Look down and live

In a huge week for Australia's female athletes shitting themselves, it's boo to North Melbourne for going a week early and ending their never-to-be-repeated 30 game winning streak before we could (let's just assume, now that it can't be tested) do it. Sure, it took them having to play in a Cairns sweatfest to finally reach the realisation that you can't keep winning forever, but as the only team in the league with a home ground that has its own weather pattern, I'm struggling to find sympathy for the two-time and counting defending premiers.

The other part of the Round 7 'All-Star Game' equation was that we had to keep winning too, which was no guarantee against a third place side, with wacky winds blowing diagonally across the ground. You might remember Carlton, not for recent unpleasantness involving our men's team, but as a side we last played in the AFLW just over FOUR seasons ago. Which is some of the most shambolic, half-arse scheduling in the history of professional sports. If you play 12 teams one year, how are the other five not the first written into the fixture for the following season? This would assume the AFL care, beyond pretending everything's going well because they rorted attendance figures with a couple of double headers.

The off-field may be as shambolic as ever, but no arguments about how our team is playing. Fans of other clubs, especially the ones destined to act as traffic cones for the rest of the league for years to come, can make their own judgements, this is the best football Melbourne AFLW has ever played. Whether it's good enough to overcome the Evil Empire in finals is TBD, but the ball movement is better than I've ever seen. Shame you've got to be a card-carrying enthusiast to even know the competition is on thanks to the minor issue of all the focus going to the men's finals. That ship has sailed, so the general public can amuse themselves by piffing bottles at umpires, I'm getting into the hope of converting quality footy into quality flag.

What the ladder looks like 50% through the season means chuff all for what happens at the end, but even after North stuffed up the blockbuster, I still really wanted to remain the only unbeaten side in the competition, even if it meant nothing to the big picture. That could've gone wrong quickly if Carlton had any idea how to play the local conditions. Casey remains a detriment to the game, but I'll accept the benefits in the interest of ongoing winning.

The magic and mystery of the Cranbourne Bureau of Meteorology was on full display when we opened with a Fitzsimon set shot that was going straight from 30 metres out, then swung so violently that it landed in the forward pocket without scoring. The atmosphere was not helped by some flange blowing a Vuvuzela in the crowd, but for reasons unknown we did have to hold the game up after a goal because a set of car keys were found in the middle of the ground. 

I understand how that could happen, but not how it could take so far into the game for anyone to notice. It was a bit of a bush-league incident, but fortunately the greatest game of AFL football ever played came along later that afternoon and ensured there was no room for key coverage. Maybe a disgruntled Hawthorn fan buried them in advance just in case they had a reason to sook about umpiring at the end of a game that hadn't started yet? Lucky a player didn't get injured, and hopefully the owner had to catch the bus home.

After a few Casey games where the wind was either not a serious factor or politely blew up and down the ground, you could tell how it was going to go from that first set shot. Carlton had the better of what advantage it did provide, and did bugger all with it. Instead, after they flubbed a couple of chances, we got the only goal of the first term when Hanks spelunked into a tackle and used her regional knowledge to steer the resulting free kick home.

The wind advantage seemed dubious when Carlton attacked first in the second quarter, but like a replay of last week, the visitors were wasteful and eventually paid the price. This time via a Gillard rocket run through the middle, which set up Austin's mark from a distance that any tricky crosswinds couldn't get hold of. This would count as the old "stick it up your old team" move, if she hadn't been good in every appearance so far this year. May have come in handy at the other end, but I'm sure the Blues will enjoy the second and third round picks they got in exchange.

This was nearly followed by another goal when Hanks belted straight out of the middle, but the wind was exposed as nothing worth getting excited over when Carlton kicked two in a row to take the lead. The first came via a hopeful snap from a pack, which survived a review that home viewers didn't get to see. So that means in three games at Casey this year we've had reviews, a) where the footage was shown but probably interpreted incorrectly, b) where the umpire just asked his colleagues if they had any objections, and c) where the full forward/rewind experience was conducted off-camera, while the players stood around waiting for the game to restart.

We almost let in three straight, only surviving because a handball failed to reach a player standing on her own inside 50. I was a bit worried, before Fitzsimon crumbed the shit out of a contest in front of goal to restore the half time lead. Still didn't make winning inevitable, as we didn't yet know that Carlton's quickfire double would be 66.66% of all their goals for the afternoon.

Then it was time to go whack, with four goals in a row making sure the Big Six would be achieved. O'Hehir opened her career account with what I'd describe as a 'lucky' kick if the other side did it, but becomes a moment of great skill simply due to being done by somebody in a Melbourne jumper. By the time Purcell was lobbing through back-to-back set shots, viewing of the live ladder was much appreciated.

Even after conceding a late goal, we were clearly going to win. Carlton helped make this a reality by failing to score in the final term. With the opposition now struggling for interest, we pinged away at will for 1.5. I'm almost certainly the only person on the planet who cares about fringe topics like AFLW jumper number records, but Jorja Livingstone enjoyed the rare feat of qualifying for the record books on debut, by opening the account for #40. 

God only knows why she's wearing it when we don't have numbers 34 through 39, but I couldn't be more supportive. In a league where a player gets about in #60 it hardly qualifies for cherished 'silly number' status, but I advise sticking with it and refusing any suggestions about changing to something lower. Mark Jamar is an All-Australian ahead in overall impact wearing the number, but the W games/goals double is just three games away, so double (digit) down and go for glory.           

Not for the first time this year, the point where there was nothing to play for except avoiding injuries was greeted by somebody getting injured. This time it was Campbell copping an elbow in the throat, and immediately having a couple of voms on the turf. Bad news for anyone else who left personal objects on the turf. Campbell has been very good this year, and with L. Pearce clearly winding up a great career there's a full time ruck job on offer for years to come, so hopefully this wasn't anything more than shock from an unexpected blow to a sensitive part of the anatomy. We haven't heard about a Gareth John-style career-altering larynx-shattering, so I take that as a good sign.

Other than that, and Tayla Harris ending the game with the 'injured' tag, this went about as well as you could hope for. Solid opposition dismissed without undue effort, and a warning to the competition that it may not be 12 rounds to find out who loses to North. It could still turn out that way, so the best thing to do is keep the good times rolling by metaphorically punching the bullies in the face on Friday night. 

2026 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Tyla Hanks
4 - Maeve Chaplin
3 - Olivia Purcell
2 - Kate Hore
1 - Shelley Heath-Barker

Apologies to Allen, Fitzsimon, Gillard, and Harris

Leaderboard
Exciting stuff at the top as the leaders open a full BOG lead over the trailing pack. Not much chance of a first-time winner this season, but we're set for a battle royale in the Defender award, as Chaplin becomes the third different leader for the season. And there remains as much chance of Allen being overtaken for the Rising Star as aliens participating in the Grand Final entertainment.

18 - Tyla Hanks
16 - Olivia Purcell
11 - Maeve Chaplin (LEADER: Defender of the Year)
9 - Kate Hore
8 - Tahlia Gillard 
7 - Eliza McNamara
6 - Jordyn Allen (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Tayla Harris
4 - Mia Austin
3 - Ryleigh Wotherspoon
1 - Georgia Campbell (LEADER: Ruck of the Year), Shelley Heath-Barker

Goal of the Week
For all the scoring this year, we're lacking any absolute blockbusters, but I'll have O'Hehir's debut goal as the new clubhouse leader for the season.

Next week
It's the biggest game of the year. And the next day there's a Grand Final on. We've played opposition between third and godforsaken, and it's all been leading up to the challenge of a team we had on the run early in last year's Prelim, but who otherwise walked over everyone until last week. Now they've had the big reset/reality check, and will likely be desperate to remind everyone to be scared of them. So it would be piss funny to win, and it's a live possibility, but let's not draw too much from them losing one game in the tropics.  

Final thoughts
Six of the best. Only 25 more to the record.

The beatings go on

Following Melbourne (W) must be like supporting Geelong (M). We might not always win the flag, and are vulnerable to the occasional semi-down year, but you can be reasonably sure that when starting as hot favourites nothing weird's going to happen. Our elevation to 'Unflushable nugget' status is still a long way off, and may be difficult to claim while North go on their merry way towards winning 50 straight, but it makes for a more relaxed supporting experience than I'm used to.

The 'piece of piss wins' era faces its greatest challenge in the next two weeks, and it'll be interesting to see what happens when close games start happening again. Maintaining the current level of scoring across a whole season just isn't possible, but enjoy it while it lasts because there's probably never going to be another five (plus?) weeks of raining goals on the opposition like this again.  

Winning by 51 points has lost all shock value over the last few years, but my favourite bit about this one is that Port Adelaide weren't all that bad. Usually, half century wins are reserved for flotsam/jetsam teams, or Brisbane when all their players died simultaneously, but this was death by a thousand cuts disassembly spread over four quarters. And it served Port right for turning up dressed like the 1990s New South Wales State Of Origin team.

Given that we'd lost the only competitive match against them (a total which is well on-brand for AFLW fixturing featuring a team in the competition since 2022), I reserved the right to be nervous. Just because you know the result will almost certainly go as expected, evidence is still required to ensure there's not something stupid on the cards. So I didn't think much of losing the first centre bounce without much of a fight. Fortunately, they split the difference from the last two weeks and fed Gillard an uncontested chest mark.

I imagine the Port coach was looking for objects to hurl through the Casey coaching box when this unnecessary turnover led to the ball instantly pinging down the other end. If there's anything the first four rounds showed, it's that the last thing you want to do is feed Melbourne counter-attacking chances. This one didn't directly lead to a goal, with the spoilt for choice inside 50 kick missing a bunch of players standing on their own. It did, however, set the table for Austin to be tackled high and kick her eighth goal from as many shots this year. 

Without bothering to check the records, I'm going to say nobody's gone 8.0 for our (W) team before. Or, if you prefer, 9.0, because Austin got another one straight after. It was finished by her barging through Port's defence and kicking it from the square, but the conditions for it to exist weren't there without Chaplin bamboozling an opponent in the build-up with candy selling so extreme that the City of Casey is tendering for international experts to extract a Port Adelaide player from the turf. The Roadrunner never went past Wile E. Coyote that savagely, and it kicked off her best game since returning from injury. Amongst our galaxy of stars, there's an argument that Chaplin is up there with the most entertaining players on the list to watch.

Port won all the early centre bounces, but when they didn't convert it was only a matter of time before the ball went our way at speed, and they could only stand around hoping that it wouldn't be converted. They were generally not, but if 'Eyes Light Up Cam' was a thing, it would've activated at full power when Fitzsimon saw a ball sit up in the square to be smashed home, before a defender threw herself in the way goalkeeper style. Never mind, soon after Hore arrived for her customary mark and goal, and this was a classic case of one team taking their chances and the other blundering them horrifically.

Not surprisingly, we lost the following clearance, but even more predictably they expertly picked out Gillard again. Sadly, the subsequent pox attempts at extraction ended with Port getting what may have been (but wasn't) a critical goal into the wind. This was followed by us finally breaking even at a centre bounce, only for the umpire to extract a holding the ball free from the keister and allow them to get the ball inside 50 anyway. The quarter still ended down our end, without further scoreboard drama, but as the other lot broke even in most departments except the most important, the second quarter would show if the wind had helped, or whether we really were the better team (spoiler: yes).

As you'd expect, the visitors emerged from quarter time with all the enthusiasm of people who'd heard mystical tales of the famous Casey breeze and now finally got the chance to use it. For the first few minutes they put on plenty of wind-assisted pressure, but couldn't convert for shit. And when the ball hit the ground, our defenders were scooping up ground balls in the same way robot vacuums will deal with your pets after AI goes rogue. 

The combination of poor finishing and desperate defence saw them finish their inaugural Casey wind quarter with a string of points. Which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't let in goals down the other end. Enter Harris to bust past their entire backline to mark at the top of the square, nearly get another one straight after, then celebrate Fitzsimon's dagger to the heart goal after the siren by starting a fight with about seven opponents at the same time. 

For all the recent vigorous self-gratification over 'Wharfie Time', it should be noted that DemonTime has been around much longer (can I cash in somehow?), and was fully in play here, as we spent the last 90 seconds offering Port chances to kick goals that they couldn't grasp. Then Fitzsimon's played the DemonTime reverse card, and while a 19 point margin was a touch unfair considering Port's effort, if you don't convert you've got nobody else to blame. And if they felt hard done at this point, it got a lot worse in the second half.

We were so comfortable with the lead, that in the week Allen got nominated for the Rising Star after a storming start to her career in defence, she was sent forward to have a crack. There was one moment of high excitement when she burst through a gap, before an absurdly premature bounce went awry and ended it all, but I still choose to interpret from this sliver of evidence that she's going to be ace at either end of the ground. There was a pass that set up a goalscoring opportunity in the third quarter that was as good as any seen at Casey Fields.

When the ill-fated McNamara snatched the ball off the pack for classic crumb, our win probability was somewhere around 99.9%. It may have gone backwards if Port took advantage of storming inside 50 with multiple players on their own, only to botch it by handballing straight up in the air rather than to any of the free players available ahead of the ball, then hitting the post from the next stoppage. It was the story of the game. They had enough chances, but torched them with poor forward play. By the time they hit 1.9, we'd also left a few goals on the table, which isn't as important when you're five goals up against bulk chance incinerators.  

Insurance against the most unlikely of last quarter comebacks came from a late double of Mahony's snap, and Bannan's first of the season after the siren. The margin was now getting unexpectedly brutal, and while the commentators unconvincingly tried to keep the prospect of a miracle alive, they may as well have said there was a chance of world peace by the final siren. To be fair, Port did kick the first goal of the final term, rejecting the temptation to continue the theme of the afternoon and miss from the square. 

There was nothing more to be gained from this game, so as long as nobody got suspended or injured... oh, and here's McNamara having her jaw smashed to bits by a failed bump. I get the impression that this goes beyond the standard jaw injury, and we'll be unlikely to see her for the rest of the season. Aside from the unpleasant road ahead of her in recovering this injury, what an absolute pisstake from a football perspective when she'd been on fire as a forward this year. As somebody who has previously come back from a fractured spine (!!!), I'll back her to return successfully - hopefully in time for finals. Until then, it's a fair old gap to fill just as we get to the most important pre-finals weeks of the season.

McNamara's demise delayed a Harris set shot, and the Port players must've been thinking about how long their teammate was going to be rubbed out for (answer: 3 weeks, which was fair enough) because they surely could've stopped the ball going over the line with any semblance of defensive organisation. This was the start of them conceding the sort of goals that show a team has lost the will to live - it was followed by a player being pinged HTB on the goal line, then allowing Wotherspoon to finish with the deftest touch off the side of the boot you'll ever see from somebody about to be swamped by multiple defenders.

And so, after another good-not-great performance, we somehow found ourselves winning in an on paper romp. It's confirmed good stuff, but after five weeks of warmup, things are about to get really serious.

2026 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Maeve Chaplin
4 - Tayla Harris
3 - Tahlia Gillard
2 - Olivia Purcell
1 - Kate Hore

Apologies to Allen, Austin, Hanks, Heath-Barker and Lampard.

Leaderboard
There's obvious action in the main event, but stand-by for a wild race in the DOTY - especially if Allen can avoid being DQed for playing forward too often.

13 - Tyla Hanks, Olivia Purcell
8 - Tahlia Gillard (LEADER: Defender of the Year)
7 - Maeve Chaplin, Kate Hore, Eliza McNamara
6 - Jordyn Allen (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Tayla Harris
4 - Mia Austin
3 - Ryleigh Wotherspoon
1 - Georgia Campbell (LEADER: Ruck of the Year)

Goal of the Week
Plenty of contenders, but against public opinion I want the Wotherspoon one due to its delicate nature.

Next week
Cease all advance talk about Grand Final eve blockbuster against North, first we've got to get past the side that just pushed them harder than anyone since us in last year's Prelim. Carlton is a 'one season good/one season bad' toss of the coin team on par with Melbourne 1998-2004, and are currently on the up, so for god's sake let's take them seriously.  

Final thoughts
The season begins now. But with a five win headstart.

Ease West

The obvious follow-up for any team called Melbourne to 'thumping win over perennial contender leads to premiership contention talk' is a disappointing loss to lowly opposition at the first opportunity. Fortunately Melbourne (W) has largely avoided such obscene bloopers over the years, but for the first few minutes of this 3-0 vs 0-3 glamour clash, it seemed we may have finally been about to stuff things up big time. Quality prevailed comfortably in the end, and with another relatively big score, but at three goals to one down I was silently preparing for the worst.

In the finest traditions of games broadcast from Western Australia, we got the full WABC experience. Will Schofield is the honorary life president of this organisation, but he sounded like a committed federalist compared to the co-commentator Nikki Harwood, who was so keen on local content that she may as well have been draped in the state flag while reading from a pro-secession manifesto. Interstate viewers will say this is what they have to put up with from Victorian callers, but if you think anyone here is defending Dwayne or BT when they say allegedly mean things about [insert state here], you're not paying attention.

If the early trends continued and West Coast pulled off the upset win of the year, sparks were going to fly from whatever studio they were watching from. Thank god for the quick reintroduction of sanity, even if the rapidly expanding margin didn't stop repeated references to Fun Fact #1 - that we supposedly don't travel well. I was scathing about this idea while watching - and you can't really blame the one after the siren last year on failing to adapt to conditions - but it turns out we were 1-5 interstate in the last two seasons. Still, even if the stat works on paper, I'm sure it's got more to do with the teams fixtured against, than the process of leaving Victoria.

Conveniently not mentioned - our last comfortable interstate victory was a 70 point mauling of the Eagles at this exact venue, WW2 siren and all. In the interim, they fell into the eight last year (still something to aspire to in this competition, he says, to lay the boots into the wildcard system one last time (?) in 2026) before quickly departing, and have done nowt so far this year. Still, the good news is that they might have converted a good start into defeat, but 6.8.44 was one point better than their combined score in four previous games against us. That's something to work on. Perhaps.

Having reviewed footage of Brisbane madly panic-bombing kicks into the hands of Tahlia Gillard, West Coast decided to alter their angle of attack, keep the ball lower, and kick it to Jordyn Allen instead. Getting this week's Rising Star (and, in a great moment for the Defenders Union, our first since Gillard) at pick 16 may turn out to be the biggest theft since the Great Bookie Robbery, because despite looking younger than her draft number, this is what you get from the first generation of AFLW players who grew up with the prospect of a professional career. She's turned up knowing what to do, and has been fantastic.

Everything turned out alright in the end, but there was light brickage during the first quarter. It was one thing conceding first, but we got that straight back, only to let another one in almost immediately. We looked dire, were feeding their scores with turnovers (including one to somebody called 'Abbygail', which seems unnecessarily complicated when you could just say Abigail), and lost Goldrick to a knee injury. Hooray for the defensive cockup that allowed Gall in for a settler late in the first term, reducing the margin to a workable six points.

I liked to think class would win out, but didn't expect it to happen so rapidly. Cue a 5.2 to nothing.nothing second quarter that left the commentary team sounding like they were being forced to call an atrocity. Forget the slow start, this was the Melbourne vs strugglers matchup that seemed regulation now, but we'll cherish the memories of when equalisation finally arrives in AFLW.

Inside 50s are a rotten stat, except when they prove your point - and scoring 2.1 from three entries suggested that the floodgates could open if we got the ball down there regularly enough. We did, and they did. The tone was set by Harris basically just saying "PISS OFF" to an opponent and pushing her out of the way before kicking the first, and it was off to the races then - behind dominant performances by Hanks and McNamara. 

Now we were the ones getting all the scoring from turnovers, as the home players who went to the quarter time huddle with a dream in their heart suddenly realised the crushing futility of the task before them. The Eagles soon achieved 'target practice' status, and even if by our standards conceding six goals wasn't ideal, junk time stretched for more than half the game, so no real harm done.  

After making fugly giant eye jumpers famous, Tayla Harris has now provided us with the best all-purpose MFC reaction image since thumbs aloft Jake Lever. Her apology after realising what she'd accidentally done while displaying a finger injury was even better. Overall, very enjoyable content, and you can get used to seeing this screengrab on repeat for the next several years.

With the game already decided, West Coast had a reasonable crack at kicking with the wind in the third quarter. We sensibly decided to run with the ball and link up with handballs instead of just madly bombing it into the wind. The locals narrowly won the quarter, it's a tactic that will come in handy at certain other venues that put on the occasional force 10 storm.

In the interest of full disclosure, even I lost a bit of interest in the last quarter while we were going through the motions of winning effortlessly. Pisano got a second, which is nice because they don't seem to have much faith in her, so I'm glad that she's getting the opportunities to get on the scoreboard. But otherwise, West Coast did a shitload of defending, most of it was successful, but we still got three goals from seven scoring shots. It was a solid, professional win. Nothing to get excited about, but we reintroduced the super-important Chaplin after injury (albeit at the expense of Goldrick going the other way), and put another all-important win on the board. As they say in better forums than this - what's not to like? 

... and even if it's all blown up for her team after a promising 2025, the Eagles coach has always got this medal being named in her honour: 

2026 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Eliza McNamara
4 - Tyla Hanks
3 - Jordyn Allen
2 - Maeve Chaplin
1 - Kate Hore

Apologies to practically everyone. TEAM EFFORT.

Leaderboard
New leader alert, as Purcell conserves energy after a hot start and waves Hanks through for her turn at the front. There's also action in the Defender award, as Allen morally retakes the lead that we didn't credit her with the first time around. Chaplin also lurks, in what could be the ding dong battle of the season. And beating Allen for our version of the Rising Star will require somebody coming from the clouds with the same impact as the spaceship from Independence Day.

13 - Tyla Hanks
11 - Olivia Purcell
7 - Eliza McNamara
6 - Jordyn Allen (LEADER: Defender of the Year, LEADER: Rising Star Award), Kate Hore
5 - Tahlia Gillard
4 - Mia Austin
3 - Ryleigh Wotherspoon
2 - Maeve Chaplin, Tayla Harris
1 - Georgia Campbell (LEADER: Ruck of the Year)

Goal of the Week
There were more spectacular goals, but I quite enjoyed Harris shifting her opponent out of the way like a cardboard cutout.

Next week
At the extremely friendly viewing time (for me anyway) of 12:35 on Sunday, it's one of the two sides I've still never met a fan of in Port Adelaide. After contributing to our dire interstate record last year, they come to Cranbourne with the hope of a) planting a flag in the finals race, and b) not suffering the same fate as most visitors to Mt. Variable Weather. We should win, but as always I'm on guard for the unforeseen surprise reverse double secret stitch-up.

Final thoughts
Still not sure we're beating a North team that just won by 92 points, but I'm happy to get one step closer to an all-star game against them in Round 7.

New adventures in high scores

With respect to the only MFC side I've ever seen win a premiership live, after Saturday night's events, I really didn't want to watch football again for several days/weeks/months. I hope you'll excuse the inevitable misery-related reporting shortcomings, but let's pretend that playing under the name Narrm morally separates this from any disappointment flow-on from the (M) competition. I didn't even tune in early enough to see the heartwarming human-interest story of a rabbit going hell-for-leather around Casey Fields. Lucky it didn't happen on the same day a hound invaded the field, or there may have been carnage.

Going in under a cloud of potential obligation viewing, I needed some sort of early spirit lifter. Instead, the ball was stuck at Brisbane's end for the first five minutes. The good news is, they finally got a goal out of all this pressure, before proceeding to do stuff all else for the next three quarters. Our counter-offer to their sludgey efforts to own territory came via some lovely crumb by Fitzsimon. And even with doom hovering over me, I couldn't help but appreciate a well-crumbed goal. 

That goal changed the mood entirely, and next thing you knew we were in front. Unlike the 'Elizabeth' McNamara rebrand that failed to take off last year, everyone seems to be going with the Shelley Heath-Barker name alteration, so we will too.

It was a neat recovery from the opening minutes where it looked like the Lions were going to grind us into dust, and our prospects of a 3-0 start were improved by Brisbane players going down at an extraordinary rate. The first two ran into each other, then one was inadvertently clobbered while going for the same ball as Campbell. It looked like a perfectly innocent racing accident to me, and apparently the AFLW Match Review Officer process doesn't have the same "you should've thought about doing something in the 0.1 seconds available" philosophy as their AFLM counterpart, because she wasn't immediately deregistered.

We're not rude enough to celebrate opposition players getting hurt, but this did lead to Austin getting our third. Then it was overtime alert for the Brisbane medical staff as more players collided at the start of the second quarter. Maybe this was to blame for the horror turnover in the middle of the ground that allowed Wotherspoon to pile on the agony with a fourth unanswered goal? They were nervous about the several-hour wait for medical attention if anything else went wrong.

By halfway through the second quarter, three Brisbane players were out of the game. Those remaining left so many gaps around the ground that they had to communicate via semaphore flag, and we were picking through thin resistance with the greatest of ease. When McNamara had all week to upgrade a mark in the pocket to Paxman standing alone at the top of the square, it was a bit 'taking advantage of others' misfortune', but after the sporting weekend I'd had then bad luck. Bulk goals were the only thing with the potential to make me feel even remotely better, and if that required a raft of opposition players to suffer misfortunes then so be it. Now that a thumping victory has been confirmed, we wish them all well in their recovery from whatever happened.

It's not like Brisbane didn't get the ball forward, but for the second time in recorded history they ran into the Great Wall of Gillard. She channelled her frustration (I assume) at not winning you-know-what into intercepting everything that entered the vicinity. I'd say, "Maybe don't just kick it straight to the best defender on the ground", but nobody with even the most tenuous connection to the MFC had the authority to say that after this weekend. Still, if the cliche 'lower your eyes' has ever been appropriate, it was as they kept going inside 50, directly to the tallest player available.

Like a war movie featuring bedraggled survivors stumbling home in a daze with the majority of their unit blown to bits, the Lions came back for another go in the second half, but the outcome was as obvious as it ever gets in a Melbourne game. One of their futile attacking efforts was converted into end-to-end magic that rated alongside the best ball movement seen in our AFLW history. Hanks missed the final pass in what would've been Team Goal of the Year (which is an official category that should exist, to recognise champagne football that doesn't end in somebody kicking one from over their head in the pocket), but things were going so well that McNamara still scooped it up for a snap. Then Gall got another, and it was officially a romp.

On either side of more Wotherspoon goals, Channel 7 deployed what must have been the first ever use of a live ladder during Round 3. It showed that we'd gone ahead of the 30 in a row juggerNorth and to the top of the ladder. For whatever benefit that has a quarter of the way into the season, when we're still to play them. Through the wonder and mystery of percentage, this was made possible thanks to Brisbane scoring bugger all - so even though Wotherspoon made up for being jibbed out of a mark in the pocket with her third, North still wound up back on top by the end of the round. We'll live.

After avoiding the permanently unbeaten in home and away games last year, we get the ultimate challenge in Round 7 this time. Despite claims by commentators that this was a "warning shot to the rest of the competition", I'll grade this 70% quality performance, 30% putting the boots to half-dead opposition who could no longer defend themselves. I won't take wins against West Coast, Port, or Carlton for granted, but if we reach 6-0 before playing North there's every excuse for the lid to threaten a trip into orbit. Of course, the wider public will probably have NFI that the game is even happening because it's on Grand Final Eve, but enthusiasts will enjoy it. A "why doesn't the government just abolish crime" style demand from the commentary box to move the game to Docklands fell flat when the boundary rider pointed out that there was a competing concert - which has presumably been booked at a 50,000 seat venue for good reasons.

Not surprisingly, Brisbane lost another player at 3/4 time, and the goals kept coming. Unfortunately, the second was to the visitors, breaking our run of 12 in a row. That was only a short break into the pummeling, where blatant failure to pay holding the ball in front of our goal still ended in success, with Fitzsimon doing a slow-motion version of the Harry Sharp SuperToepoke against Freo.

In the spirit of the GWS playing going boonta while five goals down, Overcelebration of the Week goes to Dakota Davidson for giving it the big “COME ONNNNNN!” after cutting the margin to a mere 56 points. This also came via unpaid HTB, making the game feel like when Daytona USA arcade machines used to slow the lead car down to keep multiplayer games interesting. And if you know what that means, you may also be middle-aged.

Coincidentally, just after a petrol can sign was held up on the bench, junk time kicked off. This featured a weird scenario where Brisbane kicked a goal under suspicion of it being touched on the way through. Last week, a goal was signalled all clear, then removed on dubious video evidence before the game could restart - proving that there's somebody ready to review AFLW goals. This time, the entire 'score review' process was the field umpire calling his goal and boundary colleagues together, asking if anyone saw anything, then calling all clear. Maybe the reviewer chucked a sickie on Sunday?

Regardless of token late goals, it was still our biggest win over Brisbane, and equal fourth highest score of all time. Which is something when you consider how many actually hapless teams have left Casey mashed into dust. It makes me even more wary about how much of it was down to Brisbane finishing with about a dozen fit players. I'd like to believe we're the antidote to North squeezing all the life out of the competition, but require further evidence against non-crippled opposition to confirm how high I should get my hopes before they're crushed in a cut-throat final. 

2026 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Tahlia Gillard
4 - Tyla Hanks
3 - Olivia Purcell
2 - Ryleigh Wotherspoon
1 - Georgia Campbell

Apologies to Fitzsimon, Heath-Barker (inaugural mention), Hore, Lampard, McNamara and Paxman

Leaderboard
I was negligent last week in not naming Allen as leader of Defender of the Year, but that's been rendered irrelevant by Gillard Mania. In other news, congratulations to Campbell on taking an early lead in the ruck award.

11 - Olivia Purcell
9 - Tyla Hanks
5 - Tahlia Gillard (LEADER: Defender of the Year), Kate Hore
4 - Mia Austin
3 - Jordyn Allen (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Ryleigh Wotherspoon
2 - Tayla Harris, Eliza McNamara
1 - Georgia Campbell (LEADER: Ruck of the Year)

Goal of the Week
The team effort one was good, but as I'm not enough of a trendsetter to introduce that category, the award for individual excellence goes to Fitzsimon for her mayhem-inducing crumb in the first quarter.

Next week
It's a West Coast team we've outscored 235-36 in our last three meetings. Like GWS, surely they've got to be good eventually. We continue to wish Daisy Pearce well in her coaching career, but feel free to wait another week before launching the big breakthrough.

Final thoughts
Good. More please. Help me forget.