Black Hole Suns

For all the piss taken out of the AFL's scheduling, I wouldn't want to be the person trying to make a 12 round, 18 team competition fair. Still, now that we've walloped the Suns in near record fashion you've got to feel sorry for them having to play last year's 4th, 9th, 3rd and 2nd teams in a row after finishing 17th, while we stormed back from the dead to nearly make finals and only have to play four sides who finished higher all year. It makes it hard to take this any more seriously as a finals trial than our last pulverisation of a team called Something Coast. 

The next five weeks will give a better idea of whether we're legitimate flag contenders, but this was such a ridiculous mismatch that Walt Disney came back from the grave to give it official Mickey Mouse status. I'm happy to keep thumping lowly sides and hoping for the best against the rest, but in a competition where North has won 20-something games in a row, and it took a Black Death injury crisis to briefly bring us back to the field after eight years near the top, the AFL is negligent for allowing such a massive gap between best and worst. After a decade you can't have teams kicking 13 goals to nil, and while every team has a handful of promising prospects it doesn't do the league any favours to have already paper-thin lists filled with players who are just holding a spot for five years until development catches up. 

Can't blame the league for Gold Coast going from finals in 2023 to a percentage of 40.2 in two and a half seasons, but what good does a walkover like this do for anyone? Except if you like watching teams called Melbourne win by shitloads. That I do, but even I felt a little bad by the end of this when the Suns were losing players to injury at a quicker rate than World War II. I thought how I'd struggle to watch every week if we were that uncompetitive, but at the same time was fanging for one more goal when we were within a kick of our record win.

The 2022 (Summer) Fremantle Dockers remain the worst team we've ever played, but at least they kicked multiple goals despite losing three players to COVID (remember that?) an hour before the bounce. They had a trio of first gamers, one who they literally had to ring on the day and say "do you fancy a game?", but while Gold Coast 2025 had to deal with in-game injuries and wind they were still close to bringing the game into disrepute. But if you're going to be involved in a LOTS vs NOT MUCH scoreline, it's better to be on the positive side.

In the interest of competitive balance, it was nice that the opposition got to kick with the famous Casey Fields wind this time. Then Fitzsimon bounced one through an open square about 20 seconds in, achieving what turned out to be Gold Coast's entire four quarter score. Then their ruck fell over at the centre bounce, the ball was immediately inside our 50 again, and the PA system was heard paging a Mr.  Michael Mouse. At that moment I thought we were going to win this by 200, but the Suns survived and went on to their best five minutes of the match. Which is like saying you had a best five minutes of going to the electric chair, but it was something.

Even if the Suns had converted either of their early sitters I like to think we'd have found a way to win comfortably, but they were (in a word surely never used on here before and probably not even properly in this context) profligate with their chances and paid a savage penalty. The first miss was by somebody called Havana Harris, which is appropriately the most Gold Coast name of all time. She was quite good despite teammates capsizing like a stricken oil tanker, and may have added some much needed Grand Theft Auto: Vice City vibes to the event if it wasn't being played at 1pm in Cranbourne.

This was followed by an even better chance, as someone with a much less exciting name absolutely butchered a chance after turning around to find nobody between her and the goal, then slicing it through for a point at near-right angles. Waste not want not etc... because this turned into the first and last 'against the run of play' goal for the day. I'm pleased to announce that it involved crumb, which has been the only missing element in our otherwise shit hot but potentially downhill skiing attack so far this season.

Standing (sort of) in our way were a plethora of former Demons, headlined by the returning Lily Mithen but also featuring 'enthusiast only' ex-players Charlotte Wilson (eight games), Claudia Whitfort (four), and Maddy Brancatisano, who was drafted from the nearest club to Demonblog Towers in 2018, probably said "fuck off" at the idea of regularly driving to Casey for training and got delisted after one season. 

Considering how many of our players have gone to other clubs, not many of the exes have come back to haunt us (in fact, other than Eliza West for Hawthorn last year has it ever happened?) and this was no exception. I felt bad for Whitfort because she missed a shot, then went off hurt almost immediately after so the conditions for the injury might not have existed if the game was restarted after a goal. But that's enough deep philosophy, let's get back to footy cliches - because missed chances came back to haunt the Suns when Wotherspoon's snap gave us a decent buffer while kicking to the alleged non-scoring end.

While the scoreline implies industrial scale of slaughter, the Suns had been ok after those disastrous centre early bounces and were having a few wins at stoppages, it's just that they converted chances like players from the 1860s. Like Mithen sticking a bullet pass straight onto the chest of a leading forward, only for the ball to be comically split in the style of a waiter in a sitcom dropping a tray of drinks.

After the first two disastrous centre bounces, they'd been pretty good around the stoppages and we had to survive another quick forward entry, ultimately ending with Mithen sticking a bullet pass onto a leading forward, who comically spilt it like a waiter in a sitcom dropping a tray of drinks. It left us three goals to nil up at quarter time, and there's never been a smaller margin that I've been 100% convinced of winning from. AFL (M) readers will know that the Chris Sullivan Line has been disbanded due to some late-season unpleasantness at Docklands, but even after keeping the opposition to 0.0 and losing multiple times over the years, the Suns would've needed a surprise outbreak of Montezuma's Revenge in our huddle to get within a kick.

Any concerns about a false flag wind was dismissed when we kicked another three goals to nil in the second quarter. It helped that our representative of the extended Harris family got a free and goal for a suspect push in the back, but even if questionable umpiring got us six points here, it wasn't at fault for the Suns scoring six points in total. The party atmosphere continued when Gall offered the Suns a demonstration on what to do when you've got the ball with nobody between you and the right of screen goal. 

A pummelling was back on the cards, but if the Suns did want to issue a Chris Scott "I hope this doesn't come across as sour grapes but..." style whinge about umpiring I'd have some sympathy after we got away with three blatant holding ball/dropping ball/incorrectly disposing of ball frees in front of their goal, then conceding one at our end. We did the fair and moral thing by missing, but that wasn't much help to opposition that was still 0.4 approaching half time. And they didn't even double that for the rest of the game.

The Suns did have a set shot that looked like going through before the wind killed it dead at the last minute, causing the ball to drop like a bowling ball thrown from a scaffold into the arms of surprise defensive option Tayla Harris. Who knows why she was there, but who else would you rather kicking out of defence into a strong wind (which is probably why she was there now that I think of it), and the thumping clearance led to Bannan running an opponent into the ground in the forward pocket before kicking the sixth. 

By now, I'd have offered to put my head in a guillotine with the blade set to drop if the Suns matched our score, let alone won. To demonstrate how much work there is to be done, our very good friends at LiveLadders were showing that even after playing .5 games more than North, we'd still need to kick another 151 points to overhaul their percentage. I had places to be and no time for delayed viewing, so followed the third quarter via the obscure (and possibly illegal) method of listening to the commentary on my phone while driving. Please note, if you're some sort of Highway Patrol rozzer I couldn't see the screen so technically wasn't using the phone. And if all else fails I'll be launching a Dezi Catman-style 'sovereign citizen' defence.

Last time I did this we made such a hash of the last quarter against Collingwood that I had to pull over and watch the last few minutes in a generic suburban street, this time we got another early goal into the wind, Gold Coast didn't get another goal with the wind, and a bunch of shots were missed. If you have additional insights from this quarter please send to the usual address, but I suspect if we all just get on with our lives and forget it happened society will remain intact.

By the start of the last quarter this may have been the first ever game where more people were watching in the ground than on TV. I was back in position to watch live, and was thinking about how much I'd (relatively) crack the shits if we did a repeat of last week and let the thrashees kick a few token goals. The interview as Mick Stinear came off the ground revealed that he'd mentioned this to the players, which was ordinary news for Gold Coast as they spent the next 25 minutes falling to bits both spiritually and physically.

Not since those Lockett/Dunstall etc... state sides has a team had too many potential goalkickers for the number of goals available in the game, so you never know who's going to cash-in, and who'll go home empty handed. After five in a half last week, it was Zanker's turn to stand back and let the others do the job as she finished with zero of our 93 points. Never mind, there's always Harris for a second, and after three behinds Hore cropped up for two in a minute and the margin was starting to get perverse. 

Then we entered the 'reward for effort' portion of the afternoon where Hanks and McNamara each got one, and on the occasion of Bannan's second our score had gone past the Casey Fields record set all of five weeks against St Kilda, and the margin was beyond the 79-1 dismemberment of West Coast in 2022. If there was any room for traditional Melbourne thinking at this stage it would have been the perfect time for the Suns to get a goal in cheap and nasty fashion via a 50 or a lucky bounce. 

Instead, their already shit day got even worse as two more players went down to injury, and as bad as I felt about them losing players while already vigorously pushing shit uphill, I'd have loved to get the record margin. Alas, Wotherspoon's dual attempts to catch in on party time missed and fell one point short, having to 'settle' for 'just' an 87 point win. Which was nice, but you can guarantee the next time we lose a game I'll be going full Geelong fan, forgetting the years of armchair ride this team has given me as a fan and having a sook. Until then, live the dream of having a percentage just short of 300 after seven games. I'd like to say you'll never see anything like this again, but that woudl require faith in the competition being evened up anytime soon.

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

Apologies to Gillard, Harris, Paxman, Pearce, Rigoni and Wotherspoon

Leaderboard
There are five games left in what it would be sarcastic to call the 'home and away' season, and we'll assume at least one final so technically this is still anyone's award to win outright but Hanks opens a handy lead at the top in the quest for a third title.

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

Goal of the Week
Plenty of decent contenders, but because I want more crumb it would be rude to go beyond Pisano. Hore from the pocket vs Collingwood retains the lead.

Next Week
It's our first chance to redeem that DEBACLE of a performance against Essendon last year, and thank god sanity has prevailed and it's being played at Princes Park. Why do we have to wait for the men's season to end before playing the game of the round there? And if we take it as Richmond's home ground this season, why is it the only neutral game for the year at the best available stadium? Hopefully it draws more than the 1500-2000 we've been getting to Casey this year and makes clear that playing games at decent locations around the Melbourne CBD is a good idea. Ironically, after endlessly whinging about how they should do this I can't go. It's still a good idea, so get amongst it.

Unlike the previous meeting, our injury list is not 'see attached pages', and Essendon has reverted to mid-table mediocrity but I'm still not counting chickens pre-hatch. We're coming off two all-time classic glorified training runs, and they did kick the first three goals against North Melbourne last week before normal service resumed. I know (famous last words) that it won't be as bad as last time, and would like to win so the legacy of outscoring the opposition 167-29 over the last two weeks isn't tainted by falling over at the first sign of a competent team like the Port game.

Final thoughts
For the good of the competition I'm prepared to compromise. Instead of winning 93-6, next time we'll make things look a bit more respectable and do it 117-30.