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.