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.