When the wind blows

Usually I don't give a rat's about utopian ideals like the good of the game and non-MFC related fairness, but it's probably fair that our bubble has burst in nuclear fashion after eight seasons at or around the top. As the opposition coach was called Natalie Wood it would be impolite to say we finished this game resembling a body plucked from the ocean, but less than a year after I wondered if we'd be subject to a trustbusting style forcible breakup by the league, trades, natural attrition and injuries have done the job before they got the chance to stuff it up.

You'll remember that I suggested the North game could be the first time were ever kept to zero goals, but after narrowly avoiding it that day I certainly wasn't expecting to go closer against a decent but unspectacular team that started 1-3 and only narrowly better off on percentage than us. But without the injured Mackin and Zanker, the second half malaise of the Freo game continued in spectacular fashion. Enter our all-time lowest score, biggest loss, and an absurd mismatch in a game where we should have been competitive. 

It had to happen eventually, but I'm just worried about how much further we can push these records by the end of the year. Things are going to get very ordinary. The only goal was an arguably lucky snap from a pack, and we never went close to artfully constructing one. The next day Hore and Zanker were in the Grand Final day parade of champions as joint-leading goalkickers last year, and at this rate we'll be lucky if the entire list reaches their combined 2023 totals. Alternatively we'll be lucky to have a list to pick from by the last round.

My 'everything looks better in a stadium' theory went out the window when somebody recently kicked one goal at Princes Park, but Windy Hill fit the requirement for a ground with at least one stand that doesn't resemble a public park. Ok, there was a bit of the boundary line that was straight - despite significant empty space behind it - but otherwise it was an acceptably mid-range venue for AFLW. It still came off a bit weird when the commentators went on for 3.5 quarters about the place being packed to the gills and fans 'nearly' having to be turned away (e.g. they weren't but we're making storylines up for dramatic purposes), then the crowd was just over 3000. Which is a fine number, but the way they were talking I thought it must have been on the verge of outdrawing the men vs GWS.

There's not much that can be said about this game, because even more so than a couple of our other debacles this year it was pretty much all the other side with the ball and our backline trying desperately to hold back an unstoppable tide. You could tell how it was going when Chaplin overran the ball trying to rush it, leaving an opponent to happily pluck it off the deck and kick through an open goal. In a purely sporting and non-suspect way I'm a Chaplin fanatic but this was pure slapstick. By the end she'd tried to hold back enough to be our best player, but between this and a free kick in front of goal the first quarter looked like a Candid Camera-style pisstake.

Predictably, we ended the day in even deeper injury shit than before but it was already so bad that Rent-A-Player finally had to be activated. It's not at the level of having to play randoms yet, and Demonblog's own Delaney Madigan remains the only listed player not to get a start this season, but 2/3 emergencies were from Casey and we were two mystery injuries/chuckings of sickie over a long weekend from playing confirmed randoms. It probably couldn't have made things worse. The next step is to pick some Major League style misfits, straight out of jail if possible, and we can have fun with being shite.

The first quarter wasn't all bad news. Essendon treated us with the sort of contempt we've traditionally dished out on the league's battlers, but amidst the carnage Wotherspoon recaptured the heady joys of pre-season with a first career goal. It was more lucky kick under contact than well-crafted conversion after expert ball-movement but you'll take them from wherever at the moment. Especially when it was our final score for the game. For those playing along at home, that means across the last three quarters were got 0.0.0. May as well have called 000 and tried to get the game shut down because this was indescribably putrid. Suffice to say we're not doing Goal of the Week this time.

The last recycled player on the list to get a game was ex-Port Adelaidian Lily Johnson. She did alright under the circumstances, but our biggest problem at the moment is a lot of players doing alright but barely anyone excelling. The result is carnage, and while I'm perfectly willing to accept a lowly season I'd rather it not involve being teed off on violently for the rest of the year.

Alyssia Pisano's rookie year misery tour continued as her career record hit a truly unprecedented 0-4. She had a lovely run through the middle when the game was lost, but it's a shit time to be trying to playing forward for us. As the commentator trying to put a brave face on this fiasco said, emergency situations like this mean experience for players who might not otherwise get a game, but I'm sure we'd have made room for a top 10 draft pick sooner rather than later - the issue is that we're being forced to give games to players who wouldn't have got near our senior side in any other year.

Because nobody gets out of 2024 unscathed, Eliza McNamara's reward for a best on ground performance last week was a splattered nose. She returned bandaged up like Tutankhamen, unlike Shelley Heath and a shoulder that exploded like an old school stick of dynamite in a tackle. There goes another first choice player who can be relied on to give all trying to keep us from being savagely dismantled. What could possibly go wrong? Especially when the dickheads who run this league have come up with the genius plan of cramming extra games into the season by making teams play twice in a week. Because some flange has watched the Premier League and/or NFL, they're not spreading the games across different rounds they're being referred to as 'weeks'. Not here they won't be, where it'll be Round 7A and Round 7B. We'll be lucky to have seven fit players left by then. As Heath departed lawn bowls continued unscathed in the background and we must have been close to press-ganging some Esme Watson-esque granny to occupy the bench.

We haven't been torn apart by Essendon like this since 146, and the party atmosphere was going so well that one of their goals was followed by a kiss blown over the fence to a heckling fan. No chance for such antics at the other end, where we could've played until Thursday without having a set shot. Nobody was helped by panicky delivery that usually landed with a defender in acres of empty space, but even when there was something resembling a contest we were barely involved. Gall is - to put it nicely - a long-term project, and with no space for Hore or (insert any other name) to run into this was tough to watch. 

I don't understand how we've got two rucks but neither ever seems to end up resting forward. Tayla Harris did more in one Google ad than all of last season but this made you appreciate how she at least got to contests. It was easily Watt's best game for us but she's as likely to contribute to the scoring as me. There's no help coming so we'll have to live with this setup for the rest of the year. If we're going to lose with rotten scores anyway play Gillard forward and see what happens. And speaking of positional switches, this was so broken by the end that the latest flying goalsaving tackle was provided by Bannan. This was something when she still can't kick goals on the eastern seaboard. I'd say send her to West Coast but apparently they're good now so the competition has officially gone bonkers.

Any hope that we'd pull up before stacking into a mountain was lost, and all the depressing milestones were ticked off in the final quarter. I'd threaten to microwave my membership for comedy value (now that we're 1-7 since purchase it should be stripped anyway) but I'm not sure they automatically renewed it. I've got no emails, the mobile app doesn't tell me anything, and I guess the payment wasn't taken out with the men's one (now featuring 15 years of paying for a guaranteed Grand Final ticket that's been used once by some rando). I wouldn't boycott just because it's gone medieval on-field, but also have scant time to follow this stuff up so on the off-chance you're from the club take this as permission to access my personal details and let me know what's going on.

So yes, this was a complete disaster but probably inevitable given the state of the list. Obviously I'm sticking out the season rather than flouncing off because things are getting difficult (having said that - sign up to be the guest reviewer any time you like) but it feels like the rest of the year is going to be a procession of teams paying us back for everything we did to them over the years. At least we've got the memories.

2024 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Maeve Chaplin
4 - Tahlia Gillard
3 - Sinead Goldrick
2 - Megan Fitzsimon
1 - Rhiannon Watt

No need for apologies under the circumstances.

Leaderboard
DefenderMania continues, and in a milestone moment Watt becomes the oldest player to score a vote in Demonblog history. Otherwise it's all a bit shit.

14 - Tahlia Gillard (LEADER: Defender of the Year)
10 - Maeve Chaplin, Eliza McNamara
9 - Sinead Goldrick
8 - Kate Hore, Blaithin Mackin
4 - Paxy Paxman
3 - Lily Mithen, Lauren Pearce (LEADER: Ruck of the Year)
2 - Megan Fitzsimon, Shelley Heath, Sarah Lampard
1 - Rhiannon Watt

Next Week
It's Thursday night against GWS in what would have once been a potential massacre but is now reduced to simply a winnable game. Attendance may struggle to reach three figures, but on the occasion of them finally scheduling us to play at Princes Park I'm going to try and get there to support the Say No To Suburban Parks campaign.

Given that Jemma Rigoni was nearly fit enough to play this week I expect they'll go for the good news story and throw her right into the side no matter how underdone. If Guy is the only other person there we can start talking about 1998 when things get too depressing. Enjoy this while you can, because the next game is against Adelaide and after that they'll only be able to identify us via dental records.

Final thoughts
We haven't got around to the W version of Narrm yet, but allow me to get in early and say NAR to this season.

Sad singing and slow walking

If you look beyond the latest round of serious injury drama and an after-the-siren goal that left our season on life support a month in, it's not all bad news. After a fortnight of being gently dispatched by the top sides it turns out that under the right circumstances we can still score enough against the rest to set up a disposable three goal lead. And that's your lot for positivity, because we'll need to climb out of a Grand Canyon-size ditch to escape 2024 with anything other than quality draft picks.

It would be time to play the kids, but we're already doing that. And the veterans. And a few players who might secretly admit they have no place in a national competition. That's the nature of this league (and any team who started after year one will be pointing and laughing), but we were already looking at a mini-rebuild before injuries have dumped 10 tons of concrete on the place. The latest victim was Grace Beasley, who survived years on the college basketball circuit and showed good signs in her first three games being being felled by a knee injury at training. It came at the same time of the week as Lauren Pearce's wrist detonation so refer previous comments about Casey being cursed.

We haven't triggered Rent-A-Player yet, but the football department must be scouring the regulations to see how it works. There's been a shitload of teams added since we did it last so the free agent field would hardly be heaving, but there must be a VFL player somewhere worth looking at. Make it fun (for fans anyway) by selecting somebody who is a completely unpredictable lunatic, regardless of whether they can play footy. Paxy might come back next week, but only to replace the newly-crocked Mackin. In one of the great upsets that's not a huge step up, but still better a five-time All Australian at the tail end of a glorious career than some of the other filler options. 

Over the years there's always been players filling spots, but to deviate from the traditional proverb a lowering tide has dropped all boats and they stand out more. Bring back Round 1 when it looked like we might just pull this off and Kate Hore was heading towards finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the league B&F. Ahh the glory days of late August. Since then we've definitely lost two players for the year, Pearce may be heading the same way, and Purcell is still TBD after her last-minute pre-season injury.

After all this we were three goals in front during the last quarter and on the verge of returning to comfortable mid-table mediocrity. It may be a three team league, but that doesn't mean you can't finish 4th - 8th and still have a ticket in the lottery. It's just harder with a pot luck draw that makes the men's competition look fair and equitable. Who knows what the solution is when nine years on we're still arguing about scheduling games at 5pm Friday, but with much love to the 1000 plus players, coaches, and support people working their arse off for the competition, the organisation is trending Mickey Mouse in a way that might see the next broadcast rights sold to Disney.

I feel bad for the ex-coach of Collingwood who respectfully asked the reasonable question of how teams can still kick zero goals after all these years (which didn't happen once until the fourth season)  and got treated like he'd said it dressed as Harvey Weinstein. Obviously you've got to give it time to develop, but angrily going on about how the University men kicked 0.6.6 in 1913 isn't much help. There's still limited time for two divisions of nine without ruining the space/time continuum, but teams would rather kick one goal or under every week than agree to that. I'm happy to enjoy it for what it is but the AFL should be forced to admit in court that they're just funding it for PR purposes and aren't interested in the day-to-day grind of competition management.

That's your mandatory 'state of the game' discussion for the week, and as there's no chance to hang shit on Casey Fields (leading to counter-propaganda featuring Australia's most likeable people) I suppose it's on with losing in sad and dramatic circumstances. It would be rude to call this a choke, more of a gradual descent into madness. We'd got everything possible out of an understrength travelling team for three and a bit quarters, then just failed to hold on against the wind. Once we get to play a bottom side - and the current 13th, 10th and 17th placed teams are on the way - it will confirm that we're too good for them, not good enough for the premiership contenders, and everything in the middle will be a toss-up. 

We might come back from two games and a shitload of percentage behind to end the year with Ms. Bradbury Plan final round drama. Then we'll get the chance to fall flat on our faces in humiliating fashion against Collingwood's women for once instead of the men. Probably not, but we've had a good run and once players started going down like nine pins the excuse of a transitional season was ready to roll out. Would still have been nice to win here. 

Even if it's almost impossible to think of a spark that could vault us back into flag contention, I'd be happy to hang around the eight like an unflushable nugget. Forget the 10 minutes on the ropes trying to survive, we were one horribly shanked kick from halving the points, and I'd have felt plenty more likely to come out of this season with something if we had. The commentators offered false hope by speculating that she might not make the distance before a flawless set shot went five points beyond what was required. Game over in all senses of the word I fear.

By the end we were a metaphorical petrol light furiously flashing empty, but it was about as good as you'll get until then. We just don't have the players left - our old friend Delaney is still kicking her heels in the emergencies, leaving this week's debutant to be somebody who'd played a bit for Geelong several years ago before they were good. And considering her time away the first Denby ever to play for Melbourne did ok. Most of what used to be our fringe players were fine, but nobody looks like breaking out of the pack so we're relying on individual stars to get us out of jail. The problem is that some of the stars have struggled to get going so far so you can have the chicken vs egg debate on what's to blame. Either way we're in all sorts.

In a hate crime against Melbourne fans, Fox reunited as much of the commentary team as possible from the day King Harley Race went boonta on us. Pav is too famous for 12.05WST starts, but Will Schofield was back to chair the Western Australian Broadcasting Commission. There's no money in shameless secessionist commentary in this league so he wound it back a bit in favour of complaining about umpires then immediately apologising so he doesn't get blackballed by the AFL. With the viewing audience for this he could survived doing George Carlin's 'Seven Words You Can't Say On TV'.

While the call was slightly restrained from the usual local madness, they were desperate to pin the mysterious early demise of a Freo player on a behind-the-play assassination. I stupidly expected they may have evidence of it and started wondering if a player absent with suspension still counted towards our Rent-A-Player quota. The replay came in too late to prove anything, they never bothered rolling it back further to find contact, and it seems the injury came completely at random. Not like Western Australians to fit somebody up for a crime they didn't commit.

Our first goal kicked off some long-term storytelling, as Hore got away with one of the most blatant holding the balls of all time in pretty much the same spot that the game was decided. The piss was further extracted from Freo as she was almost immediately given the free and set shot. At this stage we still didn't know if their injured player had been taken out by cynical violence or not, so it was all looking a bit Conspiracy Corner for the home side. 

From there it all went very well for a while, except for the obligatory injury drama featuring Blaithin Mackin's calf and the premature departure of one of our best ball movers. Still, back in mid-table company our better players looked far more likely to create havoc. Meanwhile in defence your old friend and mine Gillard was stopping everything that came near her. It wasn't perfect, but with the wind we had our most effective attacking quarter of the year. Bannan finally got another goal, and because of the quality finish we won't dwell on the mark coming from a hopeful, aim-free kick that she just happened to be in the right spot for. They all count, and by quarter time you could genuinely have been having fun watching a Melbourne game. That was your first mistake.

Of the handful of players to improve while the season burns down around them, Eliza McNamara was racking up touches left, right and centre. This is good, but it only partially covers teammates going at roughly one disposal a quarter. Freo was in a similar boat so it was a 50/50 game where we were better at converting than any time since monstering the shit teams last year. There was even a goal created by attempted pack marking, which was a step up from a fortnight of whacking the ball straight into the waiting arms of a defender. Georgia Gall didn't do much else, but she helped give us some presence in the air and got her first goal courtesy of the umpire flat-out guessing at a 'mark' which clearly hit the ground.

Who knows if the game would have ended the same way, but we could have done ourselves a favour not giving away a free in the last few seconds before half time. Insert more dramatic foreshadowing as Freo converted after the siren despite somebody in the crowd making weird bird noises. The effects mics were picking up snippets of conversations from the crowd all day and I was listening closely for scandalous gossip. Sadly they were drowned out by the special comments man talking about umpires like idiots then doing politically correct disclaimers about what a hard job they've got.

Regular readers will know that I'm not into simplistic "if they'd kicked goals instead of behinds" analysis, but in a low scoring format converting one of our many chances would have helped. After starting with a nearly unprecedented five goals straight, there were a lot of waste. Twice the player thought they'd kicked it only to be denied by the goal umpire, with no suggestion of busting out that allegedly razzle dazzle digital ball technology. The way this competition is run they probably forgot to plug the system in before the game. It meant no inaugural goal for Wotherspoon - who is now in increasing danger of playing in a wooden spoon - before Hore missed out on her second in similar circumstances. Our failure to land a killer blow left the door open, with a giant flashing sign over it reading *this way for premiership points*.

You can't really argue with the decision that cost the game, because it came after Goldrick was caught in another blatant holding the ball, only to get out of it on a fanciful sling tackle technicality. Then she got a bonus administrative 50 because a player she didn't even know was there approached at the wrong angle, and everything looked like it was heading in the right direction. Alas it was not, but even with the wind against us in the final quarter I had faith that we could do as per the second term and hold them out long enough to defend an 18 point lead. That was my first mistake. Regardless of how we lost, the last minute was trying to hold on grimly for a draw so it's not like we even nearly made it.

At the start of the last term everything was Freo, but they couldn't turn territory domination into scores. Then somebody with one the longest and most complicated double-barrel name outside of a European royal family goalled and it was regrettably on for young and old. The next followed quickly behind and we were wobbling like a poorly constructed office block. The last line of defence was holding up alright, but inability to get the ball over halfway and keep it there didn't bode well. There was a tremendous Chaplin tackle that relieved the pressure for about nine seconds, but we were down to relying on Freo kicking themselves out of it. 

Somewhere in all this Zanker also departed with an injury, because why not, and the chances of us retaining the ball forward of centre were reduced to a statistical anomaly. We did get a centre clearance after they tied the scores, but our one decent aerial contest inside 50 happened two quarters earlier and boing, off went the ball down the other end. 

Here's where the dramatic foreshadowing from our first goal pays off. All they needed was a score to win, and it looked on the way when Colvin flung herself into what deserved to be a match winning (well, more like saving by this point) tackle. Which was good, and better than when the ball returned straight back to the front of their goal, where Kate Hore grabbed it in much the same spot she'd goalled from earlier, and thought "I'll take a few steps then..." before being rudely interrupted by a tackle. She's won us enough games, one unfortunate incident isn't going to ruin the experience.

It was certainly holding the ball, maybe the first they'd got right all day, but while watching this in a room full of people while waiting for my kid's gymnastics lesson to finish I may not have said "oh for fuck's sake" far enough under my breath. By the time you're hoping for somebody to shank a kick just to get out with a draw it's already morally a loss but I was absolutely certain we were beaten. Players have missed everything from better spots than this, but it felt inevitable that she'd score something. And indeed she did, doing it in style and finally delivering us the after the siren misery twice avoided by the same Brisbane player missing. It meant more then because we were neck deep in the finals race, now we're playing to be also rans anyway so it was shit finish and I hated it but probably not any serious long-term harm done. Would be nice to score something in a last quarter though.

2024 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Eliza McNamara
4 - Sinead Goldrick
3 - Maeve Chaplin
2 - Tahlia Gillard
1 - Lily Mithen

Apologies to Colvin and Lampard.

Leaderboard
Last week I initially had Gillard in the votes twice and somebody called "Inead" on the leaderboard so you may choose to treat these numbers with contempt. Otherwise, bet you didn't think this would be the leading pair after four games.

10 - Tahlia Gillard (LEADER: Defender of the Year), Eliza McNamara
8 - Kate Hore, Blaithin Mackin
6 - Sinead Goldrick
5 - Maeve Chaplin
4 - Paxy Paxman
3 - Lily Mithen, Lauren Pearce (LEADER: Ruck of the Year)
2 - Shelley Heath, Sarah Lampard

Next Week
We've been tonked by top sides and narrowly fallen short against fellow mid-tablists, so a game against bog ordinary Essendon will confirm whether there's anything to be salvaged from this season or if it's time to evacuate. A 2.05pm Friday game is extraordinarily inconvenient for me, but it's a step above those of you in states without the worst excuse for a public holiday since Show Day. I'll be watching on severe delay, but if you're watching live or will be attending our long-awaited comeback to Windy Hill and want to join the guest reporter club let me know via the usual channels.

I assume Paxman replaces Mackin, but if Zanker is out then we'll be one step from ringing Casey players to see if they'll be away for the long weekend. Let's stay slightly positive and assume a win, because the alternative is too miserable to consider. It won't take much to make me crack the shits with footy and not watching the Saturday game so this could be the tipping point needed to do something more useful with my time.

Final thoughts
I don't like being ordinary again, kick roughly 10 sides out of the competition.

Powerful sense of dread

If you're reading this I don't need to tell you we've had a run since the start of AFLW best described as 'shit hot'. It took a while to get to finals, a bit longer for a flag, but there's been much more winning than losing. In fact, the only time we've ever been below 50% in a season was after the opening round of 2019, and even then we kicked a score that would have won any other game for the week. 

The draw has done us no favours this season, but we're not far from finding out whether the appropriate 'R' word is 'recovery' or 'rebuild'. Possibly 'rehabilitation', given the length of our injury list. I'm secretly hoping for Rent-A-Player so we can target players for a specific purpose. At this point the qualifications for making our side aren't much more complicated than being born female and breathing. No regrets in mocking the less fortunate when we were on top of the world, in the famous words of Father Fintan Stack, "I had my fun and that's all that matters".

I wouldn't know Delaney Madigan if she robbed me at gunpoint, but you've got to have some sympathy with the only fit player on the list who didn't make the emergencies. Her time will come, probably via process of elimination, but she'll be reevaluating her career choices if stuck behind some of these players for too long. We've always had a few placeholders but it was balanced out by more star power than golden era Hollywood. Now the Foundation Club Rewards Program is shut and I'm just hoping to find out we're still the eighth best team. 

This looked really bad in the early stages, but helpfully somewhere between Channel 7's broadcast and watching on my phone via Kayo, the scoreboard and time remaining weren't displayed. After North kicked the first two goals and looked like putting on 186W this was a good thing, except for not knowing how long there was before it would be over. Then we briefly came back from the dead, and with no help from a forward line that combined for zero goals, it was left to McNamara and Fitzsimon to chip in from the midfield. 

The on-screen graphics returned as we were back on level terms, only for it to all go unrecoverably tits up almost straight after. We got one more goal, they got lots - including a forward kicking more in this game than our entire team has combined across the last fortnight. I think the opposition might have realised how bare the cupboard is and dedicated themselves to making sure Hore doesn't have an impact. 

One of our goals was set up by a Bannan handball, but she was otherwise anonymous again. They tried her further afield, but you could sense the frustration in the coach's delicately chosen words when asked what he'd said to her at quarter time. I can understand them bringing Georgia Gall back due to being the only available forward who hadn't played the opening games, but it seemed a bit hasty to chuck Wotherspoon so quickly. She hasn't kicked a goal in two weeks, but neither have almost all our other permanent forwards so pre-season form had to count for something. Pick them both, we can't be the first, second, or third team finish goalless this year.

Speaking of low scores, maybe I'm only paying attention now because we look less likely to score than ever, but surely the last touch out of bounds rule is more likely to stop scoring than promote it. Maybe when they paid it inside 50 before common sense prevailed, but here's your options when the ball  is rolling towards the boundary line:

a) If you know your side is conceding the free, head directly to where the opposition is about to kick it and create congestion; or
b) Having to balance attack and defence at a throw-in because you don't know which direction the ball is going to go.

I'll have option B thanks, especially when you consider the players around the stoppage are automatically removed from being able to impact any quick kicks forward. Somebody with fancy data can tell me if there's anything to this, but I refuse to believe they wouldn't have introduced it to the men's game if not scared shitless of annoying the commercial station by making it harder to kick goals. More breaking news analysis like that next week, now back to our regularly scheduled programming of Melbourne getting walloped.

I feel bad for Alyssia Pisano, who arrived at a powerhouse club, asked "where did all the premiership players go?", and has suffered the rare misfortune of losing her first two games for us. Against the odds this has happened before, with Aleisha Newman playing our first match, then coming back for the 5pm Friday shambles against GWS where our kicking for goal wouldn't hit the side of Australia's biggest barn. Turned out alright for everyone over the next few years, Newman won Goal of the Year, Melbourne won more often than they lost. And now for what fans of other clubs would no doubt call the much-needed reality check.

The big Pisano Pisstake came when she was jibbed out of a goal in comedy fashion. What was either a long shot or an attempted pass to a teammate running into goal was bouncing directly towards goal before flicking up at the last minute, causing Zanker to try and reel it on on the line but running out of space and rushing it through for a point. The armchair view is that she might have held her ground and tried to shepherd, but as my footy career peaked in a one-off game for a state school that was later shut down for woeful academic performance I'm not going to judge her making the wrong snap decision.

You could imagine scenarios where we came back after quarter time and gradually worked into the game, but through no fault of the players involved they're no longer up the standard of the top sides so it was never going to happen here. Geelong showed that we're competitive against the good sides, but the ship has (temporarily?) sailed on the top four years. In the greatest MFC tradition of treating premiership coaches like war criminals, it feels like they're trying to play the 2021 way with a much-reduced side. I suppose the idea is that you don't change the world on the off chance of sludging wins against the best teams, but the proof will be in how well it goes when we get another look at the lower echelons.

No doubt the effort was there, but we were just blown to bits in the second half. With all else lost there were a couple of minutes of trying to start fights with Libby Birch, who probably said "thanks for that, enjoy mid-table mediocrity". Bit hollow waiting until you're five goals down to air grievances, but as we hadn't gone close to a goal for two quarters it might have been their first chance. 

Last week's Coaches' Votes failed to validate my view that you'd be mad not to recognise Tahlia Gillard, but I'm pleased to say she scored one this time. This really is just like watching the men again, where the defenders work themselves into the ground because the ball doesn't stay at the other end of the ground long enough. But if you thought there wasn't much depth on our men's list, this is shallow enough for ants to wander through. Sure we let somebody kick five goals, but it's only the work of the backline that stopped everyone from North cashing in their golden "kick a bag" ticket. 

Unless you just hate Libby Birch, and it seems some of our players might, the only remotely heartwarming moment of the second half was Grace Beasley plucking a goal out of thin air. She was rightfully excited, even though we were getting poleaxed at the time. Then it was back to North doing as they liked on route to a win where we attacked at the same pace as the 2023 Qualifying Final (albeit with the majority of goals coming at the start this time), and they went several degrees harder. Not our finest hour by any stretch of the imagination, but as we like to say around here they can't always be classics.

2024 Daisy Pearce Medal for Player of the Year
5 - Eliza McNamara
4 - Paxy Paxman
3 - Tahlia Gillard
2 - Lily Mithen
1 - Maeve Chaplin

Apologies to Chaplin, Lampard and Mackin.

Leaderboard
8 - Tahlia Gillard (LEADER: Defender of the Year), Kate Hore, Blaithin Mackin
5 - Eliza McNamara
4 - Paxy Paxman
3 - Lauren Pearce (LEADER: Ruck of the Year)
2 - Maeve Chaplin, Sinead Goldrick, Shelley Heath, Sarah Lampard, Lily Mithen

Goal of the Week
I'll be unnecessarily sentimental and say Beasley's first goal. Hore vs Geelong still leads.

Next Week
Now that 3/4 of last year's Preliminary Finalists are out of the way - and don't worry, our old friends Adelaide are about three weeks away with baseball bat in hand - it's what would probably shouldn't be referred to as 'nut cutting time' in this competition. First Freo away, where we've won with more experienced, intact sides. This could go either way, and unless Purcell has a miracle recovery then team selection's not going to give you anything to get excited about. The way it's going, and with the overall state of the competition, I'll take a 2-2 record, but if this goes south it may be time to gently draw the curtains and start trying to fake interest in cricket. 

Final thoughts
Can't play *unfurls list of comically bad teams from AFLW history* every week.

Mid-Morning Misery

In the days when a national women's competition was as fanciful as Melbourne winning flags, I thought our regular 1.10pm games weren't early enough. All it took to finally get our AM test case was the AFL losing interest in this competition after a week when the men came back from their break, but as it obviously wasn't done for the right reasons I'll wait for more evidence before bringing down a verdict.

The process of jamming games in anywhere they fit landed us with the ultimate in "you're not really taking this seriously are you?" fixture of recent premiers at 11.05am Saturday morning. I'm not suggesting going head to head with finals, but scheduling a game at this time was severe extraction of piss. There were five games on Sunday but none in prime time, and if the CBA allows it how about an emergency Monday night game. Anything that looks more professional than the spot usually reserved for Auskick games.

Speaking of presenting your product in a way that makes it look credible, the only upside to the (presumed) end of the Fortress Casey era is that people can stop pretending it's good just because we win there. Maybe I'm just anti because Cranbourne is about as far from my house as Shepparton, but just in case Brad Green asserts his newfound Presidential authority by revoking my membership, this is a good time to remind you that the views expressed on this page are not representative of the Melbourne Football Club. My view is that they should clear civilians then attack with helicopters like Apocalypse Now. When one of the benches displayed a petrol can sign I thought it might be the not-so-subtle secret code to do an insurance job.

I agree, burn the place down. pic.twitter.com/aDSKSt3KsX

— Adam 1.0 (@Demonblog) September 7, 2024

The club is desperate to get the name 'Field of Dreams' over, but that's only valid if you're a player, or dream about being trapped in a windy outer suburban park with a Chemist Warehouse truck in the forward pocket. Nobody official will admit these are rotten places to play but well done to the Hawthorn player who went delightfully off-script and basically said "stuff Frankston, giz stadiums". Nobody wants to put money in Carlton's pocket, but the Victorian match of the round should be played at Princes Park. Or Punt Road, or Victoria Park. Anywhere central that has at least one end protected from the wind.

Anti-Casey sentiment is one thing, but I doubt we'd have won this game at any venue in Australia. Regardless of Brisbane stinking it up last week, our depth has gone from 'fish pond' to 'Kalahari Desert' and things are looking a bit dire. On top of everyone who did a runner in the off-season and Purcell's pre-season injury, it's goodbye Tayla Harris for the year with a shoulder injury we knew about, and Lauren Pearce for what sounds like a long time after nuking her wrist at training.

Harris blazed the trail for Harris(on Petty) by playing forward all last year for just three goals, but in this case I'll accept she's more benefit to the structure than any available alternatives. This was best demonstrated by them bringing in Georgia Campbell as a replacement, even though we still had (at the time) Pearce and Watt as rucks. Campbell is the new Spencil, athletic and enthusiastic but miles off the pace. Let's see if the story is followed faithfully and she finally looks like making it just as future multiple-time All-Australian storms past and takes over. 

No matter how long Pearce is out for, that's a massive loss. There are a lot of worse teams than Brisbane to test ourselves against, but despite the good vibes from last week I'm nearly ready to write us off as a serious premiership chance and start thinking about the Ms. Bradbury Plan just to get into the top eight. Going off the injury reports I think we're down to four available players (Gall, Johnson, Madigan and D. Taylor), so when they cut to Zanker on the bench looking wrecked I thought we were on the verge of dialling Rent-A-Player for the first time since the Tex Perkins era.

Team selection chaos opened the door for our top draft pick Alyssia Pisano to debut. Giving top prospects experience and trying a different type of player to our spluttering attack were both good things, but parachuting an emerging forward into this side is like sending yachting's Rising Star nominees to Outer Mongolia. She helped set up and kick the same goal but otherwise it was pretty much just one big development opportunity, because even the regular forwards couldn't get near it. Brisbane made sure Kate Hore couldn't single-handedly rescue the side this time and down we went.

There was much fanfare about Bannan becoming the youngest player to 50 games but this is two games in a row where she's done sod all. Young player, plenty of upside, no other options etc... so happy to play her and hope for the best but since the start of last year her goalkicking is 3, 3, 0, 1, 0, 0, 5, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0 - and the five was against a practically invisible West Coast. She's not alone, our scoring has coming to a screaming halt since the glory days of tonking rotten teams last year. In a situation familiar to fans of the male game, I'll punch on to protect the reputation of the backline but they can only do so much if we're not scoring at the other end.

This was a great day for fans of our defenders, because they spent 95% of the game stopping Brisbane from kicking a massive score. The rest of the side could barely get their hands on it early, while the only similarity to beating Brisbane in a Grand Final was Gillard doing a fantastic, unheralded job of keeping them out. If I wait long enough to publish this the coaches' votes will show whether I'm barking up the wrong tree (if we get any), but her not even getting a mention in our best players on the AFL website is a triumph for judging them on disposal count alone.

The early minutes looked just like last week, grim defensive struggle and complete inability to convincingly move the ball beyond halfway. This time there wasn't even the token presence of Harris, and Hore had an opponent hanging off her all day, leaving us no chance of kicking a goal. Zanker is just kind of there without being particularly dangerous, and with the delivery reduced to panicky quick kicks, Brisbane played in extended training drill mode. 

Our first decent build-up of the quarter fell apart on the last kick, then went the other way for a goal. Double farce rewards points for it coming from a speculative long shot that bounced over everybody's head. This led to the only entertaining bit of the opening half, as my kid walked past and shrieked in delight thinking the Lions had a player called Taylor Swift. I had to make her stay until the post-goal graphic to confirm it was actually Taylor Smith. After that brief outbreak of joy, it was back to watching us trailing around behind the opposition in an ironic flashback to all the times we were the bigger and better team taking advantage of the misfortune of others.

Everything was going against us, including Brisbane players successfully hoodwinking the umpires by signalling their own free kicks like it was the 1870s. One was for a last touch that I'm sure - and god knows no review will be done to check - came off one of their players, but the same people who couldn't spot a holding the ball if their lives depended on it said "well, that's good enough for me". What would we have done with the ball anyway?

Maybe Christian Petracca saw the bit last week where I said he wouldn't get another mention during AFLW season and thought he'd stitch me up by making a cameo appearance. Either that or he and Tayla Harris were holding a 'building your brand' workshop that just happened to coincide with the game. Or they were discussing a class action for Melbourne players who kept going after injury before discovering something was seriously wrong with them.      

Considering Brisbane's early domination, there's some credit in keeping the final margin to 18 points. We've done so well over the years that we've only ever lost four games by more. But keeping that part of the damage down is one thing, there's no point losing by that much after kicking 0.1. When we finished the opening quarter with that much, I was straight to the record books for our all-time lowest score. The 'winner' is 1.2.8 against Adelaide in 2019, and I had no faith in matching it by adding the required 1. to our quarter time score of .2. 

We've previously won four times after scoring nowt in the first term but there was no obvious path to recovery here. Then things got a bit weird, as we held the opposition scoreless but reached half time looking no more likely to win due to only adding a point of our own - and even that was right at the end. Everyone was having a good old fashioned crack but it's probably a good thing that only the most enthusiastic enthusiasts were watching. It was a good defensive effort on our behalf, but ultimately about as useful as keeping one of their players to zero disposals while another was on her way to an all-time record of 43. 

There was a temporary outbreak of fun and frivolity in the third quarter when Pisano kicked her first goal, but otherwise the only thing to look forward to was reaching the final siren without anyone else getting hurt. Cut to Eden Zanker on the bench looking like she'd seriously hurt her arm and I was about to join the other 99.99% of the community and go do something else. Zanker randomly appeared again in the last quarter so I assume all is well, but what's another player who comes back after being hurt before never being seen again? If all goes wrong she could be #3 in the Petracca-Harris vs MFC lawsuit. I'm sure there was a game against Richmond where President Green was carried off on a stretcher before returning to the field but can't find any mention of it in the archives so maybe not. There goes the "yeah, but look at how well I've done?" legal option.

And really, what else is there to say? It's hard to describe a game in any detail when most of it was just the opposition doing what they liked. The effort from our side was there but they were collectively so far behind the Lions that the final margin could be considered some sort of triumph. I'm settling in for a big year of enjoying my favourite defenders keeping us afloat. I'd say more of the good stuff, less of the bad stuff but it might be a case of 'more of the shit teams, less of the good teams'. Here's to our first ever 18 team version of AFLW look at mid-table mediocrity.

2024 Daisy Pearce Medal for Player of the Year
5 - Tahlia Gillard
4 - Blaithin Mackin
3 - Kate Hore
2 - Sarah Lampard
1 - Maeve Chaplin

Apologies to Beasley, Goldrick, Hanks and McNamara

Leaderboard
8 - Kate Hore, Blaithin Mackin
5 - Tahlia Gillard (LEADER: Defender of the Year)
3 - Lauren Pearce (LEADER: Ruck of the Year)
2 - Shelley Heath, Sarah Lampard
1 - Maeve Chaplin, Sinead Goldrick

Goal of the Week
It's Hore by default, but the goal wasn't as good as last week so that one is still in the lead.

Next Week
If you strictly follow Footy Maths, North massacred Brisbane who comfortably beat us, so all signs point to a dead-set tonking. Then again, they just drew with a Geelong side we matched up well against, so god knows what's going to happen. A better guide might be last year's final, where we made kicking goals look like finding the cure for Smallpox. They haven't gotten any worse, while we've been stripped bare from multiple angles. It's back to Casey again, so here's to either a great backs to the wall victory, or the Mt. Variable Weather conditions helpfully completely stuffing North up. On recent evidence this could be the first time we kick zero goals, but I'll be watching through my fingers and hoping for the best.    

Final thoughts
Turns out this league isn't as much fun when you go from bullies to bullied. There's a life lesson for all of us in that.

I'd buy that for a dollar

Our AFL and AFLW teams are both called Melbourne, recently won a flag, bombed out of their last finals campaign in straight sets, and have seen players flee like they were escaping an exploding volcano. The similarities end when they visit Kardinia Park, where this version has won twice in a row instead of treating the trip to Geelong like it's got a higher degree of difficulty than Christopher Columbus finding passage to India. 

Even when multiple W premiership players bolted after our disappointing end to last season, there were no histrionics and various parties leaking against each other. That may be because the wider community don't care about Casey Sherriff's career motivations, but that's part of this competition's appeal to me. Supporter life is a lot calmer without 51 weeks of trade speculation, rolling news updates whenever a player rolls out of bed, and clickbait appealing to lowest common denominator dickheads. 

Say what you like about AFLW, but the longer it goes without deviant gamblers whinging about blown multis and goal umpires being assassinated with plastic bottles the better. After six months of the cameras cutting to adults doing their block like children, there's a level of purity in seeing actual children having fun in the stands because they've got room to pissfart around without the usual threat of some drunk beating them with a rolled-up Footy Record. 

The pitch of crowd frenzy is noticeably higher, and the crowd atmosphere at games is less combative, but fretting about MFC results is my thing so I was still on the verge of tipping my couch if we lost in the last 30 seconds. It turned out ok, in a week where any variety of win was welcome, we survived near administrative free kick disaster in the last minute and held on for a fighting win. It wasn't perfect, but it was what was needed at the time. Mind you, I said the same thing about the men several times before the year ended in players (probably) threatening to poke each other in the eye with a fork.

This is the least confident I've been going into an AFLW season since being scared into writing off 2020 because the previous season ended in a thumping. We turned that into playing and winning finals for the first time, then they cancelled the season a day later. This time I'm expecting this year to end somewhere in a narrow window between fringe top four and comfortably in the lower part of the eight. Now that the foundation club advantage is wearing off and even the newest expansion sides are catching up, this could be the year we drift back to the pack. Can't say we didn't get good value from starting in year one, other original teams have already done the full peak 'n plummet while we've been afloat for eight seasons and counting.

Now, after replacing a shitload of experience with draftees and gap-fillers from other clubs, the already suspect depth looks even shallower, and we arguably haven't added/uncovered a top player for a couple of years. It's hard to make informed ladder predictions when teams only play 10/17 opponents, but the draw did us no favours. In order, we play the team that knocked us out of finals, then the grand finalists. A loss here may have been had us sitting on a razor-thin margin of error at the end of the year. It could still go that way, but four points are banked in a competition where it's important to get them as quickly as possible.

The game started just after the big reveal of Christian Petracca staying, presumably having nuked all hope of a trade by giving clubs every reason to doubt he'll be worth selling the farm for. So instead of six weeks of mad speculation we now get 12 months of it before he inevitably does a runner. But that will be the last mention of Christian for the calendar year 2024 because he's had more than enough coverage recently. May everyone enjoy a full off-season of speculation/dread (delete as applicable) before we even work out if he's right to play again.

I've still got NFI who was telling the truth about what in that saga, but you wonder how some of the early W players who basically did it for the love of the game feel about it. They would have got more money working at Red Rooster than playing in the early days of the competition but all the focus is on somebody already making bulk wonga to pretend he loves Woolworths the Fresh Food People (allegedly) not thinking he's got a high enough profile. Seems like I'm in the minority who'd rather gouge their eyes out than follow celebrity social media accounts, but as entitled as anyone is to go for the game show style grab for as much cash as possible feel free to slice a percentage off for players who didn't get the chance to cash in.

Channel 7's commitment to the competition will last about a week before games are understandably punted into lesser timeslots because of the men's finals, then replaced by the 207th repeat of Home Alone until the cricket starts, but for now their gift to AFLW is a broadcast team that goes as close as you'll ever see to a buffoon rating of zero. It's a reminder that Jason Bennett and the other Al Nicholson are even better when not sharing time with shrieking simpletons, but I'm very keen on Dale (never 'Daisy') Thomas as a host, and even our beloved Nathan Jones had a new lease of life when removed from certain bad influences. It's also flat-out insanity that they don't use Nat Edwards more when she is the ultimate blend of competence and effortless natural cheer. They should all be on the AFL coverage next year instead of Kane Cornes playing Channel 7's new Chief Misery Officer. 

Luke Hodge was not involved, but we were introduced to his latest acting masterclass during the commercial breaks. I don't mind him on special comments, especially as it's obvious that he hates working with BT, but how did anyone see his solid oak performances flogging high interest loans to morons and think he's the perfect spokesman. This time it's 'Hodgey' against hayfever, confusingly opening with a similar line to the loan ads before stilted dialogue with the alleged photographer in front of an unconvincing 'stadium' green screen background.

It wasn't all good news for Channel 7, because I must have missed the explanation as to why commentators were sitting outside despite being at an actual AFL venue. This coincided with a night so windy that during the second quarter it looked like they were broadcasting the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Considering the turf looked like it had been sprayed with Agent Orange, I suppose this is all part of a swizz to get several million more taxpayers dollars into the place.  

There was a fair turnover of players from that odd finals loss to the Cats. Birch, Gay, Sherriff and West have been traded, Ivey delisted, Aimee Mackin did her knee in Ireland, and Purcell nearly back before literally breaking her face in the final practice game. They're various levels of loss but it's a lot to replace when we only drafted five players - one who they knew was out for the season. Teams in this competition are already one injury crisis away from disaster, but it feels like we're pre-teetering on the brink so hooray for getting wins on the board early. We've got #5 pick Alyssia Pisano in reserve, and the sentimental Jemma Rigoni debut, but unless somebody comes from the cloud we seem short of previously unseen impact players.

In place of the seven absentees, the new faces were an ex-Brisbane training session fill-in, a college basketballer, and a fringe GWS player across two seasons when they were rubbish, so you couldn't expect miracles. And that's exactly the angle I was heading towards when the opening minutes featured that all-too-familiar any-gender-you-like MFC experience of nobody being able to hold the ball up in attack and the other side eventually taking advantage. And the forward line is the bit where we do have some stability. The problem is that all of Bannan, Harris and Zanker can do damage but it's not so much they run hot and cold that the temperature comes out completely at random. 

In this case they complemented the conditions by being ice-cold to the point of hypothermia, which didn't do much for Ryleigh Wotherspoon in her first game. After surprisingly acting as the entire forward line in pre-season, Wotherspoon (which is uncomfortably close to 'wooden spoon') didn't score anything here but you can see she knows what she's doing and will improve with experience. 

For the sake of the 2024 season we don't have time to wait for development, so like so many times in both competitions recently it was a case of 'everyone clear out and let the stars take over'. And Kate Hore is the best we've got. Paxy has the historical legacy and Tyla Hanks the mass acquisition of disposals, but I think after eight seasons and one game in it's safe to say Hore's versatility makes her our reigning greatest ever player. It's a mark of how good you are when a team could do with multiples, and in Hore's case we could comfortably fit Kate I into the middle, Kate II into the forward line, and Kate III to mop up in defence. 

This time we needed option I to help get us out of jail, after Geelong kicked the first two and missed a shot for a third while we struggled to get the ball across halfway, then gave it straight back again when it got there. Her first goal was from a set shot, and considering the conditions the finish was a million years on from her early years where people standing 10 metres around from the forward pocket were likely to be brained by the footy if not paying attention. The second was the real team lifter, dashing around a hapless defender to goal on the run and all but wipe out Geelong's early dominance.

It was nice to be back on level terms, even if nobody - even the people calling the game from outside - could decide which end the wind advantage was to. The problem was still that while we'd had two great moments, Geelong looked far more likely to score. In our first Birch-less backline for a while, I liked Chaplin and Gillard but the ball was getting down there too easily. I'm generally biased towards them because every time Chaplin is on screen it reminds me of her BOG Grand Final celebrations, and every time Gillard is on it reminds me that she was rorted out of actual Grand Final BOG honours due to not being a midfielder. 

Not a cracker was sorted out in the second quarter, as both teams battled shithouse conditions. I think the wind blew north, east, south, and west at different times and it's a miracle that the ball stayed in the field of play as long as it did. By now our forward line wasn't just struggling to get the ball, Harris was going around with one arm after doing sod all before the injury. After speculation about her playing in defence, this was not a great advertisement for staying forward for any reason other than lack of alternatives. Sure she missed the pre-season games due to some brand (there's that word again) building excursion to the Olympics, but Blaithin Mackin only just turned up and probably played her best game yet.

So we were looking like a reasonable side, but not one likely to master the conditions and run down the home side for an important win. And the quality of that prediction was shown when we were in front by three quarter time. The undisputed highlight for stats wankers like me was Sinead Goldrick's first goal. Shifted into the midfield, she'd had an earlier shot before turning up for a crucial one here. Kicking your first after 44 games would have you top 10 in the combined VFL/AFL/AFLW history of the club, and is well ahead of previous record holder Lily Mithen about 90 seconds before the 2020 season was cancelled. From the exclusions and caveats department, Libby Birch's 55 games for zero goals is still the club record and if it comes to that, Gillard is about three seasons from catching her.

On the hardly-definitive evidence of one game, Goldrick's midfield conversion was good. Less successful, Paxy on the last line of defence. No dramas exiting 50, but there was a holding the ball in the square that made me use a popular Anglo-Saxon word starting with f.

The best of the new players was Grace Beasley, who started slow but quickly got into the inside midfield lifestyle. For somebody who has played a couple of games since doing years on the college basketball circuit she got better as the game went on and looked to run it out well. Purcell is still a step-up for experience, but hopefully they can get as many games into Beasley as possible this year. Whenever she's mentioned you may think of Kim (unless you're young and have NFI who that was), but I'm reminded of Joe and his Cheeky Monkey.

By three quarter time we'd come to terms with the wind, diseased turf, opposition full of our ex-players, and the malfunctioning forward line to be in front. By now Harris was out of the game with her dicky shoulder, after it looked like she'd been taken out by an even more severe injury, left with a twitching leg that implied stretchers, green whistles, and never being seen again. Turned out to be the footy version of kicking your foot on the couch and reacting as if shot before the shock wears off. She departed as a precaution but it coincided with Bannan and Zanker rejoining society so maybe you don't know if you need all of them. At her best Harris is a good link player and can take a contested mark, but post-flag they'd have been paying her shitloads more than what's coming back the other way.

Considering how this game started it's odd that we found ourselves more than a goal ahead and threatening to put the game away in the dying minutes. But we didn't, and with a minute to go Paxy suffered the old Collingwood-style 'not giving the ball back to the umpire' free kick, leading to a goal and several nervy seconds waiting for Geelong to pull off the miracle comeback that we so nearly did to them in the finals. But after a massive performance in the ruck all night, Lauren Pearce saved the day by winning in the middle and hoofing the ball as far away from the opposition goal as humanely possible. Time expired, we won, and I love this shit.  

2024 Daisy Pearce Medal for Player of the Year
There was nothing weird about naming the medal after an active player, and I won't let the small matter of coaching against us change that. In the style of Norm Smith refining his game at Fitzroy for a couple of years then coming back and winning everything, here's to Daisy doing her apprenticeship at West Coast then rolling back into town when Mick Stinear has had enough. 

5 - Kate Hore
4 - Blaithin Mackin
3 - Lauren Pearce
2 - Shelley Heath
1 - Sinead Goldrick

Apologies to Beasley, Chaplin, Goldrick, Hanks, McNamara

Goal of the Week
Hore on the run in the first quarter sets the standard for the rest of the year to match.

Next Week
It's the first half of the doomsday double against last year's Grand Finalists. First Brisbane, unfortunately back at Casey Fields, at the comical time of 11.05am. Remember how the league has to hit certain metrics for more games to be added to the season? Good luck with fixtures like this. Hopefully the opposition stay at the Cranbourne Motor Inn and are kept awake by over-stimulated locals fighting in the car park. They desperately need to bounce back after taking a savage home ground beating from North, so this promises to be as hot a contest as you'll get before midday on a Saturday.

Final thoughts
More of the same please.