As a confirmed NQR, the only thing I like as much as obscure footy stats is elections. Don't particularly care who wins because it's basically an intra-club game between crooks but percentages, swings, gains, and losses violently trigger the giant 'nerd' switch in my brain. So even though this is the first time since Saturday night games were invented that one of ours has intersected with a vote count, I still felt a bit cheated at having to take my focus off the obscure distribution of numbers to watch us play a piss boring brand of footy against a truly awful team having the worst run in their history. But I successfully managed to do both, and the biggest swing of the night didn't involve Gawn's set shot kicking so happy days.
Both viewing options included a recent powerhouse who are down on their luck due to chronic mismanagement and failure to develop new talent, represented on this channel by West Coast. May we gracefully spring off the bottom instead of the traumatic barrel-scraping that the Eagles have been in for years. Even we were only truly putrid from 2012-2014, they're now in a fourth season of rebuilding at a glacial pace, and after winning five games last year they've swirled straight back down the toilet in 2025. Having gone through this sort of trauma I know that you eventually look back and laugh at the absurdity of it, but it's gruesome at the time, so I'd really appreciate one more half-baked, fruitless swing at finals (not exactly setting the bar high there) before going into another potentially years-long death spiral.
Like us, the Eagles followed a flag season by going finals/finals/mediocrity, but even if there's not much to be said for favourably comparing yourself to them we've won more games in the last three weeks than they did in all of 2022. I'm worried that sort of blowout is still coming in a couple of years but am enthusiastic to be proven wrong.
While this was by no means a classic victory, it was a more successful MFC/federal politics crossover than our previous appearance in the genre, when Hansard dutifully recorded still unproven allegations that we were being run like the Cali Cartel. I prefer achieving Peak Stereotype by electing a former Liberal leader as President, a few years before he became the last Melbourne fan to die happy until 2021 by carking it mid-pump.
The never-to-be-defeated master of mixing sport and politics is Brian Dixon, who was elected to Victorian Parliament and played in a 113 point win on the same day. Stranger things have happened in politics (including 'winning premiership coach speech sceptic' Basil Zempilas becoming the leader of a major party), but imagine somebody trying to pull off the Dicko Double again? Even if it was done for pure comedy value, the footy media's self-obsessed shock jocks would have a coronary. Besides, in 1964 it meant Dixon got to collect two pay cheques, these days most players would be taking a pay cut to sit in the Senate.
What chance has a surprise Gawn-led ticket got of getting the respect it deserves when some plonker on the radio tried to explain Clayton Oliver's absence this week (get well soon xoxo) via the most pissweak anecdote in footy history. Apparently some bozo interrupted him on the way into the Richmond game to ask if he was going to have a big one and being told "I wouldn't have thought so". And he didn't, so Clayts is certainly a man of his word. Any chance he was just throwing out an off-hand reaction to crap fan chat rather than issuing a public cry for help? He's got things going on, but if this is the best contribution you can make then perhaps just speak about the matter in general terms?
Unnecessary investment in the 'nothing happening yet' phase of election night caused me to botch the start time of this game and arrive after Petracca's opener. On replay it was a lovely one too, and naturally reminds us of another game at this venue where he was first goalscorer. That night we got all our scoring for the next few years out of the way, and less than four seasons later were reduced to some of the most putrid attempts at placing the ball between the centre posts by foot that you'll ever hope to see.
Things got better as the inferior outfit ran out of petrol, enthusiasm, and fit players, but in the first quarter West Coast played about as badly as any non-expansion team since the Neeld era and still had more scoring shots. Like last week we eventually battled to a three goal lead before leaving the door wide open, with a sign saying 'come in and take what you like', and our address posted on a Facebook page in the style of Corey Worthington.
Even when we had the good fortune of an Eagles goal being reversed (via an unnecessarily long mandatory review that left players wandering around the ground looking confused for a minute we'll never get back), and instantly going down the other end for the rare five point play, there was no sense of imminent floodgate bursting. The clearances were 10-0 at one point, but the lead still didn't look safe because of how laboured every attack was. Albo's first game as Prime Minister was the end of our 17 game winning streak, and for his entire first term we've never had a settled, dangerous-looking forward line. Forget the cost of living, promise key forwards and quality delivery and I'll commit electoral fraud on your behalf.
When it was revealed that the Eagles came in with the equal worst start for quarters won in VFL/AFL history, level with two sides who didn't win a game, I went on full Sydney '93 banana peel alert. Bog average team a couple of years out of finals starts the season winless, battles to two wins in a row, then goes interstate as hot favourites against shizen opposition. The difference is that in 1993 I was a naive near enough to 12-year-old who hadn't yet been broken by footy or real life, and parked myself in front of the TV on that fateful Sunday afternoon 100% sure of a win.
I've never been that optimistic since, and as bad as the Eagles are I wasn't going to shift policy in an era where we're eventually going to finish a game on 3.8.24. We shouldn't have lost this, and didn't, but not without a scare on either side of half time that had me breathing into a paper bag about everything we'd clawed back in the last fortnight going up in smoke. That could happen as early as next week, but it won't come as the first victim of a winless side.
I don't hold any great affection for Andrew McQualter after one season with us, somehow turning a year in charge of a midfield that wasn't as good as it used to be into a senior job, but he's got to coach a win eventually and I didn't fancy the limited irony in it coming against us. He's been handed a flaming bag of shite on the way into the job, but his insights into our midfielders didn't translate into any info the Eagles players could use, because they may as well not have been there in the first quarter.
Throwing emerging ruckmen against Gawn is like pinging pebbles at a battleship, but that wasn't a problem when they caught us by surprise in the corresponding fixture last year. This time we didn't fall into the trap of letting King Harley Race do whatever he liked, sending Viney to continue his tag led recovery, removing Harley as a serious threat. We still had to see the highlights of him fending off Oliver and Petracca, but you'll never get away from that footage now. It's better than that shithouse vitamin (?) ad he's in, which is second only for bad footy commercials to Petracca being used as a homoerotic smiling stepladder by him from Sydney.
If Harley doesn't want to play for us after inevitably walking out on the Eagles in the next couple of years, we need to direct him towards whichever club is most likely to get Petracca so we can shut that escape hatch and force Trac to reluctantly/heroically go down (in almost every sense of the word) as a one club player. He's not the same player as the one who went boonta on 25/09/21, but who is? Gawn, Bowey, Lever when fit, and Pickett only because he did bugger all in the Grand Final. I'd be satisfied if Oliver went now just to remove the media circus element, and am resigned to Pickett legging it in the next couple of years, but I really want Petracca to stay and realise that it's morally better to live and die as a one club legend than play a handful of big games elsewhere and be treated as an afterthought in retirement.
Surely with competition from an unpredictable election and a game between top teams on the other channel, not a single neutral was still watching this game by the first break. Especially with commentary from our old friends at the Western Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I was invested in this game and they still made me want to jam foreign objects through the eardrums. Don't let the Will Schofield novelty interview with Gawn at the end detract from him being the worst special comments man since Doug Hawkins. West Coast fans wanted to get rid of Don Scott, but the call is coming from inside the house now.
At one point he was sooking about some sort of cheapshot behind play that was so earth-shattering and consequential that nobody bothered to replay it. I think it was Spargo bumping into somebody, but as the Match Review Officer managed to ignore this while plucking out a fine for Rivers running into an umpire I'll just assume he was auditioning for a gig on Sky News by putting on fake outrage. I know interstate people bleed from every orifice about Victorian commentator bias, but we're not pretending Taylor, Russell et al are any good and would be happy to bin them for almost anyone else, so don't pretend this guy is any good. While you're it, sit Matthew Pavlich down and assure him that he's got a job for life in WA footy and doesn't need to tarnish his reputation by carrying on like Ted Whitten at a state game. In isolation, Adam Papalia is good, but he's being dragged down by association with these knuckleheads.
Thanks to West Coast being inept, we got to quarter time in front and without conceding a goal. It wasn't for want of trying, including a free against Tholstrup at the end that wrapped up the worst quarter of his senior career. He's learning, was probably overexcited to be playing in front of a home audience, and got better as the game went on but it was a rocky start. Koltyn (!?) got the hook last week, and was likely only saved from a similar fate here when Petty went off concussed. Never mind, the best thing now is to get games into him. He was ripped off blind at one point but umpires who had serious problems judging distance, trying to create an 'outside five' situation by standing about 10 metres off the player with the ball, but being called to stand and left wobbling around one leg like somebody playing Twister.
I've got a McGuire-esque radical plan to help take some of the controversy away from estimating distance, if you intercept an opposition kick untouched it should be a mark no matter how far the ball travelled. Even if somebody boots it straight into your guts from one metre away and you hit the deck clutching the ball on top of your shattered ribcage it should count. It's rude when a player intercepts a dud kick by the other team and gets instantly clobbered in a tackle, penalise teams for giving the ball away more. Laura Kane and the other bloke, you can contact me for rules consultancy via the usual channels.
Speaking of controversial decisions, it's a rare win for common sense that Jake Melksham wasn't held liable for injuring the player who was flattened by an unrelated pair of players after being nudged out of a marking contest. They had to come up with a long, flowery explanation to stop other teams from citing it as a precedent but it came down the obvious fact that he was watching the ball the whole time, and couldn't reasonably have known that trying to mark the ball would cause injury. It's not like he deliberately shoved George McGovern into oncoming players like somebody being lobbed into the path of an express train, and I'd argue that the West Coast player with the meth dealer haircut contributed just as much to the contact.
Despite all that I was surprised that he didn't get three weeks, following on from the league's 2025 policy of panicking about players running into each other. I thought the match review would take the easy way out and suspend him, knowing we'd obviously challenge. Goodwin's view that it wasn't even a free kick is a bit inflammatory, but let's have more harking back to the Maynard vs Brayshaw wankfest by declaring it a 'football act' at every opportunity. It would've been a disaster to lose him for several weeks just before playing the good teams, because after being written off multiple times he's still the best kick inside 50 that we've got at nearly 34 years old. If Spargo got more than five kicks a game or Pickett could kick to himself they might challenge, but for now Melksham makes our often invisible forward seem a lot better.
Maybe it helped Melksham's case that the poor man's Kane Cornes instantly started waffling about how many weeks he'd go for. The MRO probably heard that and decided he didn't want to be associated with anything Schofield had to say. I'd have done a deal where we accepted a suspension for Melk as long as Schofield was banned from involvement in twice as many Melbourne games in Perth.
The collision left McGovern making wacky expressions that indicated either concussion or a broken face. Either way you knew he wasn't coming back, and he didn't but there was a suggestion by the Eagles' in-house broadcast team that while he was subbed off, West Coast wasn't admitting he had a concussion. This didn't sound very realistic, but I was waiting for Melksham to be rubbed out and McGovern to miraculously return next week, like a modern version of Trengove dropping Dangerfield on his head then sitting on the couch the next week while Danger struggled so severely with the effects that he only kicked six.
I'm not wishing injury on anyone (except retrospectively on all the players who turned out to be nonces/wifebeaters etc..), and we didn't yet know that Petty was going to depart due to the same incident, but it helped our cause that the Eagles lost one of their few senior players who remembers what it's like to play with his dignity intact. This was especially helpful when we went from kicking the first goal of the quarter to being on full mega upset alert by half time. As usual, there were chances to lay the boots in but we missed set shots, and in the traditional manner, our opposition went on a 10 minute bender that might have been fatal if done by nearly any other team.
I don't know if Jayden Hunt kicks goals against anyone else, but for the second year in a row he got amongst it against us. I've still got happy memories of his time with us (especially the underrated highlight of early COVID, when his car started after being left in the MCG carpark for months), but the poor guy went out looking fresh-faced and joyful, and now has the grizzled appearance of somebody who's come back from war permanently scarred by seeing untold atrocities.
That's probably how it feels to be a Victorian who willingly joined a Perth club just as they turned into a natural disaster zone, giving him a lot of time flying back-and-forth across the country to think about it. After playing in 10 wins to start his final season with us, Hunt is now 8-43 since joining the Eagles. I propose a kidnap scheme to save him when the Eagles come here for the rematch in Round 21. He might not get a game with us, but maybe Richmond needs an experienced player to go with all their new recruits. It won't stop the unmerciful beatings, but he'll get home quicker.
The sixth of Hunt's eight wins came against us, and there was genuine fear of lucky #9 when they finally got the ball out of the centre, and hit the lead. We got away with them missing one late in the quarter, but that was made up for a minute after the restart when a couple of usually hapless Eagles forwards nearly stuffed up an easy goal via "you first, no you first" hesitation before one of them finally just decided to punt the bloody thing through. I was feeling lower Peter Dutton at this point, third quarters have been our best all season but the idea of pouring on a string of goals that effectively killed the game seemed far-fetched.
In a throwback to the GWS game (which seems a lifetime ago now), Windsor kicked another wonderful third quarter goal to the right of screen after pelting through the middle of the ground. The tight zoom meant I couldn't tell if the roar after was towards teammates or opponents, but it seemed a bit early for the latter. He obviously knew better, because this was the green light to commence our match-winning burst.
A four quarter performance eventually would be ace, and probably necessary to beat any of Hawthorn, Brisbane, Sydney or a St Kilda side that's rediscovered Ross Lyon's joy of slow-strangulations in the next month. And the fixture doesn't get much better than that after, so if we're going to rest on this performance and/or rely on Herculean backstory-free performances by Gawn, the three wins on the bounce might be the last you see for a while.
Speaking of Supreme Leader Max, I don't think anyone was upset when Langdon played on from a ruck free instead of letting the captain have another set shot. He finally snuck one home in the last quarter, but I make no apologies for constantly talking about how astonished I am that he converted the famous one in 2021. I'll still be pondering it on my deathbed. Might reference it on the headstone. Before that, Max has definitely qualified for an autobiography to be released around Christmas in the late 2020s, and I demand a chapter on that kick that's not as gratuitously ghost-written as the Captain's Diaries. I'll do it this time, as long as the publisher is willing to go for 500+ pages.
There was more broadcasting gold when Petty departed with concussion and we were told that "both teams are down a key defender" when he'd been playing as a forward for a month. You could claim to have been talking about Turner going forward, but they obviously weren't. The manpower balance went back in our favour when one of their players had a random ankle blowout, but as we were still only a point in front it made a potential loss even more embarrassing. A week after saying that there's no such thing as a shit win at the moment, I was ready to take the shittest of victories here if required.
Straight after the Langdon goal, we flung out of the middle and Fritsch took his best mark in years for the immediate double. There was a brief interlude for the Eagles to kick a goal (PS: I don't think it bodes well for us how often they scored when going inside 50) and for Tholstrup to miss twice, before Chandler kicked an absolute ripper. He gathered a loose ball on the boundary line, ran past two defenders, then had to do a high angle finish, on the run, from a slight angle to get it over a defender standing between him and the goal. It was a great finish, but the secret ingredient was crime, because the ball only got to him thanks to a ripper of a push by Turner, back in the forward line after Petty's demise.
Turner then got one for himself, via another solid forward 50 mark. You've got to adjust for opposition and surprise element, but on 1.5 quarters of evidence I'm convinced Disco is a better key forward than Petty. Yes, this again. Petty had a good couple of weeks before barely going near it here, and it's good to have both options available so we can move players around at the drop of a hat and try to blind opposition sides with science, but Turner has my vote.
Petty will miss next week with concussion, and we've got to reintroduce JVR at some point before he blows up and tries to join Freo, but Harrison please proceed back into defence until either Lever returns or we need to spring a mid-match surprise. I appreciate that he did more in two weeks than about 18 last season, but if he can avoid injury or knee-jerk selection decisions for a few weeks in a row, Turner is the man. Now watch him kick 1.5 in the next month and end up back in the VFL.
For unknown reason we're tedious for 75% of every game but get exciting in the third quarter. The fun continued with a freebie, as Viney was lightly whacked around the bonce during an attempted spoil and a 50 made certain of the goal. I was happy to take it, but thought the 50 was a bit harsh when it came as part of the motion of trying to spoil. So, in a rare bit of concern for other teams, I'm outraged that he ended up being suspended for a week. It's one thing if somebody takes a mark then you round-arm them in the chops on the way down, but this was simultaneous so I'm offended. Obviously they changed the rules after van Rooyen spoiled that Gold Coast player into an alternative universe two years ago. West Coast is still rich enough to pay for a challenge and they should do it just to make a point.
Once the margin was out to five goals I was as comfortable as I'm going to get that far below the Chris Sullivan Line. If Fritsch converted after Melksham hit him with a delightful kick I'd have been ready to quietly declare victory. Still pretty good, considering how we were going a minute into the quarter, and even with our traditionally putrid final terms I didn't think there was much danger of the Eagles running us down.
My target was to kick more than one goal in the last quarter, but I didn't expect six, which is only one short of our total from rounds 1-7. That's also Gawn's record in front of goals this season after finally converting at the eighth attempt. He didn't need a goal to be best on ground by a country mile, but it was a nice bonus. Out of nowhere, this was his record for possessions in a game, and the first time he's ever had +30 in a win. Once he retires we'll ponder his greatest games, but off the top of my head I'll have the 2021 Prelim or the Hawthorn game earlier that year when he was pulling down contested marks like an absolute madman. It was more than good enough for a game like this though, and when he's done I'll push granny down the stairs to be present for the standing ovation during his lap of honour.
Just when you thought it might be time for full feet-up relaxation or maybe even a rare landslide finish, we conceded the next two goals to bring the margin within "surely not, but wouldn't be horrible if..." range. Then Spargo rumbled long-term hostage Hunt holding the ball (even if the ball did accidentally land on his other foot after the umpire had already made their mind up) and an unpleasant fiasco was officially off the agenda. Could've done without conceding five in the final term, but I'll take it as a trade off for kicking six. Here's to getting another six across the next four weeks in total.
The good news is that we've won three in a row, and I very much appreciate that. The bad news is that we've now played the three bottom sides, and some of the ones at the other end of the ladder are going to absolutely ROOT US at this rate. But that's a next week problem, for now I'm just content to avoid losing.
2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Max Gawn
4 - Jake Melksham
3 - Jack Viney
2 - Kade Chandler
1 - Daniel Turner
Apologies to Fritsch, Langford, McDonald, Petracca, Spargo and Windsor.
Leaderboard
He's had to contend with Oliver, Petracca, and natural midfielder bias, but it seems a touch rude that Gawn has only won the Jakovich once. But like 2019, he looks likely to salute by way of carrying the team through a shit season. Not a cracker of progress in the minor awards, other than Max making the Stynes even more secure.
24 - Max Gawn (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
15 - Jake Bowey (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
9 - Clayton Oliver, Kysaiah Pickett
8 - Kade Chandler, Ed Langdon
7 - Xavier Lindsay (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Christian Petracca
6 - Jack Viney
5 - Harvey Langford, Tom McDonald, Jake Melksham
4 - Tom Sparrow
2 - Jake Lever, Harrison Petty, Christian Salem
1 - Harry Sharp
Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
The originally unseen Petracca goal and Windsor's cover version of Round 1 would be winners in most weeks, but I loved the Chandler goal so much that I'm promoting it to first place for the season. Chandler is such a good guy that he even gave his boots to some kids scabbing for them over the fence after the final siren. I don't think this sort of behaviour should be encouraged, but who am I to argue with Chandler continuing to be one of the most cheerful players in the league? Better than the Eagles players having to go around the boundary line handing out footies when they probably just wanted to curl up in a ball and die. A few weeks ago they lost a thriller then had to go around giving easter eggs to fans, which felt like the biggest pisstake ever visited on a group of professional sportsmen.
I'm sure one of the clowns on commentary said our game against Hawthorn would be in Tasmania, as if they don't still play home games in Victoria. Or indeed that it may be our home game, which it is. After two good but not great wins against dreck, this is a massive test. I'm not expecting to win but would love some evidence that we really have improved in the last three weeks. If there was ever a week to manage Gawn this would be it, but we're committed to running the great man into the ground so it's not time for the Tom Campbell 'Break In Case Of Emergency' button yet.
IN: van Rooyen, Oliver (to sub)
OUT: Petty (inj), Sharp (omit)
LUCKY: Tholstrup
UNLUCKY: Laurie
Final thoughts
According to AFL Live Ladders, there's still a .01 per cent probability of finishing in the top two, but you'll need to be over .05 to think there's any chance of that happening. Our current three per cent chance of making finals is more attractive, but have a cold shower because it's not going to happen. However, the dream of finishing above Essendon and wrecking the value of the trade that delivered us Lindsay is alive and well. When you've got nothing else to do it for, do it for spite.
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