Yay winning

For all the unpleasantness levelled at AFLW by the usual types, at least it hasn't been sullied by the introduction of wildcard finals. Sure, it would've saved us from disaster a couple of years ago, and ok there are barely eight good teams let alone 10, but at least you know exactly where you stand. And in this of all weeks, I won't let my disappointment with the men's competition detract from the ongoing excellence of our W side.

And there's nothing more iconic in the history of our women's program than walloping an interstate team at Casey. We've lost games to interstate clubs at home, but have delivered about 10x more thrashings in similar circumstances to this. In fact, we played almost the exact fixture against the Giants in 2022, holding them to one goal and playing out the last quarter like a glorified training drill. The difference was, this time they scored before the fourth quarter, and gave us several minutes of concern in the opening quarter before folding tent and dissolving into the sort of irrelevancy all GWS teams are doomed to. As if to prove this, during the second quarter, whenever one of their highlights was shown, the team graphic showed 'Gold Coast'. Near enough.

Having not lost to the Giants in nearly 10 years, and even then only due to woeful accuracy, it feels like they've always been crap. This, despite winning our first final against them. I've not got nearly enough time to work out if they've got improved prospects after going 2-10 last year, but I assumed after an opening round win against reigning finalists, there wouldn't be too much difficulty pocketing four premiership points here. For that reason, spending half the opening quarter pinned in defence while the Giants blundered goalscoring opportunities was not welcome. 

The only early highlight was the one with a Karate Kid headband doing a comedy slip/trip/fall after tangling feet while running past one of our players. Which, as she didn't destroy her shoulder or plummet headfirst into the turf, we're free to treat as a great piece of slapstick.

I'm in the top 1% of MFC pessimists, but even I thought it couldn't last. They might have converted one of three early chances, but I'm confident that the moment the ball got back to the middle we'd have regained control. Even when the returning Lauren Pearce turned into the not returning Lauren Pearce as a late withdrawal, we had more than enough quality in the middle to beat anyone. The only danger was if they kicked 0.8 first, setting up the league's inaugural 14 point play.

After the visitors botched three chances, our first opportunity came after Georgia Gall was dudded twice by bad bounces, before our new friend Mia Austin won a free. She failed to score, and we remained on nil. There was next to no damage to the margin, but a scoreless first quarter loomed before the usual "get out of my way, I'm a superstar" conversion by Hore, who converted after a great pass by O'Hehir. 

It was our only scoring shot of the quarter, which wasn't ideal, but the party started in earnest after quarter time. As if to prove my hopes about centre bounce dominance, Hanks turboed straight out of the middle and set up Austin - who sadly departed with an ankle injury shortly after, holding an all-time great goals-per-game average of 2.50 per appearance. There was more dominance in the middle when Hore matched Hanks' centre breaking, eventually ending with Wotherspoon dismissing an opponent with contempt to goal from the line.

The brief period of concern in the opening quarter was a distant memory by the time Gall got the fourth and fifth. There was almost another via close range specialist Wotherspoon, only for the video reviewer to crop up out of nowhere and take it away due to the ball either being touched by a defender who didn't protest, or hitting the post. Given that there are no goal-line cameras at Casey, or I'll bet most AFLW venues, the ARC operator must've been thrilled to have a chance to do something other than sitting with his feet up on the console eating chips. I think this is the first review we've been subject to since the one time the now discredited ball tracking technology took a goal away.

It doesn't matter, and there's no AFLW360 to make a big deal out of it, but if it was reversed for the ball hitting the post, I'm not sure that was a correct decision. The goal umpire was already signalling by the time the ball allegedly hit, so obviously the ball must've had time to go over her head before she did that. I think it came off the net behind the goal, which made it falsely look like it had brushed the post. Your theories on a postcard to the usual address. All this did was slow down the pace of the thrashing, which may have been what the child having a world class tantrum live at Casey Fields was so upset about. 

I object to doubleheaders almost as vigorously as wildcards, and one of the many reasons is the lack of random conversations bleeding through the effects mic, kids cracking the shits, and nutters yelling out stupid shit that's audible to everyone. But as much as I hate the idea of playing back-to-back games, how did we not end up playing one with Footscray this week? The teams who started the course for a national league have a men's game at the exact same time of the year that doubleheaders are being fixtured, and nothing. Hopefully we said no thanks, but as far as the league was concerned it seemed like a great way to get back on the MCG and come up with another artificially inflated crowd figure to use when pretending they give half a shit about this competition.

By now, the Giants couldn't get close to scoring, and registered nada for the second quarter. As well as the usual praise for Tahlia Gillard (still waiting patiently by the mailbox for her Grand Final BOG), the highlight of our defensive effort was the run of Jordyn Allen. She was pinging out of defence like a rocket, took eight bounces, and did nothing wrong. I'll accept losing the weekly Rising Star for the week to the Gold Coast player who kicked five, but have all your money and plenty of somebody else's on her being our first nomination in four years at some time in the near future.

We've pulled back from the Rent-A-Player abyss in the last few weeks, but it looked like they'd be on high alert again when Gall got squashed in a marking contest and briefly looked to have blown her shoulder to bits. Instead, she walked it off on the way to the boundary, rejoined the fray, and carried on for the rest of the game.

There was more excitement for the live audience in the third quarter, including audio of a woman absolutely pissing herself laughing. GWS even kicked a goal, which was celebrated towards the crowd with the excitement of a Grand Final winner, not one that made the score 9-33. But it's your goal, enjoy it however you like. In this case, enjoy it as if it may be your last - because it was.

Holding it to one goal each for the term was as good as it got for the Giants, before the procession restarted with three to nil in the last quarter. Wotherspoon not only set up one for McNamara, but got another from the square. By now it was a bit "stop, stop, they're already dead" towards the Giants, but they did get two points to that end of the ground this time. Meanwhile we were able to get everyone involved, even late inclusion Pisano, who went from missing one at Wotherspoon range, to both kicking, and missing set shots after.

I don't know what to take out of this for the rest of the season, other than confirmation that Purcell remains a possession collection machine, putting two on her previous record for most disposals in a game. We were good without hinting at greatness, and there are much better teams on the horizon this season. Still, it's a win without significant overextension, and confirmation that a team that's been up for the best part of a decade still has plenty of life in it.

2026 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Olivia Purcell
4 - Tyla Hanks
3 - Jordyn Allen
2 - Eliza McNamara
1 - Ryleigh Wotherspoon

Apologies to Campbell, Gall, Gillard, Harris, and Hore.

Leaderboard
8 - Olivia Purcell
5 - Tyla Hanks, Kate Hore
4 - Mia Austin
3 - Jordyn Allen (LEADER: Rising Star Award)
2 - Tayla Harris, Eliza McNamara
1 - Ryleigh Wotherspoon

Goal of the Week
The Wotherspoon one where she basically told her opponent to piss off before marking. Heath (now officially Heath-Barker - congratulations from all of us at etc...) retains the clubhouse lead.

Next week
In the same spirit of 'not holding the sins of the men's competition against AFLW', I promise not to furiously boycott a Sunday game against Brisbane if the men go tits up on Saturday night. Presumably Lauren Pearce makes it this time, Austin doesn't, and it'll be a much tougher round of 'interstate team visits Casey'. Could go either way, but a two win start in a short season puts us in a fine spot for finals in a shortened season.

Final thoughts
Giz more of the same please.