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:
Jake Spencer kicks his third! Putting on a clinic 🔥 #JLTSeries pic.twitter.com/zmxc7yMXqB
— AFL (@AFL) March 9, 2017
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)
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3 - GWS
4 - Brisbane
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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)
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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)
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12 - Essendon (more just personal preference than anything)
13 - Footscray
14 - Adelaide
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15 - West Coast
16 - North Melbourne
17 - St. Kilda
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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.
