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.