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.