For top events of September 25, good luck ever beating the greatest day in the history of human civilisation, but five years on from that blessed event I was prepared to slot an All Stars South d. All Stars North result somewhere beneath it on the list of memorable moments. And for the first quarter that looked like a live possibility, before normal service resumed with a vengeance.
With the big game feeling already deflated due to North's unexpected loss last week, and COVID-era flu chaos during the week offering them a handy excuse to go back-to-back, you could have been excused for thinking big at three goals to zilch in the first quarter. But we've seen this before, in our very last start against the same opposition, on the same ground. This time it only (?) ended with a generic midseason loss, but at least that day the hot start kept the game alive until deep into the last quarter. This was like ye old luxury ship suddenly meets iceberg.
This page is practically a Chaplin/Gillard fan site now, so I'm pleased to say that North got things off to the traditional start by punting their first inside 50 directly to the latter. Not for the first time in recent weeks, the problem was clearing the ball without it flinging straight back towards the backline for another go. Enter three minutes of North piling on pressure for no reward, before counter-attack gold when, on our first time across halfway, Harris plonked a kick to Fitzsimon's advantage for the opener. She almost went back-to-back, but was foiled by last-gasp intervention from still-reigning 'Last MFC ex to win a flag' Libby Birch, who played with enough strapping on her leg to get a bonus job playing movie extra 'Air Disaster Survivor #6' on the way home.
Now, it was our chance to pin the ball in attack for a while without reward, but though nothing initially came of it, I'd like to draw your attention to a kick from Hanks to Mahony that would adequately be described as 'laser-like'. North filched our move of scoring at the first successful escape from defence, aided by a downfield free against Bannan that I deemed a bit pissweak. It missed, before Chaplin made a goal-line save to add further weight to her case to be named the most entertaining defender on the face of God's green earth.
If you're the one person at AFL headquarters who actually cares how this league does, you might have been disappointed that it wasn't the sort of free-scoring game as when shit teams are involved. I say, if you didn't appreciate the desperate defence at both ends of the ground you're a bum. That was, if you were watching in the first place. Not that I helped by watching from home, but the crowd of 3105 was absolutely dire for a fixture of this magnitude, so god knows what the TV audience was like, or how depressed Channel 7 executives were at having to spend money broadcasting it. Meanwhile, I like to think somebody caved their TV in when Kate Hore's brother-in-law was seen wearing Dees-related merch in the crowd.
In a turn of events visible from several galaxies away, attention was largely diverted to a certain game being played the following day. Maybe that didn't matter and this is just where the competition is at, but keep all this in mind when the AFL try to pretend everything's going well based on rorted attendance averages inflated by double headers.
Anyway, enough of the semi-regular misery session about the state of the competition (especially because I have no decent suggestions to offer on fixing it), we were busy building a house of cards lead. The second goal came from set shot mastermind Austin, after a free against North for cracking the shits at an umpire. There's a rule you forgot existed. Like suspensions for belting somebody in the guts.
When the ball ended up at their end late in the quarter, I thought we were going to activate footy's original '[X] Time' gimmick and concede in the last 90 seconds. Instead, there was a tremendous end-to-end move that wound up with Pisano setting up the Kate Hore 100 game celebration with a lovely kick. For a top draft pick, successive administrations have had little faith in Pisano, and she barely touched it again for the rest of the game, but they should be showing her that pass on repeat Clockwork Orange-style this week. The talent is there, she's got to release the beast eventually.
We'd played a great first quarter, but buggered if I was getting overexcited about a three goal lead against North at Princes Park after last time. Four was the minimum to start thinking big, but the opening minutes of the second quarter featured bulk inside 50s for zero goals. Whatever version of the plague North had they looked rattled, but it turned out to be the biggest rope-a-dope since Ali in Zaire. You'd have been forgiven for thinking that their laboured first goal, which nearly went wrong multiple times and only narrowly avoided being kicked straight into Gillard, was another example of their imminent demise. Spoiler - it was not.
If you're into voodoo concepts like luck, momentum swings, and expected score, everything went wrong when Livingstone was pinged for a kick off the ground going straight over the boundary line. The subsequent free was seemingly booted out on the full, but recalled for a boundary throw-in because the ball had never entered the field of play before it was kicked. The AFL has changed every other rule under the sun, how have they not got to this one? If you can't successfully put the ball back into play, it should be considered as good as OOF and result in a free the other way.
Worse than prompting philosophical discussion about the rules, this soon turned into North's second goal and my 'no excitement' policy was looking prudent. Our problem was that the goals had come from 2x turnover and 1x telling the umpire to GAGF, but whenever they had time to set up the defence it resulted in kicking to a rotating clump of defenders, with nobody looking remotely likely to pull down the sort of big marks required to get away with that. We had seven marks inside 50, and the only contested ones were after the game was shot. There was also no crumb, and you know what happened next.
In a confirmed case of 'Can't play [insert list of the shit teams here] every week', North hit the front. I'm all for players wearing #60, but not when they're setting up teammates 20 metres out directly in front. This goal was followed by post-goal celebrations that looked like drunken school mums trying to copy something they'd seen on TikTok. There were no such shenanigans after their next goal, which proved how much things were turning in their favour by coming as the replacement for an injured player appearing on her own (and a half-volley off Campbell's shin), and finding teammates in attack with so much free space that they would've needed to communicate via semaphore.
There was a near miss from another shot right on the siren, and like the Prelim all over again, you suspected that once North turned up we couldn't maintain the early rage. Half time failed to arrest the declining trajectory of the game, and we soon allowed a player who'd just kicked OOF to have a second shot where lessons were successfully learnt. Austin missed a shot (NB: not an easy one, to be fair) to bring the margin back to single figures, and I was pining for more goals after opposition players told the umpire to FO. Later, there was a free for calling a decision 'bullshit', but by then we'd been sapped of any will to live and kicked it straight to a defender.
Any sort of luck was welcome at this stage, but even the great Chaplin was in a bit of disarray. First she finished a patient build-up with a perfect pass to a North player, then gave away a shizen free kick, and dropped a mark that led to North's six in a row. When you're grouse 97% of the time, who am I to complain about the remainder?
Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse, injury drama broke out as we cut to Heath-Barker on the bench having her leg strapped up like Tutenkamen. She was visibly upset, so the natural reaction was to keep the camera on her for as long as possible, then replay the footage at three quarter time. None of this was ideal. Meanwhile, Gillard was having the Steven May '23-'24 finals experience of doing absolutely everything possible to keep the side in the game, only to watch chances galore go down the drain at the other end.
After nearly killing the Irish dancers during the male version of Jim's Game, we hadn't kicked a goal since the first quarter, and they spent half the night doing bugger all on public holiday rates. I'd given up hope of a famous win, but just wanted to keep it interesting for as long as possible, but it was clearly not our night. Even when Harris fended an opponent into an alternate dimension, the follow-up kick went nowhere. Then, when the captain put a kick to the advantage of two players in goalscoring range, they both stood back, said "you first", and watched it bounce past. Surprise third-party candidate Bannan was next in line but couldn't do anything with it either.
The dancers remained literally unmoved as Livingstone took a nice mark, then opted not to extend her #40 goals record by handing off to Harris... whose kick didn't make the distance. To use the technical term, this was officially 'shithouse', and that was before North kicked the sealer. Still nothing for the dancers to do. I hope they were keeping warm, just in case we got onto a surprise junk time goal and there was hammy carnage. Everyone else has sued the club this year, why not the cast of Riverdance too?
We should've got our money's worth by making them dance when North started scoring left, right, and centre down the other end. This was a setback, but I don't blame our players for sticking cue in rack so violently it ripped off the wall. There's plenty more important work to be done this season - no point dying for a lost cause. The big jig finally broke out again thanks to two consolation goals for Austin, and there was enough of a delay after the first that I think they may have had to run back from the bar after the mark was taken.
The result was long decided, but the final insult was the player who'd previously kicked 1.8 this year picking now to start kicking straight. May as well have sent mattress leg Birch (112 games, 1 goal) to full forward while they were at it. Luckily I hung on until the siren out of obligation to see the aforementioned wayward kicker indulge in a bit of VIGOROUS CHAT with Gillard after the siren. Tahlia was fighting with the wrong side, after giving maximum effort to keep us in the game while under constant barrage, she should've been berating her own teammates instead.
So, it's RIP winning streak and The Big Six has turned into Big Stuff All. I hated 75% of it, but if we have to live in a world where North are practically unbeatable, what better motivation is required for the last five rounds and finals than getting another shot at them when it really counts. Maybe next time we could concede the first three goals and see if that helps.
2026 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Tahlia Gillard
4 - Tyla Hanks
3 - Kate Hore
2 - Mia Austin
1 - Olivia Purcell
Apologies to Allen, Ebert, Fitzsimon and Harris
Leaderboard
Vital breathing space for Hanks, as we're getting close to the 'needs finals' elimination line starting to eliminate anyone who hasn't polled yet. Last week's prediction that the defender race would prove the spiciest award contest in football was moderately debunked by Gillard going BOG here, but the gap is still close enough to keep it interesting.
22 - Tyla Hanks
17 - Olivia Purcell
13 - Tahlia Gillard (LEADER: Defender of the Year)
12 - Kate Hore
11 - Maeve Chaplin
7 - Eliza McNamara
6 - Mia Austin, Jordyn Allen (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Tayla Harris
3 - Ryleigh Wotherspoon
1 - Georgia Campbell (LEADER: Ruck of the Year), Shelley Heath-Barker
Goal of the Week
They were all reasonably dull, so the joint encouragement award goes to Hore's set shot and Pisano's kick to set it up.
Next week
Unless injuries and post-defeat demoralisation have a crazy effect, you'd hope that Collingwood aren't going to take inspiration from finally winning a game in Round 6. Here's to them doing the honourable thing and standing aside so that we may continue to offer some form of resistance against RoboNorth. Lucky this wasn't Hore's 100th, or Corey's brother wearing Melbourne merch would've gone down poorly with two sets of fans.
Final thoughts
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