we were two up approaching half time. It didn't last, as all the good work went out the window via conceding three late goals. Remember when about a month ago we had a practice match that included drills on how not to concede late goals? Well consider how that game finished with North kicking one after the siren and what happened at the end of this game, and wonder if we shouldn't play an entire game where the clock is set at 2.00 and the goal is not to concede.   

On the other hand, scoring at the start of a quarter isn't a problem. The second half went one better than the first, with Windsor marauding off half-back for a quality running goal at the first bounce (yes, he probably ran too far before the first bounce. Take it up with the AFL), and Swallow getting it right this time after not having a near death experience in the lead-up. 

The third goal was the funniest, with Bowey seemingly fessing up to the ball being touched but having it paid anyway. I suspect he had no idea whether it had been and was signalling to a teammate that it may have been touched based on the reaction of an opponent. As the players reluctantly went back to the middle while expecting to have to turn around and defend the kick-in, I thought what a ridiculous waste of time it was to be going through a review when the player had already conceded. Then they restarted the game and it had counted. Sure, why not? The moral payback for this was for Bowey to run over a ball in defence a few minutes later and concede a goal.

We had sadly peaked at the Bowey scandal, and the rest of the game was spent desperately holding on. Aidan Johnson looks like an evil Nathan Jones, and he became the latest first timer to kick goal after swiping the ball from an opponent's hands. He was also tagged with a one game suspension for driving somebody into the ground in a tackle, so a memorable day all round. I think he'll be handy but not sure about him as a second ruck. On any other day I'd prefer somebody else does it so van Rooyen can stay where he'll do the most damage, but Johnson was giving off Brett Goodes style "having a crack but not entirely sure what's he's doing" vibes. We haven't got a lot of viable second options so might be stuck with it post-suspension, so for now I'm happy for him to have a crack and learn the craft.

Langford was finally subbed on at the end of the third quarter, just as it started absolutely pissing down which might have tempered some of his excitement. I'm confused as to why they took Howes off, not because he'd been playing particularly well but surely you could see by now that we were going to struggle to save this game, so even in the big wet why remove a defender when any number of utility types could've made way.

The heavy rain was the MCG's chance to unveil their big comedy gimmick for the season, fake water drops on the big screen regularly being cleared by a novelty-sized digital wiper. Many people thought this was piss funny but it was on the same level of humour for me as when they rigged footage of a seagull to look like it was bopping along to the music. I know they're probably going to flog advertising for this spot, but believe it or not some of us glance at the screen to get a better look at what's going on in the game. I will not accept any "then don't sit in Row MM" correspondence, because it's even more important for people on ground level who choose to see FUCK ALL when the ball is on the other side of the ground. And don't write in to say "you must be fun at parties" because that implies going to parties in the first place.

I'm not going to spend excess time on the last quarter because there's something historically significant that I'm desperate to do a special review on, but I never felt confident of holding on. Even when Jefferson helicoptered through his second it felt like they were going to overrun us. And indeed they did, but not without a fight.

When we conceded the first goal of the last quarter I thought "here we go", but some breathing space was created when a lovely bit of Windsor movement set up Jefferson's second. And that was as far as we got towards putting the game away. Here's another thing I don't get, it's fair enough that Gawn went off for a break mid-quarter but what's with him being stuck on the bench for minutes longer than expected because the ball wasn't on the correct side of the ground. 

Are you allowed to make interchanges whenever you like? If so, and I know this right out of the "why they don't they just kick straight?" book of footy analysis, just identify the closest person to the bench who isn't crucial to the result and rip them off from a novelty-size hook so we can put the most immense figure of our modern history back into a game turning against us. The rotations can't be so tight at the end that anybody other than A+ players are worth more than a rested Gawn who can make a difference in any part of the ground. There must be something in it, because it happens at all clubs and people who are paid big money to think about this stuff don't have a solution but from an outside perspective it feels self-defeating not to get your best players on by any legal method available and worry about the consequences later.

By the time Gawn got back on we were holding on for grim death. I had more faith in winning via heroic defensive efforts than kicking another goal, but enter Johnson for a potential fairytale ending set shot. The problem is that he was nearly 50m out, on the boundary, kicking into the wind, at the end of his first AFL game, having spent his entire career playing in local parks and not giant empty stadiums. Given our Swiss cheese method of stopping them taking the ball out of defence I was already thinking about it pinging down the other end if he missed. I don't blame him for taking a literal shot at the big Hollywood finish, and there was probably too much time for the old Lewis/Neal-Bullen fake a set shot then kick backwards routine, but we'd probably have been better if he'd just shanked it straight out on the full or set it up to the top of the square. 

Alas it missed, and you know what happened next. By the time the ball was in the hands of Keefe for the decisive set shot I was already resigned to our fate, having cracked the shits when the ball found a player standing in the middle on his own. I'll concede that they were lucky that a wonky kick landed in the right spot, but from there the path to goal was lit up like New Year's Eve. It wasn't an easy set shot, but where were the cyclonic winds and violent pelting rain when we really needed them? No, in basically perfect conditions he gently plonked in through and we were basically rooted. 

We had 53 seconds to win it, but there was a lot of actual water under the metaphorial bridge since we were booting goals straight from the middle earlier in the game. What was with our midfielders taking forever to get back to the middle after the goal? There was speculation on the radio that they were trying to provoke a 6-6-6 warning to get the ball thrown up, which would have been good if they hadn't already had the warning earlier. Imagine they'd forgotten that and a free had been paid, that would've been hard to live down. It got thrown up anyway and fat lot of good that did us. Petracca went forward then didn't get the chance to do anything because the ball went down the GWS end anyway as time ran out and we were beaten. I didn't love it, but after blowing my stack on the leadup to the goal it was hard to muster up any real anger with 22 games left. It should get better, it could get worse, best save energy.

Considering the slender crowd, there was one final massive pisstake at the final siren, as you couldn't even make a quick exit from the Olympic Stand. Their dingbat policy of cramming all the level 4 patrons in the same stand - on a rainy day - meant having to slowly shuffle down a crowded staircase when I just wanted to get out of the place and grieve our lost premiership points in peace. The stages of grief were passed through quickly and by now I've reached conditional acceptance based on what happens next week. I think everything's going to be alright, but may just be trying hard to convince myself. 

Crowd Watch
Thoughts with the old bloke who plummeted down the Olympic Stand stairs at three quarter time and looked in very ordinary shape. He was being attended by clearly baffled security guards who were trygn to look like they knew what to do until real medical help arrived. Meanwhile there was some cockhead filming on their phone, in landscape, for purposes unknown. Unless it was the victim's lawyer I hope he catches crotch rot. I feel guilty for not berating this awful human, but was still scarred from the earlier incident where I awkwardly tried to compliment the food service guy for artfully working two registers at the same time and he may have thought I was taking the piss.

Surely somebody had chucked a late sickie Steven May style and the people who charge $6.50 for a hotdog aren't stingy enough to make their employees do the work of two people. It was bloody artistic though, like one of those 1970s rock kents playing multiple keyboards. No idea what his name was, and I guarantee you he won't be reading this but I salute random cash register man's artistry. I can do without seeing people being seriously injured (NB: unless they deserve it) but this is the sort of random gold that I'm missing out on by not being able to attend every game. Which is sad.

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal
Shocking afternoon if you had 'No Eligible Player' in your multis, because all three of the minor awards already have somebody on the board.

5 - Max Gawn (LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
4 - Xavier Lindsay (LEADER: Rising Star Award)
3 - Christian Petracca
2 - Jake Lever (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender)
1 - Tom Sparrow

Apologies to Langdon, McDonald, Petty and Windsor. And no, I did not enjoy Salem's game, thank you for asking.

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Maybe it's because there's nothing to compare them to, but there were a few decent contenders here. With apologies to Jefferson's opener, either of the Petracca snaps, or the Bowey self-reporting debacle, it's got to be Windsor in the third quarter. Sure he ran the New York Marathon before bouncing the first time but if the umpires are happy so am I.

Next Week
I'd have been worried about a letdown against the permanently rebuilding North if we'd won, but now I'm terrified of the assumption that we'll thrash them. We beat them easily in that practice match, and even if there's more of the VFL All Star atmosphere in our first team than you'd have imagined at the time there's no guarantee of a repeat. For once this time we don't have Pickett running riot, and if Clarko's got anything left in the tank he'll have come out of the warm-up match with a raft of sneaky moves. On paper we're better, but for the love of all that is holy please do not publicly discuss anything other than a battling victory with a few nervy moments. Anything beyond that will be a bonus.

If it wasn't for Johnson's injury I'd say just roll with the same team, but I don't want to throw van Rooyen back into semi-professional rucking after one week so let's tear open the 'journeyman' envelope and pick Tom Campbell. Can he play forward when not required to ruck? Probably not, but he's a big bastard who can bring some physicality to our attack. There is about a 0.01% chance of this actually happening. 

IN: Campbell
OUT: Johnson (susp)
LUCKY/UNLUCKY: To return next week

Barring suspension of somebody else copping an elbow in the throat I don't see any reason to rush selection changes. Langford gets a full game at the expense of Henderson, otherwise let's stick on this side for a bit before tearing it apart and trying to plug gaps. Regular IN/OUT/LUCKY/UNLUCKY categories return next week.  

Final thoughts
It was neither the or worst of times, but nor was it within the top 100 of bad times. Until there's evidence to the contrary I'll assume everyone will be better for the run. Meanwhile I'm 8-10 in live games post-premiership so maybe it's better for everyone if I stay home?

Tuesday, 4 March 2025

Freo hit

I can't see any good reason for carting entire teams and support staff across the continent for glorified training sessions when literally everyone has opposition they can play in the same state. We started by flying the equivalent distance of Cairo to Moscow, then added another 70 kilometres of driving to Scratch Match Park. Insert outrage about unnecessary environmental impact if you're that way inclined.  

Apparently you get to Mandurah by driving down the Kwinana Freeway, then turning down Mandjoogoordap Drive and presumably climbing through a wardrobe into the Enchanted Kingdom of Narnia. It looks nicer than Casey Fields, but the travel seems a bit unnecessary to me. To be fair it's our first pre-season game outside of Victoria since 2018, and hopefully the last. The 'good old days' are whenever you liked something best, but let's go back to playing (relatively) local games against hopelessly overwhelmed country opposition. Interstate teams can play each other once, then boost their morale/destroy the brand of the state leagues by beating the piss out of local representative sides.

And while we're eliminating waste from the fixture, State of Origin can go piss up a rope. Everyone who went to that 1989 game against South Australia is to blame for the myth that the whole country is fanging for more state games. The first Vic/SA game would be massive, followed by diminishing returns as they're forced to keep everyone happy by playing shizen fixtures like WA vs SA and Allies vs anybody. 

I bet they solve their excess state and territory problem by going full American Things and doing an All-Star game with as much credibility as AFLX. Can we not just name All-Australian style fake state squads to acknowledge the best players (this way they don't have to get a certificate from Dr. Howlong to avoid playing), and get on with the core business of 18 teams playing to win a premiership? I hope they're not being spooked into bread and circuses by the NRL pretending to have the time of their life in Las Vegas.

Anyway, who needs the entertainment capital of the world when you've got rural and regional Western Australia? It was an odd place for the previously dicey looking Oliver/Petracca reunion. Like Lennon and McCartney getting back together to play the school fete. Here's to looking back on it as the (re)start of something big. Couldn't even remember the last pre-season game of 2021 without looking it up, but it turned out to be a seven-ish goal loss (featuring Jay Lockhart literally busting a nut), so that's all the proof I need to remain calm about this result.

If you're prone to becoming firm in the jompers (or equivalent) due to football, you'll have enjoyed Petracca swooping on the first centre bounce and sending us forward. The jompers probably cooled off about 10 seconds later when they cut to van Rooyen walking off clutching his back. It took a few years, but naming the pre-season award after celebrity back injury victim Paul Prymke finally came back to haunt me.

JVR looked more in discomfort than agony, and it was allegedly just a 'spasm'. Odd time for your back to randomly spas out, but they're saying he's still expected for Round 1. I've been burnt in these circumstances before so until he's lined up on the ground that day I'll expect him to never play again. Cut to McSizzle and Petty turning to each other on the couch and saying "oh shit, here we go again" while Jefferson sat in the background rubbing his hands together in glee.

I'll go with the optimistic medical prediction, but let's just say he was crippled for the whole season and ask why you can't sign replacement players right up until submitting your first team. Even the AMW injury came after the deadline, which turned out to be flexible because they let us replace him with Jai Culley (me either) anyway. I bet if Carlton's top pick hadn't done a knee in the same week they'd have gone "Geez, sorry. We'd love to help, but those are the rules". But why? They're emergency players who have been overlooked in multiple drafts and remain unsigned by 17 other teams in February, I don't see how extending the signing period to the start of the season could be rorted. And in the interests of equality and putting on the best product, what benefit do the league get from a side starting the year player(s) short because somebody got hurt after an arbitrary date and time. So a few state league players get swiped at the last minute? Bad luck, whether you like it or not you're all developmental leagues.

We didn't play either of our approved ringers, going for pretty much the Round 1 side with a few bonus hopefuls and Pickett sitting on the bench for three quarters. The problem, if you wanted to draw conclusions from this game, is that once JVR went OFF our forward strucutre went MIA. Like last year, but without Petty even providing a token option. It didn't stop us madly bombing the ball forward at every opportunity, but I suppose they thought you may as well start as you mean to go on, even if the final piece of the puzzle is crocked. 

Tom Campbell got an early look at his MFC career when he played a perfectly serviceable game last week but was shunted out of the side at warp speed when Gawn was available. I doubt he's offended, having never played more than nine games in a season since debuting in 2012. And no offence to him, but hopefully he doesn't crack double figures this year because that suggests something has gone seriously wrong with the captain.

At this barely related intersection of assistant ruckmen and practice matches in Western Australia, there's never been a better time to remember The Spencil running riot:

With our replacement ruck not selected, our incumbent backup injured, and POTF at home studying how to play at full back, we relied on Gawn doing far too much and regularly looking like he'd suffered a serious injury. Aidan Johnson had a bash at it occasionally, but his most notable contribution was showing up with sunscreen slathered on his bald head that made him look like he'd passed out on a Tony Montana-style table full of gear. But he had not, because this is the new allegedly gak free Melbourne Football Club. Not that you'd know that from the way they kicked for goal.

You're mad to expect quality in a pre-season game, but if this was a neutral game I'd have been looking for alternative entertainment after five minutes. Big time footy arrived in Mandurah well before the jetlag cleared, as we kicked points from standing starts and on the run respectively. Both teams combined for seven consecutive misses before Michael Walters proved once again that he'd kick goals against us if he was in an iron lung.

We were getting the ball forward enough, but could've done with somebody on the end of it. Alas he was gingerly running the boundary line and soon packed away for the afternoon. Finally, Oliver won the sort of holding the ball free that will disappear by Round 4 and converted our first. We were doing plenty right, but if the entire forward line collapses when JVR is off then god help us all.

Under the circumstances it's hard to judge our attempt at playing a chip and chase possession game. Remember hanging shit on Sam Mitchell for trying that against us last year? Well didn't he have the last laugh. From a tactical buffoon's perspective, is there any point to patiently dinking the ball around from side to side if you're just setting up to boot it into a forward line short on marking targets anyway? Is the theory that if you take it slowly gaps will eventually appear up the ground that remove the need to kick to contests in the first place? Either way, I sense another year of backmen heroically holding back the tide only for us to lose by scoring 7.7.49.

It didn't feel like we deserved to be a point ahead at quarter time. And indeed we weren't, as Freo got a goal on the siren. Who'll remember that in a couple of weeks? I prefer to focus on Viney tackling like a madman, Oliver recapturing the old form, and Petracca carrying on as if his internal organs had never been violently rearranged. 

The WA Broadcasting Commission tried to set up a "Whateareya? Some kind of a [insert slur]?" debate about us going into the shade at quarter time as if that's not a sensible, responsible thing to do in the heat. This would have been right up Adam Schofield's alley but he appears to have been replaced by Adam Simpson. 'Simmo' (if you're on familiar terms) didn't seem 100% into it, but if it keeps Will Schofield off TV then give him all the time he needs to get comfortable. Simpson did bring some much needed perspective late in a game that fans could have been excused for sulking over by saving it made him think more of us than he did before. Maybe he was expecting a wooden spoon and is upgrading to lower mid-table mediocrity, but it's a reminder to hold your bundle until half time of Round 1.

At this point I had to go into media blackout mode and watch the rest on delay. Bit sad that I've been reduced to that five quarters into the season, but thank god for not having to sit through the half time break after we briefly looked like going into full Alice Springs-style hemorrhage. The best bit was Viney invoking the spirit of 25/09/21 by handballing straight to Jackson for a goal. It may have been an off-the-books inducement, because he's allegedly interested in coming home. Shame he didn't feel that way around trade time, but I'd like to think it's less 'complex family issues' and more realising that, as predicted on these pages, he just CBF flying across the country every fortnight. 

If it's true, and not just Gold Coast floating fake stories so Jeff White's son nominates them instead, Pickett would obviously be part of the swap. They could prisoner exchange them on neutral ground like a Cold War spy swap. Surely this would be the first time that players drafted to the same club in the same round have ever been exchanged. Plenty to happen before any of this becomes a reality. I'd still rather Pickett, if he can keep the suspensions down to a week or so per season, but will gladly accept a Jackson-sized consolation prize over some magic bean draft picks.  

Just when it looked like going tits up, Gawn goalled from a very generous free. That helped hit the restart button, because seconds later we were out of the middle with Petracca setting up Oliver via the sort of kick that will make you strap plastic explosive to your unmentionables if it helps keep them together.

Things would have looked a lot better if we'd converted any of the shots from 30m out directly in front, but there was a reminder not to take things seriously when the on-screen clock randomly switched to a half time graphic for several minutes during the second quarter. We'd calmed things down now, but whatever limited damage can be done in a game this had already happened. Didn't help when we'd just pulled to within potential striking distance only to let Freo go forward with players everywhere, and bugger me senseless wouldn't know you Walters was on the end of it. He tested the iron lung theory by helicoptering a shit kick through for a point, but by now I'd have been happy to wrap things up at half time and head home before anyone else got hurt. 

Matthew Pavlich has obviously been to the Kerry Packer school of pretending there's still some life in a game so people don't change channels. At the time, saying "still a bit to like if you're a Dees fan" felt like going through the burns ward asking "how good is summer?", but regrettably I have to admit there was something in his optimism. We were winning contests now and had stopped conceding goals hand over fist, but our forward line was still practically non-existent. After a few minutes of pressure Freo responded, despite Petracca claiming he'd touched it, as if Rushton Park was equipped for video reviews.

Last week Harry Sharp was the mystery goalkicker, this time it was Oliver. Bodes well for getting goals out of the midfield, not so much for getting goals out of the forwards. I'm all for Fritsch but he's stuffed without realistic forward targets to take the heat off him. Can't rely on Clayts to boot three every week, but his third was via lovely finish from a wacky angle. On an unrelated note, I don't know how long he's going to hold on to the famous Maggi Noodle haircut, because it seems to be dissolving from the middle.

This goal opened up a previously slurry game, and even when we gave it back ASAP, the balance was soon restored by Windsor. We were within three goals before guess who kicked a goal in the last minute, to the excessive joy of two women on the boundary line who treated it like the winner in a Grand Final. Then they got another straight out of the middle, after Gawn had been battered in a contest for the 32nd time, and were only stopped from an unofficial Mad Minute by time running out. The score meant dick all, but between the first and third quarters here, and failing to stop North from kicking a goal when the scenario was specifically set up to avoid conceding, you'd be forgiven for shitting bricks if we're holding onto a slender lead at the end of Round 1.

After three quarters sitting on the bench listening to 'hilarious' comments from loser Freo fans trying to recruit him, Pickett was introduced for a teaser 'wouldn't you love to see this in Round 1' session. It failed to fire, as he arrived just in time to see our limited bolt shot and Freo kicking goals for fun. We recovered to make the margin respectable, but even I'd lost interest halfway through the last quarter. Enough of this half-baked slop, get on with the real stuff and we'll react as appropriate. Probably by cracking the shits.

2025 Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance
5 - Clayton Oliver
4 - Christian Petracca
3 - Jake Lever
2 - Tom Sparrow
1 - Steven May

Final table
Oliver wins in a landslide, making this award look like a little bit less of a farce than every other year. No need to hand out points for time trials, media appearances, and responsible use of methamphetamine to break the deadlock yet. This is Oliver's third Prymke, and he is now outright favourite (more on that soon) to pocket his fifth Jakovich, tying Nathan Jones for all-time wins.  

9 - Clayton Oliver (WINNER: 2025 Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance)
5 - Kysaiah Pickett
4 - Christian Petracca
3 - Jake Lever, Jacob van Rooyen
2 - Harry Sharp, Tom Sparrow
1 - Harvey Langford, Steven May

Next Week (+1)
Hooray for being too boring for Opening Round (*spit*) and having to start the year the conventional way. Well, it's at the MCG (tick), on Sunday afternoon (near enough), and against the Giants (2/3 not bad. Probably better starting against an alleged premiership contender than facing the potential banana skin of starting red-hot favourites. The crowd will give an early indication of whether our fans are taking to this season with optimism or fearfully glancing through their fingers. 

If it's a crap turnout I'll unfairly blame it on them inevitably closing level 4 of the Ponsford. It's almost a year since I sent a sooky complaint about this policy to the MCC which they didn't bother responding to but helpfully added my email address to their marketing database. It's a lost cause now, not enough people care to make a scene about it, so the only way we're getting full stand choices back is luring big crowds.  

No correspondence will be entered into on attendance from outsiders, but last time we played them in Round 1 (featuring Oliver getting the Rising Star nomination on debut, and nearly conceding two goals in the last nine seconds to lose) we got 28,805 so it'll be hard to defend anything less than that, especially with a random Jim Stynes Week declared. I know our part in it, maybe the Giants are celebrating the day Setanta kicked five. Or we just needed a gimmick to build the house against unfashionable opposition. At the time of writing I'm expecting to be there, but my life is a never-ending series of false starts and wacky surprises so by Sunday week I could be anywhere between Brunton Avenue and Easter Island.

I'll go out on a limb and say we'll win. May as well start the season with a bit of positivity before plummeting towards gloom, despair, and agony. I'm basing this on nothing more than blind faith, and how we should have beaten them in the Empty Stadium Match last year. Who bloody knows? I still think this season could go in any direction, so why not start by doing something weird?

2025 predicted ladder
Featuring the infamous bracketing system, for when I'm not confident in my opinions enough to make a definitive guess. Follow my progress here and laugh heartily if it finishes with a rock-bottom score.

1 - Collingwood (doesn't feel right to say it, but I'm a realist) 
2 - Fremantle (... and in the unlikely event of a 1-2 Grand Final may they heave ho to glory)
---------
3 - GWS
4 - Brisbane
---------
5 - Geelong (but we're all sick of you now, so feel free to go into virtual recess for a few years and seek humility)
6 - Sydney (see Geelong, but with distant memories of when they were total pus in the early 90s)
---------
7 - Port Adelaide (via nearly sacking the coach, then briefly being on top of the world before folding like a house of cards in September)
8 - Gold Coast (has to happen eventually, probably via some rorts to justify paying for Hardwick)
9 - Melbourne (prove me wrong gents)
10 - Hawthorn (post-breakthrough season let down before becoming really good in 2026)
11 - Carlton (about one more injury drama from turning into us in 2019, with the added bonus of fans who will do their block in public) 
---------
12 - Essendon (more just personal preference than anything)
13 - Footscray
14 - Adelaide
---------
15 - West Coast
16 - North Melbourne
17 - St. Kilda
---------
18 - Richmond (what a bold and brave guess this is. Give us Yze when you're finished wrecking him)

Demonblog's Chosen 22 +1
With respect to McVee and Pickett, who'd both piss it in if available. As usual the positions are only a guide because nobody's lined up in this formation since 1983. Feels like I've forgotten somebody significant, because it was a bit 

B: Bowey, May, Petty
HB: Rivers, Lever, Salem
C: Langdon, Oliver, Windsor
HF: Petracca, Turner, Sparrow
F: Sharp, van Rooyen (?), Fritsch
Foll: Gawn, Viney, Langford
Int: Langford, Johnson, Billings, Lindsay
Sub: Chandler

... with apologies to McDonald, who goes into the forward line if necessary so Petty can stay where he's needed. And if JVR doesn't play then let's pick Campbell as second ruckman for the LOLs. Maybe he'll have a Mitch Clark-esque career revival? (Hopefully without it all coming to a screaming halt with a crippling injury three months later).  

2025 Betting Markets
I pull these out of my arse in about 10 minutes so gamble and complain responsibly. Chances are you're about to lose (11 or 12 games).

Allen Jakovich Medal for Player of the Year
$4 - Clayton Oliver
$6 - Christian Petracca
$8 - Max Gawn
$14 - Kysaiah Pickett
$16 - Steven May, Jack Viney
$20 - Jake Lever
$22 - Trent Rivers
$25 - Tom Sparrow, Jacob van Rooyen
$30 - Bayley Fritch, Ed Langdon, Caleb Windsor
$50 - Harrison Petty, Christian Salem
$60 - Jake Bowey
$75 - Jack Billings, Harvey Langford, Daniel Turner
$100 - Kade Chandler, Tom McDonald, Jake Melksham
$120 - Xavier Lindsay, Harry Sharp, Koltyn Tholstrup
$150 - Blake Howes, Bailey Laurie, Judd McVee
$175 - Taj Woewodin
$250 - Tom Campbell, Aidan Johnson
$300 - Jed Adams, Matthew Jefferson, Charlie Spargo
$350 - Kynan Brown, Jack Henderson
$400 - Marty Hore
$500 - Jai Culley, Tom Fullarton
$1000 - Ricky Mentha, Oliver Sestan, Will Verrall
$1500 - Luker Kentfield
DNQ - Shane McAdam, Andy Moniz-Wakefield

Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year
The eligibility of unlisted players will be decided by the committee based on how much defending they do. Mid-season draftees are covered under 'any other player'.

$5 - Steven May
$8 - Jake Lever
$9 - Christian Salem
$15 - Jake Bowey, Harrison Petty
$20 - Tom McDonald
$25 - Judd McVee
$40 - Blake Howes, Taj Woewodin
$50 - Jed Adams, Daniel Turner
$70 - Marty Hore
$150 - ANY OTHER PLAYER
$200 - Tom Fullarton
$500 - NO ELIGIBLE PLAYER
DNQ - Andy Moniz-Wakefield

The Still Unnamed Rising Star Medal
I've set myself the deadline of Anzac Day to decide whether this is named as a deserving tribute or for pure comedy value. Watch this space.

$5 - Harvey Langford
$10 - Xavier Lindsay
$12 - Kynan Brown, Aidan Johnson
$20 - Jed Adams, Jack Henderson, Matthew Jefferson
$25 - NO ELIGIBLE PLAYER
$50 - Ricky Mentha, Will Verrall, Oliver Sestan
$100 - Luker Kentfield

Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year
Must average 10 hitouts per game across the season.

$1.60 - Max Gawn
$15 - Tom Campbell, Jacob van Rooyen
$40 - ANY OTHER PLAYER
$45 - NO ELIGIBLE PLAYER
$50 - Tom McDonald, Aidan Johnson
$100 - Tom Fullarton, Will Verrall

Final thoughts
There's never been a season yet where all 8/10/9/12/14/15/16/17/18 teams were a realistic flag chance, and this one will be no different. The good news is that we're not top contenders, but are well clear of the trap door beneath which lurks teams that are more likely to win a North Korean election than the AFL. May this season be more of a 2021 "wait a minute what's going on here?" pleasant surprise than 2008's "we're all going to die" confirmation of a bleak future.

Sunday, 23 February 2025

Countdown to lethargy

Hello 2025, and the furthest I've felt out of the loop at the start of a season since forgetting a pre-season game was on 20 years ago. Let's be clear, this isn't self-defence in case the season goes tits up, I've just run out of time to monitor the off-season content conveyor belt. Especially now that 99% of it is just dickhead amateurs and professionals alike trying to drive clicks. In our 21st season Demonblog remains proudly clickbait free because I'm not all that worried if anyone's reading or not. It gets this stuff out of my head, and I appreciate anyone who dips in and out as they like.

My grip on club news wasn't helped by three months of flouncing off Twitter (never, ever X) for vague political reasons/Temu ad fatigue. While Bluesky had its positives, AFL clubs and journalists alike refused to get involved so it was deader than Kelsey's nuts for footy content and I had my own "Simpsons predicted it moment" and shamefully crawled back to the NQR evil billionaire. 

Most of the important stuff still got through, especially speculation about players who happily signed long-term contracts now trying to flee over the Berlin Brunton Wall to freedom. Unfortunately for Oliver, Petracca, Pickett etc... it's not the signing of the contract, it's the fulfilling of the contract, and thankfully we held firm (for now anyway) and refused to cave in. Mind you, when next year's first round pick was traded my first thought was "oh well, we'll be getting a few back from other clubs". Maybe it's a loud false alarm and they'll all realise that there's joy in being a big fish in a small pond but we'll do well to keep the lot. I'll say 2/3, and you can decide who the odd man out will be.  

Ironically, Alex Neal-Bullen was the one player we did set free and it sounds like he didn't really want to go. Otherwise it was reasonably smooth sailing off-field compared to previous years, and the best case scenario is that 2024 was the blip that accidentally propels us to a glorious future. Or we'll all be in therapy by Round 10 and the financial windfalls of 2021 will be lost in a dodgy investment scheme.  

The news wasn't so good on field. Once upon a time you didn't need fireworks to announce the new year, just wait for the first Melbourne player to suffer a crippling injury. This time we went early, with Gawn suffering a broken larynx that made anybody over the age of 40 instantly reference Gareth John. Didn't sound pleasant, but he seems to have survived without any physical scars, or damage to his voice that could stuff up a glittering future of media appearances and sportsman's nights.

Not everyone survived to be in place for Round 1 (no need for Round 1A/B shenanigans this time, we've been turfed from 'Opening Round' after regularly boring viewers to death last year). Judd McVee Midfield Mania is delayed as he deals with a burst hamstring, while Tholstrup will miss half the year with a sinister-sounding case of 'bone stress' which will probably end with experimental stem cell therapy from an unregistered doctor in Zagreb. The injury list isn't as bad as last year (though there's still time for an enforced retirement and provisional suspension to leave us two players short for half the year), but I'm still surprised that the media event to celebrate a new sponsorship with Grill'd didn't end in somebody suffering third degree burns.

Then there's the Achilles committee, chaired for a second year by Charlie Spargo. He has now reached 'chronic' stage, while Shane McAdam qualified from the other end of the spectrum when his foot exploded mid-training as if he'd stepped on a landmine. Now we'll never find out if he could kick over 40 metres, but at least it happened early enough to sign a replacement. Enter some bloke from Werribee who we swiped from so closely under West Coast's nose that he'd just played in their first practice match. Oddly, the club celebrated by releasing footage of the recruiters talking about him like the second coming at the end of last year, just before they didn't draft him.

This all leads to a hot February Saturday morning at Arden Street. There was also something about Steven May allegedly being in the vicinity of an alleged pub belting, but plod can sort that out while we concern ourselves with whether he can still defend. This question (and many more) remained unanswered as we started the year with what you might call an 'experimental' lineup. Rather than go through who was missing it's easier just to say that Bowey, Oliver, Lever, Pickett, Rivers, Sparrow, and van Rooyen were playing and the rest of the automatic selections weren't. Still plenty of talent on offer though, even if we were jibbed out of a promised appearance by Ricky Mentha Jr, who has a name that implies he was busy driving in the Daytona 500.

On the other side was a North team that seemed to be about 40% exciting youngsters, 40% veterans trying to keep things afloat while the kids develop, 15% filler, and 5% somebody called Finbar. I missed the bit where Jack Darling became the latest experienced ring-in to run out his time on their payroll. The concept is sound, and you can't complain about the value for money we got from Cross, Lewis and Vince, but North has elevated Scrapheap Fever to a new level. Maybe it'll be an outstanding success, and as long as they stay out of our way good luck to them. 

Even with North signing everyone short of Jonathan Giles and Derek Kickett, the gap between the sides feels closer than any time in recent years. Yes, we did nearly lose to them in farcical circumstances last time, but that was more the early symptoms of our Seasonus Collapsus than anything they did. You would still expect our best side to beat theirs, but sending out half a side who I respectfully submit will spend time in the VFL this season was our 'get out of jail free' card in case of disaster. It wasn't required, but next week we're playing a side that dismantled us by about 160 points combined last year so don't throw it out yet.

In the end, we withstood 2.5 quarters of resistance before easing away to win, but it's hard to know how seriously you were supposed to take a game it. Talk about tweaks to game style is a bit useless when half the players won't be there in Round 1, and the teams playing in training tops felt like some sort of liability rort so lawyers can claim it wasn't a real game if there was a scandal. For reasons that were never explained but added to the "you're not really supposed to be watching this" atmosphere, Daniel Turner turned up wearing Fritsch's number. 

This feeling was confirmed by the unique promise of stopping the game at the end of each half for three minutes of 'match simulation'. Sadly this was just the sides trying to defend an eight point lead (and why eight, when surely anything 1-7 would have made more sense?) and not the coaches moving players around like a game of Test Match so they could practice trick plays and fancy overhead taps at boundary throw-ins. Sadly the only person who got anything out of either simulation was Andy Moniz-Wakefield, who might not have gone down clutching his knee in the last couple of minutes if they'd just played the game out properly.

Against all odds, I appreciated the basic "some bloke having a chat with Ben Brown" commentary - even if he did uncomfortably try to upgrade "selling candy" to "candy commerce" twice. Now that Foxtel is providing their own call over the top of Channel 7 games, how about a separate 'casual conversations' audio feed so we don't have to listen to Dwayne Russell treating mid-season slopfests like the 1989 Grand Final.   

There was a golden era of having nothing better to do when I went to pre-season games in exotic locations like Ballarat, Bendigo, and Cranbourne. Just when I ran out of free time they started broadcasting every game, now matter how flimsly. So after driving past Arden Street twice a day several times a week I was content to watch this from the very outer metropolitan Demonblog Towers couch. Kayo Sports had other ideas, though they're not entirely at fault when I only tried to restart my subscription two minutes before the bounce. 

I've got no problem paying whatever monopoly price they're asking for the chance to play alternative noise over Brian Taylor, but did expect this to be in the free section. So after logging into the website via phone to reactivate I foolishly started the stream via the app, then got told to GAGF when switching to TV and couldn't do anything to convince them I was only watching one stream until about 30 seconds into the second quarter. It was enough to make you think fondly of the quaint, and soon to be extinct, Foxtel through a cable in the wall method.

For all the hanging of shit on North for plugging gaps with experienced players, our first goal came from the combination of four club ultimate journeyman Tom Campbell and Harry Sharp, bought on the cheap from Brisbane. Even if Sharp retires and joins an apocalyptic death cult tomorrow, kicking four in any game already has him in front of Poor Old Tom Fullarton in our list of all-time recruits from the Lions. No sign of POTF here, but the revelation that the ruckman we recruited then decided he couldn't ruck is now playing as a backman is about as grim a career prognosis as you'll get.

It really was a glorified training session, but the key learning from the first quarter is that you'll miss Kysaiah Pickett when he's gone - either to another club or during one of his regular suspensions. If you believe what's in the media - and some major countries are run on this basis so you may as well - he's biding his timing with us while merrily texting away to Freo chums about legging it due west at the first opportunity. Doesn't say much for the quality of your friends when private messages are leaked, but it's hard to take the moral highground when everything Petracca has said to a teammate since August 2024 has been reported in the press.

As a lifelong crumb fanatic I wasn't convinced about playing him further up the ground, but he was (cliche alert) electric here. Adjust for quality of opposition and time of year, but it suggests that if he does go it won't be without giving us his best on the way out. He was here, there, and everywhere, including bobbing up for two well-taken set shot goals. With his family connections I don't think there's any point showing him bulk episodes of Air Crash Investigations to try and make flying back and forth across the country every two weeks look less attractive, so here's to a miracle that convinces him to stay and/or us pulling off some behind-the-scenes shenanigans to put Freo off the scent. Alternatively they could just tell him he's contracted until the end of 2027 and we can get on with the business of winning footy games for (at least) another three seasons.

It's a shame we're not still in the era when players could run down their suspensions in the pre-season. I'm not shameless enough to claim that game would've counted, but between the Indigenous All-Stars and the 'official' practice match we could have worked his ban down to one game. Now he's going to be sitting with thumb in fundament until Round 4 while we're putting unrealistic expectations on Harry Sharp to pluck goals from thin air in real games.

For want of anywhere else to mention this, what's with the Arden Street countdown clock including fractions of seconds? I refuse to believe that even a wacky thinker like Clarko would be running drills broken down that far. It was a bit silly that the Kayo Klock was counting up while you could see this in the background, but it came in handy when their on-screen graphics freaked out and disappeared halfway through the quarter. It was a bad time for timekeeping all-round, in the second quarter the local clock stopped for a while, which should have been the cue for "you're not supposed to be taking this seriously" to appear on your screen in bold letters. Just as the first clock fiasco happened, old Resting Terrified Face himself Jack Billings bobbed up for a goal and to be honest I'd forgotten he still played for us. Now that I think about, between him, Hunter, Schache and this year's imports we've had a fair crack at the discard pile ourselves.

Anyway, I'll regret it in 10 years when I want to know something that happened in this game but in-depth coverage is not required. The good news was Oliver looking back to his best, including the usual sixth sense handballs to a teammate, and the traditional pinging for a 'throw' because the umpire wasn't entirely sure whether hand met ball so he just guessed. For wacky decisions, see also Turner being front-on violated in front of goal for no reward.

Otherwise, all the interest was in how the fringe players went. I was keen to see Jefferson outside of Casey, and was happy when he took a nice mark on the lead. Then he dinked it OOF with no obvious target. I assume one was just outside the camera zoom, because otherwise it was the worst kick since Petracca booted it out at right angles on King's Birthday when his guts were about to explode like Alien. Jefferson did get the next goal after that, which was nice, but van Rooyen doesn't have to worry about the competition yet. JVR was very good considering he was doing a lot of the tall forward stuff on his own, taking a couple of solid contested marks and looking like he could do some damage if a) we put players next to him who know what they're doing, and b) don't kick the ball down there as if drunk.

For Demonwiki purposes I'm treating this like a real game, which means ignoring the bit where they pulled up just before half time, set the score to 8-0 and we practiced holding a lead. Which we did, even after conceding a goal after the siren. Somehow this was included in the overall score, but to be fair we were lucky to even be getting an overall score and it made sod all difference. That reduced a nine point lead to three, but I was comfortable enough with how things were going.

Nothing says pre-season like Kayo filling half time with a segment from Bounce that is as funny as a fart in an elevator. I'm still scarred by last year's one where they ate found smell food and had a spew, so wasn't hanging around to actual sensible analyst of the game Jason Dunstall dumbing himself down in the company of buffoons. God knows who the target market for that show is but I reckon there'd be a crossover with people who DM players to whinge about blown multis.

For weird (probably unrepeatable) pre-season hauls go, Sharp's four is up there with James Sellar kicking five in country South Australia or the day John Meesen, Isaac Weetra, and Trent Zomer all hit the scoreboard at Kardinia Park. Sharp looks like the drummer for Duran Duran, but when he got the first after half time I was ready to go well over the top and play him in Round 1 based on no other evidence and the fact that he got as many goals here as his entire career to date.

Speaking of people who should be ramraided directly into our best 22, hello Harvey Langford. I refuse to get excited based on this game alone but he appears to be a natural at this stuff. Fellow top draftee Lindsay did some nice things too, but people will be queuing to have Langford highlights hooked to their veins before long.

We looked like running away with it for a bit in the third quarter, but North wouldn't go away and we sensibly didn't go too far over the top trying to put the boots in. Petty did celebrate his return to playing in defence by spoiling an opponent's face off but that was as over the top as it got. He's exactly where he should be now, but if Billings has a resting terror face, Petty has resting miserable body language. He always comes across as somebody who is out there because his family is being held hostage until the final siren. I'm still all-in, staking whatever sliver of reputation I've got, that he's Steven May's long term replacement, so let's see how well that prediction fares.

Strangely, it only turned into a walkover in the last quarter when we'd withdrawn several players and the ruck duels became The Guy We Got From the VFL Who Isn't A Ruckman vs Finbar. Even I was starting to think I must have had something better to do by this point, but there was a fun goal when JVR tapped the ball to himself at a ball up then toe-poked it through the empty goal. At that point I was pretty sure North had given up. We got a bit of Kynan Brown at this stage, but sadly still no Mentha Jr who was in the carpark adjusting his carburetor.

Unlike the first half, there was no siren to let you know when the game had switched to simulation mode. They just waited for a goal and started it at an arbitrary time, and just as I was thinking we had absolutely nothing to complain about from this game down went poor AMW in the most 'torn ACL' fashion possible. He limped off but nobody's fooled by that these days, and I presume that by the time you read this he'll have received all sorts of bad news but for now I live in hope of a miracle.

That unpleasantness marred the finale a little bit, but otherwise I'm more than happy to take a 47 point win and head for the hills. Doesn't change my mind that we're a fringe finals team who will live and die on injuries. There's as much of a case for being in the flag mix and previously unhappy superstars embracing one-club player status as finishing 15th, sacking the coach, and watching everyone of value run for the door like a fire alarm has gone off. If there was ever a year for a fly-on-the-wall documentary this could be it.

Even if you pretend the blessed events of 25/09/2021 didn't happen (play Chris Scott and carry on like Geelong would've won the Prelim if they didn't all have the mystery shits), it's still hard to know what to think after three good seasons were followed by a relative dud. We should have some life left in us, but I've never been a situation like this where things could literally go in any direction so god only knows what's going to happen next. Either way, we are living in interesting times and we've just got to wait and find out whether that's good interesting or bad interesting. 

2025 Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance
This award continues to be a farce while it only covers two games, but I like the name so we're going with it.

5 - Kysaiah Pickett
4 - Clayton Oliver
3 - Jacob van Rooyen
2 - Harry Sharp
1 - Harvey Langford

Apologies to Bowey, Campbell, Lever, Rivers, and Sparrow.

Next week
It's Freo in Mandurah, and judging by what they did to us last time we played in rural and regional Australia then batten down the hatches for a reality check before Round 1. There should be a raft of big hitters returning, possibly even Petracca for his first outing post near-death experience. I'd be tempted to put invest more emotion in this game, but then you remember despite the Dockers double dicking us last year they still missed finals. Now that the season is absurdly stretched out it's never been more of a marathon than a sprint, so let's hope for good signs and a lack of last minute injury/suspension. Then we can get on with fretting about Round 1.

Final thoughts
Let the madness begin.

Monday, 4 November 2024

Somebody else's fault

It's hard to believe that after a month of looking like a bad glory years cover act and being forced to play every available player on the list and one who wasn't, we ended our last game of the season inside the eight. Which was good, but like being in front of Fremantle at the final siren there's more to it. 

This time we had to rely on Carlton invoking the spirit of '99 to spring an upset against Essendon, or for the Bombers to do something so stupid that the entire tasteless 'Natalie Wood gags' file could be read into Hansard. Trusting Carlton is like waiting for the Nigerian prince to come through with his part of the million dollar payoff but I was open to the prospect of Ultimate Bradbury. For about half the first quarter anyway, but before that we had to get through our part of the equation. There shouldn't have been any tension about beating a one win, wooden spoon team by any margin but I'm upset about the last M game of 2017 and will be using it a precedent for final round failure until carking it.

A few weeks ago there wasn't much difference between us and Collingwood, this was the final of the Rent-A-Player Cup for teams that most enthusiastically used the replacement scheme, but the difference is we were good before everyone was injured so things looked a lot better when the original recipe list were fit again. They were a mid-table team who went full catastrophe when players began to drop like flies. After the last few years I'd shed a tear for Robert Mugabe before the Pies so I didn't care if they finished 16th, 17th, 18th, or somewhere in the Icelandic Second Division as long as there was no last minute miracle that fixed us up in humiliating fashion. 

You get the sense that Fox Sports treat their commitment to AFLW like somebody being forced to read out a statement by militants at gunpoint, but sending the same commentator as last week for a season-defining game the biggest pisstake in footy since Lachlan Veale. I'm not going to into depth in case it looks like a vendetta and I get chased through the street by an angry mob, but in the first five minutes Pisano was confused with Heath because they have similar hairstyles. In the spirit of debuts for promising youngsters in the last round, is there not a single up-and-coming female caller who could have had a go instead? For once the handover from Fox to Channel 7 means an increase in quality because Jason Bennett is involved, but to be honest after coming this close to finals and not making it I'll be struggling to give a rats.

There were early signs that the banana skin was going to be gently avoided without too much drama. Like Megan Fitzsimon becoming our latest forward 50 marking target. As good a contested mark as it was, and a fine converted set shot, the kick was delivered on a shiny silver platter by Kate Hore. Makes you wonder what would've happened if she hadn't dropped out of the side last week, but she did, we lost, and destiny went into the unreliable hands of others. When it happens to anyone else it's stiff shit, when it happens to us it's obviously a tragedy.

Collingwood might have responded to that goal straight away, but flubbed a shot on the run that we transferred to the other end at warp speed for Campbell to mark at close range and boot the second. The Pies weren't disgraced, and had plenty of chances, but it was like when we played teams like Brisbane or North who didn't crush us but were clearly light years ahead. I've watched plenty of wooden spoon (actual or moral) sides over the years, and the opposition did their bit to join in by gifting the third goal via an unnecessary 50. 

Because we're reasonable people, Collingwood was allowed to get one of the goals back via defensive meltdown. It was the third free paid when some buffoon in the crowd screamed for it and the umpire said "yeah alright". In the Trump-style spirit of their club, Pies fans and players alike were soon moaning about decisions as if they're a hard done minority. One bit of generosity was fine, but we spent the rest of the quarter trying to let a second in. In the last minute they blew clear marks, players standing miles in the open, and had an optimistic snap bounce the wrong way in the dying seconds. 

Our lead fairly represented how the game was going, but there was still a  Watch and Act farce alert just in case. Then we conceded the opening goal and alarms were (unnecessarily) going off all over the place. Enter our good friend the umpires, who got confused when the idiot over the fence stopped appealing like Glenn McGrath and paid about four contentious frees in an as many minutes. This ended in Hore kicking a set shot after making the most of slightly high contact. Dry your eyes on a spoon, we had to win and I didn't give a rats how it happened. For a team that 's won one game their players did a great range of "why are you conspiring against us like this?" facial expressions.

There followed several minutes of an even game, before the slapstick spirit was reignited by a Pies defender dropping a mark, tripping over her own feet and doing a slapstick faceplant into the turf. The subsequent stoppage led to Hore's second and a reminder that everything was going to be alright. Then Hanks got another, and whoever has been teaching this team set shots should be employed year-round to work with the men. I don't think it's Ben Brown because nobody started their run-up in Kew. Party atmosphere officially launched when Bannan marked a kick from Campbell and enthusiastically celebrated with her before actually taking the shot.

With the result no beyond doubt, Fox went for a repeat of the award-winning Rhi Watt sideline interview from the GWS game. It started with an anecdote about Daniel Harford trying to ring her up and getting somebody called Trev instead, then she went from saying how great it is to play at Melbourne to announcing her retirement. I'm not suggesting she's a massive pisshead, but I can see her doing a modern version of Bill Brownless yelling "Where's the wheel?" at the Logies (e.g. the greatest ever Footy Show segment) and the club should do less bullshit TikTok style videos and retain her for a weekly comedy segment. 

Now that we'd long overcome the scare that they were going to make a game of it, we had time to lay the boots in. Like Zanker shoving a defender out of the way for a mark nine seconds into the second half. Her kick fell short, as Gall diplomatically tried to let it go through, but all signs pointed to slaughter until the Pies went straight down the other end for a goal. It was only a short interruption to the carnival atmosphere, because Hore's third goal came from another free - just a bit more persecution for a club that thrives on it - before Zanker turned a defender inside out for good measure. I was watching on a massive delay so had no time for pre-match or quarter break content, didn't realise all the players had temporary tattoos, and thought she'd had the sort of thing that you rarely see law-abiding citizens with permanently applied to her neck.

The commentators finally worked out the difference between Pisano and Heath courtesy of the latter wearing different coloured boots. After a season trying to develop in a competition where there's nowhere outside the senior side to develop, this was her best game by miles. At the end of the quarter she took a solid contested mark for another accurate set shot. Sure the opposition were begging to be put out of their misery and end the season, but the signs were there. And if you can't trust the signs in the last round against the worst team in the competition what can you trust? 

Now that the game was well won and there was no way for percentage to help us, I wanted a novelty Watt/Gillard forward line in the last quarter. Probably best not to mess with Gillard in case she does a knee for novelty and misses the next 12 months, but with five minutes to go Sensible Stinear finally went wacky and sent Watt forward. She was ransacked out of her chance to run into an open goal by Fitzsimon falling over at just the wrong time and sadly never got another chance due to the game and the commentary going into Super Junk Time. There was nothing else to be gained, but if you're a nuff about minor records like me you'll appreciate Eliza McNamara tying Liv Purcell's record for most disposals in a game.

The final siren instantly ended one Collingwood career, and retrospectively finished Watt up as well. It also meant the now traditional cancelling of my Kayo subscription until about five minutes before the first practice match of 2025. I'll miss a national draft where the action is stretched out more ludicrously than an NFL game and all the other lobster racing from Atlantic City level shit they've got on but will probably survive. Your prize for reading this far is the knowledge that they tried to lure me back with $15 off for the next five months. I preferred to save 100% but feel free to save yourself a few dollars with this rort.

Now we just had to wait and find out what Carlton was going to do. In a week where some numnut journalist suggested double headers with men's games as if we've all got entire days to set aside for footy, I couldn't watch but realised we were done for when the Blues had two ultra-late withdrawals. They kicked the first goal to keep things interesting for bit, before going gently to their doom without ever looking like a comeback. And verily the shutter was pulled down on a weird season where we were half dudded by injuries but probably wouldn't have done anything in the finals anyway. And if nothing else, Essendon beating Freo next week would mean we weren't the last team to lose any sort of final to them so it's not all bad news.

Now, after foolishly doing two seasons without a single guest writer I am going away until February to recharge the batteries and get ready for another nine months of footy related madness.

2024 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Eliza McNamara
4 - Olivia Purcell
3 - Kate Hore
2 - Megan Fitzsimon
1 - Tyla Hanks

Apologies to practically everyone else.

Leaderboard
To nobody's surprise the count was cooked last week, but after the full audit I should have done about three weeks ago you can now put the SCORES CORRECT sign up. Congratulations to all the winners. I haven't even got the energy to find and post the list of previous winners.

26 - Kate Hore (WINNER: Daisy Pearce Medal for Player of the Year)
20 - Eliza McNamara
19 - Sinead Goldrick
18 - Tyla Hanks
15 - Maeve Chaplin (WINNER: Defender of the Year), 
14 - Tahlia Gillard
9 - Olivia Purcell
8 - Blaithin Mackin
7 - Alyssa Bannan
5 - Shelley Heath, Paxy Paxman
4 - Megan Fitzsimon, Sarah Lampard, Lily Mithen
3 - Georgia Gall (WINNER: Rising Star), Lauren Pearce (WINNER: Ruck of the Year)
1 - Georgia Campbell, Rhiannon Watt

Goal of the Week
Plenty of options from Set Shot Mania, but it's what I'm assuming is an inaugural nomination for Megan Fitzsimon for the one that got everything going. Bannan vs Richmond wins the lot. 

Next Year
Unless there's another raft of mystery training injuries and pre-season face-breakings I think we'll bounce back. Watt is retired and who knows what's going on with Paxman, but most of the first choice players should be available. I'm assuming Aimee Mackin comes back, and in the five seconds before doing her knee Grace Beasley looked promising so will benefit from playing alongside Hanks/Purcell etc... I still think they should cash in on Tayla Harris and go full Gall but I'll bet that doesn't happen for promotional and Google ad reasons. Otherwise it's all about depth - of the placeholders we got from other clubs only Denby Taylor looks a likely first choice player, so the difference between just missing out and comfortably making it (potentially even challenging?) could be plucking some random diamonds from the rough out of the discards pile.

Final thought
See you next season, unless they lose the plot and decide to run this league at the same time as the men, at which point I'll be putting on a work experience kid or outsourcing the lot to AI.

Monday, 28 October 2024

F'n Q

Based on previous season-defining games in Cairns I expected this one to start at about 5.45pm Melbourne time, which failed to account for Queensland's refusal to participate in daylight saving. That was a bit of a downer for anyone who is still fanging to watch anything MFC but had to get up at bullshit o'clock and is burnt to a crisp after writing about 37 match posts in the last 12 months/not having a good night's sleep since about 1994.

This is why I didn't see the second half until about 4.30 in the morning, missing out on live disappointment of narrowly missing football thievery that would have rivalled the Adelaide win for comedy value and immorality. Somehow despite Hawthorn dominating practically every facet of the game, and our contribution to what must have been the all-time AFLW record for intercept marks, there were opportunities to be one point down with time left, or to pinch a draw in the dying seconds. But we weren't, we didn't, and our season is kaput without a big upset in a league that only has about two big upsets a year.

The W fanbase has had full value from the last weeks, and yay for pulling back from the slop abyss, but I still reserve to right to be a bit glum about coming so close to another great backs-to-the-wall win. Who knows if the Essendon game would have still been a draw due to butterflies flapping their wings and all that, but if so we'd have been inexplicably left with our fate in our own hands entering the last round after looking clinically dead five weeks ago. Now we need to win and for the Bombers to do something hilariously inept against a Carlton side that hasn't done a thing for years.

When you talk about being killed by hope it's hard not to think of the all-time legend of this feeling, the man who survived a premiershipless life, back-to-back wooden spoons, 186, off-field tragedy, and 16.75 rounds of the Mark Neeld era before loudly storming out yelling "I can't take this anymore" because we blew a three goal lead against Freo. With those coping skills there's no way he's still alive 12 years later, but his legacy lives on every time I'm disappointed when we're teased by something unexpectedly good.

If opposition fans are keeping receipts (hello fellow young people), my implication that Hawthorn was only at the top of the ladder thanks to playing a string of crap sides might have come back to haunt me. To their credit, they'll be doing what we won't in a couple of weeks, but you may remember another side that walloped rubbish all season then fell over in finals. And if that happens Eliza West and Casey Sherriff would surely be the first pair ever to have consecutive straight sets exits at different clubs. I wish them both well personally but hope it happens for historical reasons.

Even after keeping the opposition goalless in the second half we were still flattered by the margin, but our fairytale finish started looking for the nearest emergency exit as soon as Kate Hore withdrew with a sore leg. Better not to risk her if unfit but what a massive loss when our depth has only just been upgraded to 'thin' from 'non-existent'. We also lost Colvin to a head knock just before returning from a head knock, so obviously after weeks without a mystery midweek injury we've put him from Full Metal Jacket in charge of training again.   

In the place where seasons go to die ours probably did again. Like 2020 we can still Bradbury in via the misfortune of others but likely won't. Who knows if Hore would've made the ultimate difference but given we were outplayed for most of the game, half the side struggled to get a kick and we still nearly grabbed something in the dying seconds she can only have helped. Especially when most of our kicks proceeded directly into the hands of a Hawthorn player in miles of space. This helped us stay in the game because a lot of time was taken up with this mad, hopeful punting into the distance. It was like when rugby union was a thing, one team hoofing it downfield, the other carrying it a few metres back before kicking it themselves, insert some weird rule interpretations that nobody understands, repeat endlessly.

It was one of those performances where nobody really deserved votes and if the system allowed it you'd probably distribute the 15 across eight or nine players who were ok. For instance, credit to McNamara, Hanks and Mackin for getting lots of the ball, but they generally followed it with mass slaughter. They didn't have much to aim at, but while disposal efficiency isn't everything, endless open play turnovers are death.

Things never looked better than the opening minutes, when regularly we had the ball at our end, and eventually Gall converted another set shot goal. I was ready to shut the game down and start this week's Rising Star presentation ceremony, then she only got two more kicks for the night. Still, she's made a lot of progress in the last few weeks and I'll launch a challenge against the board if not picked in Round 1 next year.

Now, please step into controversy corner. I support tracking down people who are awful to sportspeople on the internet and throwing them from an upstairs window, but have surely demonstrated enough support for women in sport to be able to ask for a break from Kelli Underwood's commentary. Brian Taylor still occupies the top right hand corner of the 'unprepared/ludicrously self-confident' axis (axes?), but after a couple of Dwayne-free months I'm relegating him to third place because he talks shite but gets the players right most of the time. 

I'm more than happy with female commentators but if there's not enough to go around, the AFL and broadcasters should be actively recruiting ex and soon-to-be ex-players and/or any enthusiastic amateurs for development. Maybe recruit some from Ireland, it seems to work for the players. And get on with it quickly, I'd rather listen to Lidia Thorpe and Pauline Hanson call a game together than go through this again.

This was the third and final leg of our Haunted By Premiership Players tour. First Birch, then Gay, and finally West and Sherriff simultaneously. But mainly West, with respect to Sherriff playing her first game since Round 2. When she was with us West got a lot of the ball but didn't always use it well, and at a base level it was similar in opposition, but watching her on the other side I appreciated the close-quarter spelunking that broke open packs and created space for teammates. Purcell does a version of this and even in fancy dress she's a good player but I didn't properly appreciate how good it was with both operating at the same time. The world's biggest trade meant we lost Sheriff, West and Gay for what turned into Pisano, Wotherspoon and Jacinta Hose so there's still plenty of time to come out of this ahead but it puts in perspective how much experience we lost at the end of last year. Between that, our fixture, and run with injuries this year narrowly missing finals is nearly an achievement. Making it would be nuts.

There was another ex-MFC cameo in their backline, and admittedly I was considering putting my head into a bucket of water for most of the commentary but did they ever mention Ainslie Kemp as one of our Round 1, 2017 originals? If it didn't make the fun facts sheet nobody was going to bring it up at random. Kemp missed the joy of our premiership by virtue of leaving the club three seasons before it happened but had plenty of chances to get a touch at our expense here, as the rare times we cleared the ball across halfway were turned back with the greatest of ease. By quarter time they'd turned countless opportunities into two goals and I thought we were about to be swept away. They were much better at moving the ball but couldn't convert. Part of it was good defence, part Hawthorn having so many options to kick to that they didn't know which one to use.

They only got one goal in the second quarter, which turned out to be their last of the game, but sadly it was enough as our attacking composure drifted out towards New Caledonia. Zanker may have been robbed out of a mark, but you'd never know because they didn't show the alleged free kick incident again. Either they've decided that everyone can rewind live TV these days, or more likely there's a directive not to show contentious decisions. But then every second in-game post on the league's official Twitter (never in a million years X - and the quicker Bluesky gets some momentum the better) is somebody being KOed in a tackle or otherwise maimed so maybe the whole thing is just run like Channel 31.

I appreciate the idea of not dwelling on the decisions of umpires practically doing it for the love of the game but you're taking the piss out of viewers not showing anything. If it leads to a goal we should get to see it once without editorials from the commentators. Meanwhile see you in 2025 for the broadcast of men's games where every contentious decision is followed by a cut to some defeated middle-aged man doing his block in the crowd. The replay machine was certainly working, because when the Hawthorn player took a big mark in the third quarter it was shown several times over the top of commentary so patronising to an indigenous player that even a politically neutral suburban dickhead like me was cringing.

We rode our luck a bit with their attacks in the second half, but Bannan got the lone goal of the third quarter and kept the margin to a manageable nine at the last change. The biggest impact of the quarter was to Sinead Goldrick's head, as the only rebounding player we had who could hit targets was cannoned into the ground by a tackle. She survived, only to end the game in Cloud Cuckoo Land after taking a knee to the face. Good performance until then though, spoiler alert but I thought she was clearly our best.

After regularly fading in the last quarter we managed to kick multiple sealers against Richmond before the lights went out when it couldn't hurt us, but with increasingly sweaty conditions, absence of captain, and nearly three full quarters of injury crisis weeks style attacking, nine points has never looked more like a mountain. And in a truly weird quarter both teams had chances, neither took them, and it ended with the ball at our end and crying out for somebody to do one of those bullshit goals where you aimlessly kick and it bounces over everyone's head.

We had two gettable set shots, and the pivotal moment was Mithen with a minute and change left. If you've been watching for long enough you'll remember her first career goals coming from a similiar position in a final. Alas it was not to be this time, meaning the best we could hope for was a draw that may or may not have been worth anything. I'd still have taken it just to avoid a side called Melbourne losing an AFL game.

Against everything we've learned this season, another five minutes might have done us well but time ran out and we were left to rely on Essendon doing anything but winning against Richmond to keep a tiny flicker of season alive. They supplied one of the two acceptable options and we're playing before them next week so sadly have to take it seriously. I still think we could do Elimination Final damage at best but am interested in testing the theory.

2024 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Sinead Goldrick
4 - Tyla Hanks
3 - Olivia Purcell
2 - Maeve Chaplin
1 - Eliza McNamara

Apologies to Bannan, Fitzsimon, Heath and Mackin.

Leaderboard
Let's not prematurely act like there's a chance of this competition extending beyond next week, and it was set for an unexpectedly grandstand finish until the last minute concussion which has undoubtedly ended Goldrick's season. So unless Hanks does something so extraordinary that she becomes the first six vote player in history then the captain has this in the bag. After two best and fairest wins, this is Hore's inaugural Daisy. The big drama will be amongst the defenders, as Chaplin sneaks ahead of Gillard. Gall and Pearce are still catchable in their awards but I can't see either happening.

23 - Kate Hore (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Daisy Pearce Medal for Player of the Year)
19 - Sinead Goldrick
17 - Tyla Hanks
15 - Maeve Chaplin (LEADER: Defender of the Year), Eliza McNamara
14 - Tahlia Gillard
8 - Blaithin Mackin
7 - Alyssa Bannan
5 - Shelley Heath, Paxy Paxman, Olivia Purcell
4 - Sarah Lampard, Lily Mithen
3 - Georgia Gall (LEADER: Rising Star), Lauren Pearce (LEADER: Ruck of the Year)
2 - Megan Fitzsimon
1 - Georgia Campbell, Rhiannon Watt

Goal of the Week
Without much to choose from, Gall wins for encouragement purposes. I'm not as frothy about Bannan's clubhouse leader goal as I was last week when it formed part of our path to a mystery flag but it was still had timing, context and execution on its side so remains in front.

Next Week
In a wildcard reversal of the men's competition, it's a last round practical dead rubber against Collingwood where we have the outside chance of making finals. When I expected Essendon to beat Richmond and make it so we had to win by about 150 points my first instinct was to pick every fit player who started year without a game - keep Taylor and Wotherspoon, debut Rigoni, and bring back Delany to see if I can consistently spell her name right this time. Now that we have to win, and would really rather avoid providing one of the rare AFLW upsets by losing to a putrid Collingwood side, I suppose it's in Colvin, Hore, Paxman and let's go for it as best possible before settling down for a rare evening of wanting Carlton to win. 

I can see our bit happening, the other doesn't seem very likely but it will be laughs all round if Essendon go from clubbing us into the ground two months ago to being pipped for a finals spot. 

Final thought
It was/will be fun while it lasted.