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.