Driving Off Miss Daisy

* Headline presented for novelty purposes only, we encourage Daisy to return to Melbourne as coach eventually.

After publishing last week's post, I felt bad about getting frustrated at the giant gulf between the top and bottom AFLW players. It's true that over-expansion created a ridiculous gap between the league's best and worst players, but after 9.5 years of loyal league patronage it felt like the sporting equivalent of saying you don't like the people marching for [insert your least favourite political cause here], but "they have some good points". Obviously, I'm pro-W, I just think there's about 100 players who'd be better served playing in a second division competition than on national television. Also, fair chance I was just sour after an unexpected loss. 

The moral ledger was corrected this week when I went to some of the most extreme lengths to avoid spoilers in AFLW history. I was always going to be watching on delay due to family commitments, so thought there was no point rushing home and I might as well go full Fat Parent and take the kids for a Maccas on the way home. And of all the things they could be showing on the TV with the sound up, you can guess what was on.

Given that the result was never in doubt, would it have really hurt to know the score at what I think was just before three quarter time? Well, a little bit yes because I'd probably have gone home rubbing my hands together in glee about kicking six goals to nil in the last quarter and winning by a hundred only to see us go into "that'll do" mode and let the Eagles kick several token goals. As I somehow managed to lock eyes on the screen without taking in the score, the poor baffled children were reversed out the door and forced to eat chicken nuggets in the car via the drive-through. Fairly shit parenting, but score blackout integrity is important.

I could've guessed that the score at that point of the game was going to be Melbourne LOTS, West Coast MUCH LESS, because that's happened every time we've ever played them. After a break last season when we probably couldn't take advantage anyway, this was a return to the series of games now stretched over seven seasons where we'd previous won by 59-79 points and restricted them to three goals in twelve quarters. It says something when this became their best ever performance against us after no goals for three quarters, and letting Eden Zanker put frighteners into the estate of Fred Fanning before half time.

Like all the dud sides in the competition, they'll be good eventually and all we'll have is the memory of the walkovers. Fortunately, we've now got four of them to consider. The last quarter wasn't as violent as it might've been, but it would be rude to complain considering the level of domination before that. This is one competition where you can honestly say the Eagles are a better side than ever, and we wish Daisy as well as you can anyone associated with such a born to rule operation, but it was still going to take a major reversal of fortune and/or disaster to beat us.

With the Eagles already up against it, the interests of competitive balance were not served by us kicking with a four goal wind in the first quarter. Obviously, both sides would get their chance to use it etc.. etc.. etc.. but the last thing they needed after playing Darryl Cullinan to Shane Warne in our previous meetings was to be chasing down a big lead. 

For once, the wind was blowing practically straight down one end instead of east, west, north, and south at random times, and the chance of the visitors kicking a competitive score was made more difficult by the return of Australia's all-time #1 most popular Gillard to our backline. So when we kicked three goals in the opening minutes it was thanks heaps to the opposition for travelling across the country and then taking the more arduous journey to Cranbourne, but they were designated as cannon fodder. I can't argue their commitment, and keeping us down to four goals despite the breeze was a reasonable achievement but you could fit Argentina through the gaps they left for the goals to Zanker x2 and Harris, so it didn't bode well for keeping scores respectable.

At least they could look forward to a bit of wind-assisted attack in the second quarter, and though I doubted they had it in them to take full advantage there was a mark at the top of the 50 from the first bounce. That only turned into a point, before they got a reminder how futile their task was when we went down the other end and a Hanks snap that was never going to make the distance bounced over a defender and into Zanker's hands for a third. Then, after a West Coast player randomly kicked backwards from the next bounce Paxy stuffed the ball down Zanker's throat for four, and Daisy was in danger of becoming surely the first coach in history to preside over the loss of their own club record for most goals in a game.

When Zanker's fifth goal went in halfway through the quarter, the record she jointly held with Pearce, Bannan and Hore looked like being demolished by half time. Especially with the use of the wind in the third quarter, and the way she beat multiple defenders to pull down an up the chimney snap by Bannan on the line when they had every chance to punch it through. It's a miracle and/or credit to the fighting spirit of the opposition that she only had one more decent chance for the rest of the game.

Those of you who watched live would have been aware long before me that we'd already done our best work, but unlike last week there was something to be said for having so many talls. They could switch their entire backline onto Zanker and it would just open the door for Bannan, Gall, Harris etc.. to run riot. The record nearly went before the break, but as Zanker's shot fell short, Channel 7's effects mic started picking up random conversations of fans on the boundary line. We must be close to a repeat of that time the live feed of the draft caught a kid saying they'd shit themself. Based on things heard later in the game these voices may have been coming from the West Coast bench, which makes the "oh no" even funnier.

Due to watching on a savage delay, there was no time for the quarter break festivities. These appeared to be a non-stop tribute to Daisy Pearce. Fair enough as far as I'm concerned, the more talk about that Grand Final the better. If you ever needed proof that the AFL don't really care about this competition, it's that they didn't find a way to direct her to a coaching job in Victoria. Whether she can coach or not I have zero idea (and won't base anything on this fiasco), but how do they let the biggest name in the code waste away in the provinces when there's promotional opportunities to be had in the game's heartland. Not to mention the opportunity to retain one of the few people on Channel 7's coverage who don't make you want to put your head in the dishwasher.

The Eagles finally got a spot of luck at the start of the third quarter when a Wotherspoon shot that could easily have bounced through sat up and allowed them to escape. Except that kick didn't go far enough to a defender who refused to believe it hadn't been paid, and was pinged holding the ball. Somehow they got out of all this by only conceding points, but for all their tackling intensity and what I'll patronisingly call 'endeavour' they didn't look likely to reach their one goal a game average. 

This was more of a glorified training drill than a serious trial for playing finals, but it was another four points towards qualifying, which is better than trying to storm back from disaster last year. West Coast managed to hold us out for the first few minutes, at the expense of never looking like kicking a goal of their own. Our non-stop attack finally turned into Harris booting the shit out of a snap and the margin went beyond 50. I'm surprised Lower Plenty McDonalds still had it on at this point and hadn't switched to ads for Fillet O'Fish. 

On a day where our best players had the opportunity to fill their boots, it was pleasing that for once Hore and Hanks were just guests at the party rather than the driving forces. Still, Hore nicked out the back for a second goal, and when Pisano got one too we were half a chance of a record score. Sadly (for us), the wrong half. 

There was still a wind to kick into in the last quarter, but as it didn't make much of a difference the first time you could see it getting ugly. Especially when into-the-breeze specialist Zanker marked directly in front, but despite huge post-mark celebrations by Bannan (showing full team spirit considering her part of the record was potentially about to disappear), but she pushed it wide and never went close again. From here it was - against the odds - all West Coast. They finally got a goal, and just to prove that we can be charitable even while winning in a canter, it went to somebody who had previously kicked one in 30-something games.

This kicked off a bit of junktime, which led to West Coast's second goal via a free kick that would never be paid if the result was doubt. The season is a marathon (well, a lengthy fun run) not a sprint etc... so I won't hold it against them for not going full pelt to the final siren. Other than seeing if Zanker could kick six, I was most interested in the people chatting on the boundary line, including the guy angrily telling somebody (or perhaps a dog) to "get off" something. That's all the publicity the league needs in Grand Final week, footage of a canine vigorously humping someone's leg on the boundary line. 

Sadly there was to be no record-breaking goal, but we did our bit for the credibility of the competition by letting the Eagles kick as many goals for the quarter as their previous 15 against us. Bit of a flat finish, but it's a fifth win out of six in a 12 game season, and I'm not suggesting we're going to win anything this year but the opposition ahead for the rest of the season is flat enough that I'm sure we're going to get a shot in finals, hopefully relatively injury free, and here's hoping to catch the otherwise unassailable North on a bad day. 

2025 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Eden Zanker
4 - Eliza McNamara
3 - Maeve Chaplin
2 - Tayla Harris
1 - Tyla Hanks

Apologies to Fitzsimon, Hore, Gillard and Taylor

Leaderboard
A week after declaring the rest of the list NO CHANCE of catching the leaders, Chaplin and Harris chip slightly into the gap and keep it interesting. Hanks narrowly pinches the lead, and in this shortened season of 12 games + surely to god at least one final, we're not far away from shutting the gate on anyone who hasn't scored yet. No change in the minor awards, but we're not far away from Chaplin being declared provisional DOTY winner. 

20 - Tyla Hanks
19 - Kate Hore
12 - Maeve Chaplin (LEADER: Defender of the Year), Tayla Harris
6 - Eliza McNamara, Olivia Purcell
5 - Paxy Paxman, Eden Zanker
3 - Shelley Heath
1 - Megan Fitzsimon, Saraid Taylor (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Eden Zanker

Goal of the Week
No offence to any of the Zanker Five, but I love when somebody kicks a snap like it owes them money so this week's winner is T. Harris. Hore from the pocket vs Collingwood still leads.,

Next Week
We complete the Coast to Coast at Casey double with a visit from the Gold variety. As much as I usually despise any type of double header, explain how it makes any sense to be playing a public fixture on Mt. Variable Weather when Princes Park isn't being used until 5pm? Sorry to the people who live locally, but you can either have 2000 of the same people who go every week, or at least the same number of fans from around the city at a ground not generally subject to gale force winds.   

On paper, Gold is even worse than West, but I'm taking nothing for granted. To be fair, they did nearly beat Adelaide this week before dead-set evapourating in the final quarter. We should win, and hopefully after Daisy's unhappy return, it's Lily Mithen's turn to get flashbacks to past thumping wins at Casey.  

Final thoughts
Don't know if this did anything for the league's credibility, but it was more fun than losing.

Gravity catches up

It took five weeks of the season, but we've finally got some sort of answer to "what happens against decent sides?" If our inaugural game against Port is anything to go by, we'll have a fair crack and look good for parts of the game, but find out that you can't play [unfurl long list of shite teams] every week. I doubt Port will go anywhere near the flag (and aren't we all just playing to be in the right place at the right time if North stack it) but they had us covered here more comfortably than the margin would suggest.

I've got some sympathy with Port as a club due to the Choke Yourself With A Tie incident in 2004, but can't take the nuffies who express themselves via middle finger and community singing. It helps that I've still never met a genuine Port Adelaide fan since 1996. It made sense to do the scarves aloft power balladry for a game at their spiritual home, but it did come off a bit sad compared to a (relatively) full stadium doing it. 

Their cheersquad also had a self-promoting banner that included adjectives about what they offer to the supporting experience, which is the supporter version of having to explain a joke. Who am I to try and analyse what's going on in that part of the world. All I know is that they went home on the winning side, and I don't know whether it's full "back to the drawing board" stuff with us considering how limited the range of options are, but it's confirmation as far as I'm concerned that we could make finals, but are STUFF ALL chance of a flag unless North go into recess mid-season.

The camera angle at the centre bounce was another South Australian innovation, with the diagonal angle their most novel contribution to footy since calculating percentage in an offbeat way. The non-traditional viewing continued once play started. All non-centre camera shots came from the usual side-on viewpoint, but we were being put under an uncharacteristic level of pressure. I don't think we've struggled to move the ball like this since last year's Windy Hill Massacre. Port put the brakes on our ball movement, causing mass panic to break out.

We survived two early behinds before concededing after what looked suspiciously like one of those throws where the other hand is held close enough to the ball that the umpire fools themselves into believing it was real. Non-stop whinging about umpires having to make interpretations is what's going to land us with this nonsense last touch rule in the men's competition, and the way holding/dropping/disposing of the ball is umpired in AFLW they may as well cut out the middle person and introduce the old VFA throw pass.

I may be against the last touch rule (partially because of the stupid pantomime motion the boundary umpires have to do), but it did set up our first chance. In a sign of things to come, Zanker missed what I would deem - as an unfit, middle-aged man with knees you'd shoot a racehorse for - an easy shot. You already got the idea that this wasn't going to be a classic by the time we'd struggled to match their two behinds.

Other than the Zanker miss we hadn't looked remotely dangerous going forward, and I thought there was going to be dual umpiring chaos when the Port forward turned/ducked into a ripper of a tackle from Heath, but sanity prevailed and it was called holding the ball. Bannan nearly nicked one during some sustained pressure at the end but missed her snap from the square.

They got the only goal of the quarter, while we'd kicked the least scary 0.4 of all time. The ludicrous idea of "if they'd kicked 4.0 instead they'd be miles in front" has been discussed before, and you never know what one goal will lead to, but we just looked inept forward. Strangely, Gall nearly got her career high disposals in the first quarter while playing into a reasonable wind, before proceeding to go without a touch once we were kicking with the breeze.

This was all ok if we took advantage of the wind. Which we didn't, and the second quarter was more missed shots until it got to the same 0.6 I was ruthlessly extracting the piss out of Richmond for last week. We did get a goal, but the best bit was Harris taking personal offence to a smothered kick and BURYING her opponent after they picked up the ball. That was about it for highlights, and by the time Port got their third goal we were on the verge of folding before half time for the first time since the original Great Injury Crisis last year. 

We stayed alive from the next bounce when Harris landed a lovely kick on Wotherspoon, who handballed to a passing Hore for the much-needed goal - and as it turns out our only one for the half. Sure we nearly came back to win this, but it was still as convincing as a get well card from the Tobin Brothers. The margin got to 17 points in the third quarter before, having failed to create goals via all the usual methods, we had to wait for Hore to get clubbed in the head by a tackle for a second goal. 

Under normal circumstances you'd say at least we were coming home with the wind, but it didn't do us much bloody good the first time. I may have been more confident if we'd got one goal closer by three quarter time then hope the opposition died in the arse due to furious pressure, but we blew multiple chances with forward entries that failed to recognise that the best thing about our attack is their marking. Individually, I think all our forwards are great, but there's no doubt the forward line is too tall - especially when they have to send Pearce and/or Campbell down there as well. Not a lot we can do about this now, but for god's sake please scour the lands for a crumber in the off-season.

Any hope of The Great Escape in the last quarter started with shoelace headband enthusiast Wotherspoon, then seemingly ended when we conceded about a minute later. But all was not lost, Harris kicked a ripper of a set shot from distance to make it 10 points with nine minutes left. This was hardly insurmountable, but required two goals without answer after making the previous four look more complicated than the space program.

By now Port were holding on, lucky to be playing against a forward line converting chances at sarcastic 'much vaunted' levels. Our last hope was a free to Hore on an obscure angle, and she kicked a ripper to bring the margin under a goal with 90 seconds. After assuming we'd lose for about 2.5 quarters, it was carn the reverse mozz as we threatened a daylight robbery style pinch. And cripes, it almost happened, as we went forward again but Fitzsimon's poked kick at an open goal missed. If Port had any hospitality they'd have stuffed the kick-in straight down the throat of one of our players 20 metres out directly in front, but disappointingly they prioritised winning and survived until the final siren. 

Is this the first time we've lost our inaugural game against a side since kicking ourselves to death againt St Kilda in their first year? On to the next one I suppose, where hopefully both Melbourne AFLW and I find more inspiration.

2025 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Kate Hore
--- The distance you'd get by lining up every human to have lived since the dawn of time ---
4 - Tayla Harris
3 - Tyla Hanks
2 - Maeve Chaplin
1 - Eden Zanker

Apologies to Gall, Heath, Paxman, Taylor and Zanker

Leaderboard
There's as much chance of somebody outside the top two winning this as there is of world peace breaking out by lunchtime Thursday, so strap yourself in for an epic Clash of the Titans from here. 

19 - Tyla Hanks, Kate Hore
10 - Tayla Harris
9 - Maeve Chaplin (LEADER: Defender of the Year)
6 - Olivia Purcell
5 - Paxy Paxman
3 - Shelley Heath
2 - Eliza McNamara
1 - Megan Fitzsimon, Saraid Taylor (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Eden Zanker

Goal of the Week
It's obviously the Hore set shot, why wouldn't it be? Does not topple her own clubhouse leader from the Collingwood game.

Next Week
It's the day you've been waiting for, Daisy Pearce Medal Contenders vs Daisy Pearce Coached Team. We've treated the Eagles like roadkill, never losing by less than 59 points and holding them to three goals total across three games, but while they're clearly improving we should still start red hot favourites. There's even good news on the injury front, with Gillard and Goldrick both a chance to return. Cancel your Rent-A-Player annual subscription. He says before 14 players get hurt in the first quarter.

Final thoughts
In the spirit of openness and honesty for the three people who read this far, I'm getting a bit frustrated watching this league due to the enormous gap between best and worst players. Obviously it's on the way to being more balanced thanks to increased pathways etc... etc... but 10 seasons in teams are fielding players who may have looked perfectly reasonable in the early days, but now look like they won a competition to be out there. I swear this has nothing to do with us losing for the first time all year.

Off off off Broadway hit

It's been another week of seismic shocks and surprises in the football world, but none bigger than the Melbourne W injury list shrinking. Surely this unprecedented turn of events involved a few near misses and burst organ scares at training, because this season playing for us has had a lower survival rate than the Eastern Front in World War II. The sick list still says [attach additional pages], but we were down to one Rent-A-Player on the bench and even had the luxury of omitting somebody.

Our slightly less cobbled together than usual lineup took care of Richmond, but while I'm usually fanatical about scheduling the AFLW season after the men's competition is over, it's probably a good thing that this game was overshadowed by finals. Pick your own combination of our diminished lineup, enthusastic but ultimately crap opposition, and/or the usual spectacle destroying Casey wind, but the life choices of any neutrals who watched from start to finish are in question. Late in the third quarter, even a tragic consumer of MFC-related games like me thought it might be better off if the captains just shook hands and agreed on a margin.

I choose to take the safe option and lay most of the blame on the venue. Lucky nobody is reading this, because I wouldn't want the club to be connected to my hatred of Casey Fields but the only good thing about this windswept, turd of a place is our winning record. One day the galaxy of stars will be gone, we'll be the ones with 0.5 at three quarter time, and everyone will be able to admit how crap the place is. But not this week, as we still had enough quality to kick eight goals via brute force forward entries, and opposition that incinerated chances at the temperature of an industrial smelter.

God only knows how many were watching, but for Melbourne fans it was a case of 'we happy few' as the usual legends ran riot. The first bounce went through the hands of Hanks and Hore, and that's pretty much all you need in a game like this. North Melbourne, Hawthorn (?), Adelaide (??) Brisbane (???) etc... will ruthlessly exploit us for reliance on stars, and Collingwood nearly got away with it last week, but you could tell pretty quickly where this game was going.

Getting the ball forward inside 50 is a piece of piss, but conversion could become a problem against non-flotsam/jetsam opposition. This one nearly landed with Zanker, which was the story of the day for most of our forward entries. The diagonal wind didn't help, and yes all outdoor grounds are subject to variable conditions etc... etc... but some of them are more affected than others, and when you're already dealing with thin playing depth stretched across 18 teams, this is just mocking the players and counterproductive to the image of the competition. Even the banner went to bits, and as only 150 more people turned up last time when there were helicopter hijinks, I'm sad that we're probably only playing there because it's cheaper than renting Princes Park.

We had what advantage there was from the wind, but it took a couple of half-chances, and just as many blatant holding/dropping the ball decisions in our favour, to finally remind Richmond that they were engaged in a futile task. Enter Bannan, to casually rip a snap around the corner for the opening goal. All the talls would subsequently get involved, and they'll get the job done against lesser teams most of the time but the lack of crumb will come back haunt us eventually. 

Shame you can't do mid-season trades, because we've got so many KPF options that one could turn into multiple players to fix potential problems around the ground. As the game went on I felt a little guilty at having all these forward riches that we couldn't fully take advantage of, while the opposition attack was  so comically bad. If you believe Nathan Burke, the AFL blocked trades that didn't benefit expansion clubs, but were obviously having a sickie when we got Harris, Purcell etc... for relatively bugger all. I know GWS aren't allowed to be controversial because they're a protectorate of the league, but I'd like their thoughts on this as a foundation club that celebrated the expansion years by losing a game 97-1.

Don't feel too bad for Richmond though, they played finals last year so technically we were the plucky underdog in this contest. Not that you'd have known watching their struggle to get anything happening here. Other than one burst down the other end, where they likely would've marked in range if the wind didn't drag the ball away from a free player, they barely went across halfway. On some days we'd have blasted through five goals before quarter time, but the door was left open for Richmond if they could get it together. Which they couldn't, but you'd have thought the same last week before Collingwood dug in and had a crack.

They did have one late chance, but it only fed us for a lightning counter-attack which should've ended in a Gall Goal after she stepped around a befuddled opponent, then missed an open goal. They held out for the rest of the quarter, and despite scoring NIL could claim to have done well kicking into the wind. Not like we haven't lost a game before after holding a side scoreless in the opening term. All's well that ended well, but it was a colossal waste of dominance. 

Which continued from 0.01 in the second quarter, when we exited the middle at top speed again but it came to nothing. We looked so much better in the middle that this is a game you could imagine us turning one goal into another via centre bounce dominance. Finally, after missing the allegedly 'easy' one at the other end Gall made amends by mastering the conditions with a set shot that hooked violently on the wind. It was a great finish, but showed how difficult it was going to be to convert in the conditions, and suggested we weren't going to win by an enormous margin unless most of the goals were walked in from the square.

Now that the game was obviously slipping away from them, Richmond came up with a new centre bounce strategy and just waited (to put it generously) for Hore to get the ball, then pounced on her. Via various detours, this led to a shot on goal. It missed, but it removed the prospect of them finishing on 0.0.

I think Fitzsimon is our most underrated player, after some obscure off-the-ball free kick her choice of a set shot into the wind seemed optimistic. However, after grabbing a couple of extra metres by playing on, she got her kick high enough to beat everyone and go through. Except apparently she didn't, because once the players were back in the middle we were reminded that there's some sort of Skynet technology in the ball to determine if it was touched or not. 

It was obvious what the result of the review was when the umpire took a call from the reviewer (who must have the easiest job in Australia, considering how few times this gimmick has been activated) and gestured for players to return left of screen for a kick-in, but to add to the confusion the first replay showed this:

... when the replay didn't matter because everyone already knew what was happening because the ball chip had already made the decision. Just as the Richmond player was just break protocol by kicking in after this alleged goal, they found the right button and this came up.

I assume the chip prompts somebody to manually review the footage, but if it works properly the 'goal' graphic shouldn't be needed, so we may have witnessed something that will never be seen again. We'll take their word for it that the ball was touched, but the super technological innovation couldn't definitively say by which player and where.

Ironically, I'm writing this bit while the first goal in the Adelaide/Brisbane game went through, and they had an overhead view telling us how much 'target width' there was on a set shot, so maybe this is the next big thing for footy viewing. I dare them to rush introduce this technology for the last three weeks of the men's finals, in the hope that it will decide a game after the siren and cause a riot that leads to the season being cancelled and no premiership award.

This stroke of luck nearly turned into a Richmond goal, as they went down the other end and got a free 30 metres out. With the use of the wind, this was a viable distance for a set shot. Except we'll never know, because another player got a rush of blood, snatched the ball off the ground, and tried to thrash it through off a step. Not the best decision they'll ever make, especially after it led to us going the other way for Hore to kick our third. I'll never trust an M lead again, but for an AFLW game this was as close as I'd ever get to betting a kidney that we'd win when just 23 points up. 

Or 29, when one of their rare promising attacks fell to bits, and a botched handball sent us the other way where Pearce was just hanging out in the square on her own. They had another shot at the end but missed the lot, and that was it for the half as the umpire wasn't stupid enough to fall for the player going to ground in a theatrical Cam Rayner style under light contact.

The only non-participant fans watching would be lovers of the game, and I'm sure they were hoping Richmond was going to find inspiration during the break and come out firing. Kate Hore said "lol, no" and kicked a goal in the first minute. It didn't have the power and fury of North beating Freo by a hundred, but was still threatening to get perverse. Richmond wasn't that bad, and we weren't that good, but they were so poor in attack that even I was starting to get frustrated. Finally, they landed a mark on a player right in front of goal. It missed, but they got a free in the pocket to make up for it. And that missed too for god's sake.

The backline was a little big more traditional this week with Colvin back, but for all of Richmond's botched attempts at goal they were still under regular pressure and held up well. Fitzsimon may be our official most underrated player, this was Saraid Taylor's best game by a mile, unlocking the coveted 'stitch up the club that sacked you' achievement. And it goes without saying that Chaplin was ace as always.

After all their struggles to introduce ball and middle posts, there was further insult to injury for the Tigers when Campbell went forward, took a mark, and kicked straight. We already had the tallest forward line in history, now the rucks had two bonus goals. There was a chance for old mate G. Train and her zany, hunched over run-in, but that went the same way as all their other shots. Not that we were piling on misery at the other end, but they were 0.5 at three quarter time and should file an official complaint to the league if any more "how grouse is the high scoring?" propaganda pieces come out of head office this week.

By now I was happy just to avoid injuries, which wasn't helped by footage of heart rate fiasco survivor Heath hobbling around with a sore ankle. Turned out to be nothing and she was back for the start of the last quarter, but I'll be expecting to find out there's been a midweek amputation. Considering our record with these things, it'll turn out that all the damage was done by coming back onto the ground in a dead rubber.

Richmond finally brought up six points, but unfortunately for them that was entirely made up of behinds. They were well beyond the solitary, sad point of the 2022 Eagles, and their next miss moved them the long way into equal second with the 1.1s previously kicked by West Coast (them again), and GWS. The good news is that point led to a goal, albeit to Zanker, who became the latest player to waltz into an open goal. 

Meanwhile, they had a chance to kick one entirely by fluke but as it bounced towards goal the ball took a big comedy leg break. They did get a real one not long after, which was probably good for football but disappointing for fans of novelty statistics. Fitzsimon got her stolen goal back, but sadly our percentage dipped below 300 when they got a second one later in the game. No need to show off, the job had been done long before then.

This was quite good considering the shouse conditions, but it's hard to judge how good we are while playing against the equivalent of cardboards cutouts. One day we'll be on the other side of the ledger, and I'll be sure to show humility then. Or blame outside forces and conspiracies.

2025 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Kate Hore
4 - Tyla Hanks
3 - Maeve Chaplin
2 - Eliza McNamara
1 - Saraid Taylor

Apologies to Ebert, Fitzsimon, Gall, Harris, O'Hehir, Paxman, Pearce, and Rigoni.

Leaderboard
It's already a two-person race at the top, and Chaplin is building a handy lead in the defender award, so all the action this week is in the Rising Star. Taylor qualifies under the four games or less at the start of the year rule, and while I think she'll probably be overrun by O'Hehir at some stage it must be a real highlight of the career CV to have temporarily led one of these awards.

16 - Tyla Hanks
14 - Kate Hore
7 - Maeve Chaplin (LEADER: Defender of the Year)
6 - Tayla Harris, Olivia Purcell
5 - Paxy Paxman
3 - Shelley Heath
2 - Eliza McNamara
1 - Megan Fitzsimon, Saraid Taylor (LEADER: Rising Star Award)

Goal of the Week
The Bannan opener, even if her goals are always boosted by the elite celebrating advantage. Hore from the pocket against Collingwood retains the overall lead.

Next Week
It's Port Adelaide for the first time in a league game. So far, they've lost to the very good North by 70 and beaten the very bad Gold Coast by 70 so it would be an understatement to say anything could happen. If Heath's ankle is fine and nobody is hit by flying debris during a Casey hurricane, we'll be able to field pretty much the same team, which is a luxury considering the extensive collection of players you won't be seeing for several weeks/at all. I like to think we'll win, but am also concerned we're vulnerable to playing an absolute stinker at some point.

Final thoughts
I got nothing. Up the 'mons.

Yeah Nah < Yeah Narrm

Remember when I implied that injuries were the only thing that could stop us this year? Forget our first two games being against glorified byes, it was premiership glory if everyone remained healthy right? Well, we nearly had to activate Rent-A-Player in Round 3, and only survived a scare against the reigning wooden spooner because they missed two set shots in the last minute. This could go anywhere.

According to this, Collingwood have provided the 'blueprint' on how to beat us. Not to downplay their performance, but I reckon losing five premiership players from the warmup of one game to quarter time of the next had a bit to do with it. For now, we only had to name the fill-in players as emergencies, but their time is coming. I'm not saying the club is ready to field randoms, but one of the ringers already has an official profile picture.

First, Lampard went before the bounce last week. Usually when somebody's hurt in the warmup they're removed as a precaution, miss a week then come back. In this case, she's out for a week x7, so that's a bit shit. Then Purcell's knee exploded, and we'll be lucky to see her again by Round 1 next year, which is even shitter. We knew about those injuries, but were obviously distracted clapping like seals at St Kilda being demolished to notice Mackin B following the lead of Mackin A and suffering a knee injury which will effectively end her season. Then, to prove that Lady Luck is a filthy anti-Irish racist, sometime between our already massive injury list being posted and selection, Goldrick did a shoulder.

Other than Purcell and Gillard, the rest of the A+ inner circle has survived until now, but soon there'll be six of then turning up to training and meeting the rest of the list for the first time. That's if the fill-ins don't stop answering our calls because they don't want to play in such a dangerous environment. People will be more interested in being recruited bythe Russian Army than us if this goes much further.

So, with all that going on and a few players who would have to admit they're only in the side because everyone else is hurt, I had no expectation of another rampant victory. I'm sure the opposition also had a few novelty players in their side, and one player who ended up with zero disposals, but considering who was missing and that we were fielding the tallest forward line in history when it had been pissing down raining all morning, I had some concerns. Gambling on AFLW is morally one step above shoving $50 notes into a poker machine but when I saw we were $1.05 favourites, I did wonder what sort of point start you could get on the Pies.

My spidey senses about an upset went into overdrive when rain started banging down again at the first bounce. It didn't stop us getting the ball inside 50, but while you could understand two dropped marks in the conditions, we had bugger all going on at ground level to compensate. On our third attempt, Bannan held one and converted from almost the same spot I did in a half-arse game on the same ground 15 years ago. This one went through the traditional way, unlike when I got ludicrously close to the mark, booted it practically straight up in the air, and relied on wind/divine intervention to carry it through. Also, Bannan is getting paid to be a professional athlete while I was a fat bloke already past his limited best even then.

We seemed the better team, but the lower the scores on a wet ground, the more chance of the opposition pulling something out of their collective arse. Just because the first two opponents of the year had been run into the ground until they lost the will to live, it didn't mean the same thing was going to happen now. It still appeared to be heading in the right direction when Zanker gently shifted her opponent out of the way like a cardboard cutout to kick the second. Alas, the two goal advantage didn't last long. From the bounce, Collingwood went inside 50 where Campbell spilt a mark at full extension and the ball fell straight into the path of a forward to be wobbled through. 

It was a good reminder not to let them get too many long kicks into attack, especially with the most homebrand backline we've ever fielded. It was Chaplin, and teammates with about 12 games combined experience. Adjusted for the opposition having nearly zero firepower in attack, they did very well. The obvious emotional highlight was the father/daughter debut of Jemma Rigoni, but after a season of Langdon and Culley wearing beach-towel sized headbands I was right into Wotherspoon reemerging as a defender with a shoelace tied around her head. She looks mean, and in an unrestricted, WWE-style atmosphere you could imagine her slipping it off and strangling an opponent behind the umpire's back.

The fun thing about father/etc... selections is thatit means heaps to the father, his teammates, and the fans, but generally stuff all to the new player's teammates. Hardly any of our side were aged in double figures when Guy played his last game, much less in his earlier peak. They're hardly likely to get misty eyed about the romanticism of it all, and are more likely to care that Rigoni held her own in a drastically understrength backline.

I know the broadcasters are a bit half-arsed in their commitment to AFLW but you can never fault the enthusiasm of the commentators, so I felt bad for them when they kept referencing 'pressure' figures that were never shown on the screen. In isolation the pressure gauge is worth as much as hitouts or inside 50s, but they did well not to crack the shits at being hung out to look like they were just inventing these already basically made up numbers.

With a final scare at Collingwood's end in the dying seconds, we got to quarter time more than a goal ahead. On recent results you'd think this was just the warm-up for pissbolting away with the game later, but given our rapidly diminishing lineup I was lightly bricking it. Just when you thought we'd had enough injury drama, it was red-alert at Rent A Player HQ when Heath departed with what later was revealed as an elevated heart rate. That's a new one. The only fit player left on the list without a game is called Dethridge, and she's going to get a game due to a Black De(a)th style injury crisis.

You'd think we'd be able to win just by brute force getting of the ball inside 50, but this didn't take into account shitloads of dropped marks (understandable in the conditions) and the ball exiting at full pelt when we didn't kick goals (understandable given the lack of small forwards). A surprise, short-lived burst of sunshine came at the start of the quarter but the ground and ball were still wet, and the forwards struggle to hold the ball. 

We almost got lucky when Zanker dropped another mark, but it spilt into the path of Harris storming the goalsquare. Who am I to tell her what to do, but a kick off the ground may have done more than trying to pick up and being tackled. Otherwise, Harris didn't kick goals but did some great work further up the ground and earned the rare distinction of 2/3rds of the week's Mark of the Year nominations. More importantly, she even looked like being injured but will presumably trip over the couch and do an everything mid-week.

Hore finally held a mark but missed her shot, and the door remained wide open. It was left swinging off its hinges when Collingwood kicked a goal from a difficult angle to cut the gap to a point. Forget the point start, now it looked like anyone who backed the Pies at the full $10.50 would get a run for their money. The Chaplin + randos backline had to hold out under pressure for several minutes, before we nearly pulled off a counter-attacking coup in the last minute. It died when Gall's choice of kick while too far out to score was a 10 metres pass to Pisano, but that helped run the clock down to half time. We were a point up, but goalless for the term and in a fair old spot of shit if it started raining again.

It didn't, but we still were, and Collingwood could not be run off. All of a sudden we looked absolutely no chance of kicking a goal from open play, and it took a miracle snap by Hore to get us on the board again. This was much to the delight of a guy in the crowd, whose joy was strangely heard again both times the replay was shown. We nearly got another from the next bounce, but Gall became the latest member of the dropped mark club. Then she benefited from somebody else doing it, as Hore spilt one then set Gall up in the square.

This was all very good, except for conceding one from a scramble not long after. After spilling a couple of regulation marks, Zanker obviously preferred the higher degree of difficulty because she pulled down a contested grab over two players instead. Alas that one, and another shortly after, both missed. We got to the last break four points ahead, but were lucky not to concede a 50 metre penalty right at the end when Pisano blatantly charged off the mark well before the umpire called play on.

Everything got a bit silly for me at this point (even more than writing this post on a keyboard where the spacebar only works about 6/10 times), as I had to drive somewhere but wouldn't have time to do the traditional media blackout/watch the rest on replay. Instead, I listened while driving in the hope that we'd kick a couple of early goals and run out easy winners. 

So for the next 15 minutes all I could hear was Collingwood missing chances, until the point where I had to pull over and watch the rest in a generic suburban street. This was good timing, because not long after the ball was finally landed with Hore to goal from close range and give us a six point lead with practically no time remaining. With a six point lead you'd think we could do no worse than a draw, but I've thought that before in 2025 and been disappointed. 

The crowd was going as boonta as you can with 2500 people present, and say what you like about Collingwood fans, but I've never seen an anti-social behaviour hotline advertised at a suburban ground before. They nearly pulled off a miracle, first missing a set shot for a BULLSHIT free kick well within range, leaving us just having to get the ball as far away from goal in the final seconds as possible. Which we did, but that wasn't nearly far enough and it came straight back in for another free, and a kick after the siren.

Ludicrously, this was the fourth time we'd faced this situation since 2021. It was a much more difficult shot than the previous one, but their version of a G. Campbell gave it a decent ride before it jointly fell short and hit the post. And thank god for that. Now, let's wrap this up before I drop punt this bloody keyboard over my fence.

2025 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Kate Hore
4 - Tyla Hanks
3 - Maeve Chaplin
2 - Paxy Paxman
1 - Tayla Harris

Apologies to McNamara, O'Hehir, Taylor and Zanker

Leaderboard
Arise the biggest of big hitters, and best of luck to anyone thinking of challenging.

12 - Tyla Hanks
9 - Kate Hore
6 - Tayla Harris, Olivia Purcell
5 - Paxy Paxman
4 - Maeve Chaplin (LEADER: Defender of the Year)
3 - Shelley Heath
1 - Megan Fitzsimon

Goal of the Week
Hore from the pocket was at least 50% more arse than class, but it looked good so ironically in the game where we stopped kicking goals it takes the clubhouse lead in this competition.

Next Week
It's Richmond, who are not very good but perfectly capable of matching us if we don't convert chances and/or lean heavily on the surviving stars. I think we'll win, but while gambling is evil etc... definitely have a responsible bit on Richmond at the line if it's anything under 40 points. At which point I'll hope you lose the lot and we win by 76.

Final thoughts
Enjoy it while you can I reckon.