One piece at a time

In a week where our men's team tried to shed as many premiership players as possible, the job of temporarily calming things down fell to the section of the club that pioneered the old flag 'n turf. There was a time early in the 2024 season when Birch, Gay, Sherriff and West were gone, half the list was broken, and things looked extremely ropey. Adjusting for a lot of cardboard cutout style opposition so far this season, things seem to have turned out ok. Which is something to consider when you're about to drink furniture polish around June next year.

For all the excuses about a 'see attached pages' injury list, the lowest point of that season was when Essendon tore us to shreds. It says something for how well we've done in practically every other game played in competition history that despite being our all-time biggest loss and lowest score, we've done a lot worse to many opposition sides. Clawing back to the edge of the finals after that was impressive, and in just over a year we're back to where we were against the Bombers before that fiasco. Melbourne is the good team, Essendon is the mid-tablish side we should beat without it being detrimental to the league's reputation. 

On the occasion of randomly playing a home game at a decent venue in whatever level of prime time you get on 7Mate immediately after a show with somebody called 'Chumlee', it would've been good for football if we'd been dragged into a high quality thriller. So apologies to the AFL and Channel 7 for all but winning the game with three quick first quarter goals, then holding the opposition at bay until most neutral viewers had gone to bed or opened their third slab. Personally, I'd have been happy to win by 87 again, but never let it be said that I'm not thinking about the health of this competition.

Improvements to the viewing experience from not playing in a public park were offset by the putrid Essendon clash jumpers, with a sash randomly ending near the top instead of looping around. It was a fashion crime on the same scale as that silver shit our men used to wear in away games back when we struggled to pay the electricity bill.

Despite what happened last time, it briefly looked like another five star thumping was on the cards when we went three goals up in the blink of an eye. The most fascinating thing about us this year is how the forwards are rotating the goals between them, this week it was the turn of Harris x2 and Gall, while Zanker, Bannan, and for once Hore went home empty handed. I don't want to lose any of these players but something has to give at the end of the year, because it's an absurdly top heavy attack that will surely (hopefully not) come back to haunt us in the end. 

All this and you've got Campbell out of the team when she's the medium (?) term replacement for Pearce. Love for the club and all, but at least one of them has to decide they don't want to be second or third banana at the end of the year. I'll be sad when they go, but bring on the top draft picks from teams desperate to get off the bottom of the ladder. I'm sure if Daisy coached a Victorian club she'd have talked a few of the stars out by now, so thank god she's in charge of the geographically equal least appealing club in the competition.   

The answer of 'how many more people can you get to attend by playing in a stadium' was only about a thousand, and I don't know if makes it more financially rewarding to battle bullshit wind at 1pm in Cranbourne but every extra person also added a percentage point of how much more professional it looked. There was also a Taylor Swift album promotion featuring two Las Vegas showgirl characters standing behind Tom McDonald, which you'd never have seen at Casey.

Best wishes to Ms. Swift in making a billion dollars, but the only Tayl* I'm interested in following ends in 'a Harris'. By now the ad with the eye jumper has surely been seen more times than the video for Shake It Off. Speaking of things my kid likes, I was baffled that she suddenly wanted to watch this game instead of muppets talking shite on TikTok. In absolute 100%, no DNA tests required proof that this is my offspring it turns out she was trying to pay off a gag that involved the numbers six and seven standing next to each other. There were a couple of post-goal moments early on when Bannan and Harris just needed to turn their back to camera and all would be revealed, but sadly by the time it actually happened child had lost interest and gone off to do cyberbully somebody/whatever else 11-year-olds do on the internet. 

Forget whatever's funny about 6 meeting 7, I'm only into MFC related gimmicks. Like how we always facilitate great moments for random players. In this case it meant conceding the first career goal to a former New Zealand rugby international. To be fair it was via a thumping set shot, so as we seem to have given up on Ireland maybe this could be the next frontier in recruitment. The players may also be sturdier and not break down all the time.

That goal may have been the trigger for Essendon to invoke the spirit of '24 and storm back into the game. But it wasn't. The next three quarters was basically just them thumping the ball forward hoping for the best and seeing it turned back immediately (usually by 'All Australian Or We Riot' Maeve Chaplin), while holding up well enough to stop us romping away with it.

Other than winning, the best part of the night was commentators going rogue and hanging shit on the new holding the ball rule. At least until realising they might get rotated off the coverage if anyone from the AFL was watching and throwing in disclaimers about how we have to get used to it etc... There was also a halftime interview with Gawn where I'm pretty sure they'd been told not to ask any difficult questions about his teammates disappearing like South American political dissidents in the 1970s.

Though we'd only conceded one goal in a half again, the door was ever so slightly ajar considering the better standard of opposition. Then we kicked the only goal for a quarter and a half, the game was won a mile out, and as the commentators couldn't make spicy comments about rule interpretations anymore but didn't have the BT style buffoon rating to fill time by talking crap, it all went a bit going through the motions. So with nothing else to say, as she kicked our only goal of the second half I'd like to announce that Megan Fitzsimon has officially achieved Neville Jetta status as somebody who is so underrated that they've become rated. She is having her career best season by some distance, and has years left for further development. Which is nice.  

All that was left to do was run out the game, and for a return to our early season policy of players mysteriously carking it. The Rent-A-Player rewards card has been packed away for now, but best keep the Medicare one hand with this side because something unusual is always just around the corner. Just weeks after Heath had to depart a game with Super Heart Rate, Goldrick departed midway through the final term with illness. Essendon got their second goal not long after, making the margin 19 with nine minutes left, and while a comeback was unlikely there was more chance than the 0.0% when we got that far in front against either Coast but more chance than the 0.0% percent when we were that far in front against either Coast.

More concerning was the sight of Heath regaining the strange injuries title when seeing lying down with legs elevated on a seat, hooking into the green whistle. Turns out she was just coping with a dislocated finger and there's no long term issues. Digit injuries give me the ick so I can sympathise with her, if mine ever go out of place I'd need the whistle, Lifeline, and a near-fatal dose of heroin. 

The incident also offered a perfect 'over it' picture for future use, so not all bad news eh Shelley? He says forgetting she used to be a taekwondo champion and may kick my head in.

At two players down and with the game long won, we reintroduced the "that'll do" spirit of the West Coast game and let them kick another goal. That cut the margin to 13 with a couple of minutes left, and talk about your handy point because I'd have been packing it at the prospect of being mown down in another epic comeback. I bet Maeve Chaplin wouldn't have let the Docklands Disaster happen, and there was to be no such fiasco here. The ball spent enough time at our end to run the clock down and all was well. 

Bit of a change from last week to be semi-falling over the line instead of booting an opposition to death, but you can't play flotsam and jetsam every week. Put it down as a good, honest, important win and cross your undislocated fingers that we got something out of it for the important end of the season.

With four games left we're three wins and a couple of hundred percentage points ahead of 9th, so you can lock away a return to the finals. As we know North will finish top unless DQed for salary cap violations or witchcraft, so it's just a matter of landing second or third and avoiding playing them in the first final. If I was paid to be peppy and positive I'd say bring it on, let's embrace the challenge of trying to KO the big hitters as soon as possible but no thank you, we've lost six consecutive finals across the genders so while nothing's guaranteed I'm happy to embrace the less treacherous side of the draw if possible. 

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

Apologies to Gall, Hanks, Heath, Paxman and Pearce

Leaderboard
Suddenly, a new contender emerges, just weeks after I said there was no chance of anyone other than Hanks or Hore winning. Now, watch them both poll solid numbers in the league B&F while Chaplin gets nil. If nothing else, she'll romp the Defender of the Year award here. Still, it's on like the proverbial in this one. Even Harris is within striking range of making it interesting.

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

Goal of the Week
The Wotherspoon one was enjoyable, but Hore from the Pie pocket remains your clubhouse leader.

Next Week
First leg of our (hopefully) gentle ride into finals is a return to Fremantle Oval, scene of last year's after the siren disaster. They lost to North by 100 at the same venue earlier this season and sit 13th but are still a chance of sneaking into the eight due to the ludicrously top-heavy nature of the competition. So after we did all our best scoring work in about eight minutes this week I'm not taking anything for granted. Can win, should win, but after Richmond pulled off the one massive upset of the season I need to see hard evidence that this is going well before getting excited.

Final thoughts
More of the same please, and I hope Charlie Spargo takes up all North's AFLW parking spots.