Video included purely to showcase some of the greatest costumes ever worn:
Considering you can bet on everything else AFL related I assume the gambling market has embraced AFLW with open arms. They'd have been staying well away from this one, the team representing one of the flakiest organisations known to man (NB: since 2019 Richmond no longer qualifies) as short-priced favourites against one that has lost all seven games in its short history. Nobody putting serious amounts of money up was going to trust us or take a punt on the Tigers finally coming good, no matter how many times our men and women have both lost in comical fashion.
Despite this long, proud history of losing as living certainties, I fully expected to win here. The Gold Coast win wasn't our best ever, but it felt like enough to take care of this level of opposition. At the bounce one of the commentators suggested Richmond was a chance, causing me to scoff heartily, shortly before they cannoned straight out of the middle for a goal. Sure it was assisted by the first of many NQR holding the ball decisions (and an almost sarcastic 50 when the woman from SAS Australia was standing at the top of the square anyway), but still caused uncomfortable flashbacks to the early stages of last week when the defence were all operating in different area codes.
Unlike last week we didn't enhance the degree of difficulty by letting a second in straight after, but once again the early flurry was the only time the opposition looked even remotely likely to win. Even better, Richmond didn't get another goal until deep in the last quarter. Not that they didn't have an endless string of chances that varied from missing by a sliver to landing closer to the Casey Fields ice cream van than the goal.
Considering it's what got Norm Smith sued, ultimately led to his sacking, and 60 something years of being run like a Turkish bordello, you would never suggest umpires show subconscious bias towards the underdog, but Richmond certainly got breaks in the early going that Kurtis Blow would have barred up over. The quota was holding the ball was used on the rubbish one that lead to their first goal, because they spent the next few minutes flicking the ball when tackled like the Brisbane Broncos without penalty.
We didn't do ourselves any favours by rewarding Tegan Cunningham for her best game in two years by starting her on the bench. This opened the door for Harriet Cordner to remind us of how much she's improved since 2017 by taking several relieving marks from aimless, target free hoofs into the 50. Lo and behold when they sent Cunningham on she provided more than a presence, almost instantly leading to a contested mark and well-taken set shot goal.
It was her only kick of the day but I've not seen a better value four possession performance since 2009 Mark Jamar. She was in everything after that, crashing packs, tackling, and doing practically everything possible without getting a touch. You wouldn't get away with many players like that but against an inexperienced team her presence was immense.
Cunningham's rebirth was a big help for Zanker, who shows plenty of promise but is not a #1 forward yet. Nor, going by a fiasco in the second quarter when she attempted a fend-off and was crushed in a tackle, is she a defender. If she'd had an arm free to fling it out like Alfie Langer they'd probably have called play on.
Next Big Thing Alyssa Bannan also benefited from the T-Rex Tower of Power. Also from an opponent slipping on her arse in the square and letting Bannan mark uncontested for a goal to open the second quarter. She got her second immediately after, and this time it didn't need a slapstick pratfall to come off. Dairy expert Shelley Scott hit her with a wonderful kick in a mile of space and we were away. It's just the sort of thing I expected to see Ben Brown on the end of this year, until his knee fell to bits again. At least unlike Clark (foot), Lumumba (concussion), Lever (knee) and May (everything), he arrived with the injury so there's no heat on us for ruining his career.
Conceding two quick goals should have convinced the Tigers to give up, but they're nowhere near as bad as they were last year, and we may not be as good as the second quarter against Gold Coast suggested. For the last few minutes of the second quarter they camped the ball in front of goal and god only knows how they didn't get their second out of it. A near miss featuring a snap hitting the post left us just 11 points in front at the half, a nice buffer but not nearly enough to be comfortable.
With the wind doing what it always does at Casey, there was almost no point Richmond turning up for the last quarter if they weren't in front. I know they were playing Melbourne, and yes I do remember North in Hobart 2017, but what are the odds of that sort of fiasco happening twice in a lifetime? (answer from sometime in the future - absolutely bloody certain).
Instead, with the chance to put the game away we spent the first few minutes threatening to score. Eventually, the decisive goal came from a joint piece of Key Forward Ingenuity and Small Forward Magic. Stuck hard on the boundary line, Zanker did a perfect palm-down to Hore who rushed past and snapped the goal. Stick that in your highlight reel.
Despite my bitterness at the Richmond men becoming a powerhouse while we're stuck in mid-table mediocrity (or worse), I'm disposed to like their AFLW team because it's coached by former MFC trade week conscientious objector Ryan Ferguson. They refused to go away, and I suspect they'll roll a few lowly teams in the next seven weeks.
Our dominance, on field if not yet scoreboard, was impressive considering Paxman was being reasonably well held (though she got going strongly as the Tigers physically and mentally faded), and Daisy barely had a kick. I suppose that's what happens when you play behind the ball against a team that barely got the ball down their end, and if they did it stayed in front of goal for minutes. If you want to pad your stats as a rebound defender role pray for a team whose attacks constantly breaks down across half-back. Or as they're known to 17 men's teams... Melbourne.
There were few dangers to our lead. Krstel Petrevski blowing her hammy like she'd stepped on a landmine was more of a personal shame - just as I was about to declare her the new, improved Aleisha Newman - than a factor likely to cost us the game. The extra rotation would have been nice, but considering the opposition and relatively mild temperature one player down wasn't going to open the door to a classic run-down performance by a team that had one goal in three quarters.
Now that there's any excuse to give a free in front of goal and protect the head, we got the killer blow courtesy of the two coming together. Kate Hore was tackled and her head hit the ground but not sure what more the Richmond player could have done to avoid out under that grow a third hand, gently cradle the bonce on the way down and give away a free for high contact instead. If they're going to pay those all year in both competitions SEN may enjoy the most profitable season in its history.
In theory, a 23 point lead at three quarter time with the use of the wind to follow, should have guaranteed victory but I've seen some Melbourne sides do things into the breeze than the International Criminal Court should investigate so wasn't prepared to bet my house on a win at any odds. After wobbling through the last quarter against Gold Coast once the job was already done, I wasn't surprised to see Richmond have all the early chances. Considering they needed 5x more goals than they'd got in the first quarters, wasting five minutes trying to blunder through another score was good enough to make sure we'd win.
Much to the disappointment of one vocal Richmond nutter in the crowd, the final nail in the coffin came from another free directly in front, this time to Shelley Scott. If only he'd yelled out "you fight like a dairy farmer" and she'd responded in the traditional manner. By now the Tigers had come to accept the futility of it all, and allowed Karen Paxman of all people to stand in an acre of space at a stoppage in front of goal. She kicked the goal, the margin was approaching 30 points, we were going to start the year 2-0 with a healthy percentage and everything was ok in the world of women's football. Mind you, we won the first two in 2018 and missed the finals on percentage. If there's a novelty way to cock-up a finals appearance somebody at Melbourne has done it.
Not much was going right for Richmond. One of their forwards flew blindly into a pack for a mark at the top of the square, only to have the kick deemed not far enough. Then the perma-scowling Libby Birch absolutely clobbered her in mid-air for good measure. An umpire with a heart would have realised the game was done and that he'd been a bit harsh on the distance and given a free for the your friend and mine front-on contact. Stiff shit in this case. She'll think better of doing anything brave next time. Especially when Libby is around.
Our habit of not conceding goals, outside the first couple of minutes anyway, doesn't help Birch's campaign for individual honours but it's good to know she's there. Her resting psycho face is one of the AFLW's underrated attractions. I'm sure she's kind to all people and creatures the other six days a week, during games she looks like a supporter of homicide.
Because we're a highly diplomatic outfit, Lily Mithen made up for the cruel refusal to gift them the earlier goal by giving away a blatant free in front of goal just before the end. With the allegation of a sling tackle there was a brief outbreak of jostling before common sense prevailed, we let them kick the goal, and they celebrated like Jordan McMahon kicking a winner after the siren. No harm done, until we miss the finals by 0.00001%.
There's no way to put a negative spin on starting a season 2-0, especially when there's only seven games left, and while nothing suggests an Essendon 2000 style golden season, if we can prove ourselves against a finals contender soon a spot somewhere in the top six beckons. Collingwood are also 2-0, and lets see how Adelaide, Brisbane, Freo and North fare this round, but it's looking like there's going to be a huge glut of teams around sixth (and around 14th if some of the dross put out this season is anything to go by).
The spanner in the works is whether the season will even finish. With quarantine hotel-related people randomly catching the big one all around Australia and the WA Premier not mucking around with his chances of winning an election next month, travel restrictions are going to play havoc with the rest of the season. They shuffled the deck to do West Coast/Freo this round, they'll have to come up with more special moves if borders aren't reopened next week.
Apologies to Westralians, but the only option may be to go on without you. I can understand cutting the finals short last year as Freo were locked up when red-hot flag favourites, but there's only so much you can muck around with the fixture of a semi-professional competition. If you don't like it go and camp outside Mark McWhatshisname's electoral office, some of us have got a first legitimate competition to win (no, not AFLX) since the 1993 Reserves.
At this stage I think a serious ping at the flag may be beyond us, but I look forward to seeing how close we get over the next seven (plus?) weeks. Now, as punishment for trying excise Western Australia from the Commonwealth watch us miss the finals by losing to the winless West Coast by a point after the siren in Round 9.
Apologies to Hore, Pearce, Birch, Emonson and Sherriff,
Leaderboard 9 - Karen Paxman 7 - Lily Mithen 6 - Tegan Cunningham 4 - Lauren Pearce 2 - Tyla Hanks 1 - Alyssa Bannan, Eliza McNamara (JOINT LEADERS: Whatever It Ends Up Being Called Award for AFLW Rising Star)
Crowd Watch I take it the 'Marry Me #22' placard in the crowd wasn't a serious offer. If it was a bloke holding it the Richmond player referenced may wish to involve the police.
Next Week In a rare, COVID influenced scenario we're playing TBD at TBD with time and date TBD. The original fixture was St Kilda at Moorabbin, scene of a total disaster last year, so I don't see any reason to change that. Any chance of relocating some of these games to the Corona-free northern suburbs so I can go without having to set aside a day to go on an Oregon Trail style journey to Cranbourne?
With Petrevski a certain out I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of wobbly wins against recent expansion sides leads to more changes. One of our other Irish players has to get a game eventually, you can't drag them halfway across the world mid-pandemic, lock them in hotels for 14 days, then leave them out all year. Problem is we're about to start playing good teams, which is not a great time for learning on the job.
I'm still not qualified to have an opinion on team changes but I would very much like to select Mietta to open the door for dozens of dated 1990s restaurant references.
Final Thoughts In these tough times, it's good to know there's still one aspect of the sport where we can treat Richmond with contempt.
Hello, it's AFLW season. And around these parts that means two things. Firstly, old mate from work will give me the same speech about how he can't watch women's footy for the third year in a row. Secondly it's time to kick off a new Demonblog campaign. This year we turn 17, almost old enough to legally drink three slabs. Which may come in handy depending on how things go on and off-field.
It's terrifying to think that in a couple of years there will be draftees who weren't alive for the first, Llane Spaanderman heavy, review. Always a review, never a report. Let's not deceive anybody into thinking they're going to get in-depth analysis. I'm just making this shit up. It's the constitution. It's Mabo. It's justice. It's law. It's the vibe etc...
In honour of our women's team playing their fifth season in a proper national competition I thought I'd have the annual crack at getting my daughter interested. After showing cursory interest in the statistical and scoring side of things (no DNA test required, definitely my child) during the 2020 men's fiasco, I asked "Do you want to watch the Dees girls play footy today?" and received a polite "no thank you." Fair enough, I'll tackle it solo.
Even by my rock-bottom standards, I was woefully unprepared for the start of AFLW. Other than a practice match that was so low-key all the match reports left off one of our goalkickers and nobody cared, I didn't know what to expect. When we traded what seemed like half our list for picks at the end of the season it felt like Lily Mithen ceremonially opening the pandemic with the Sydney Showgrounds miracle goal was going to be as good as it got for us for a few seasons.
2020 had a good finish, but was still probably the worst AFLW season we've ever had. Work that out. That's why sneaking into the finals and thieving a win was so impressive. Now, after several years of near-misses before finally winning when it mattered only to have the season cancelled the next day, I was ready to accept a rebuilding phase. It would be tinged with sadness over wasting the peak years of the almighty Daisy/Paxy superteam and end in the sacking - fairly or not - of the coach but that seemed to be the way it was going.
Then, for perhaps the first time, I took a rational view of a sporting scenario and realised that it might not have been such bad news after all. When Elise O'Dea turned up on TV in a Carlton jumper I moaned, and Harriet Cordner had come a long way as a defender, but otherwise? Meh. Jakobsson and Smith didn't play in 2020, Guerin had six games in three years, and Newman didn't even average a goal every two games and kicked 0.7 last season.
Things didn't seem so bad, though with so much non-footy related water under the bridge in the last 12 months I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed the Tex Perkins Experience until I saw her wearing a Gold Coast jumper. There's nobody to blame for losing her, in a barely semi-professional competition you can't argue if somebody wants to move interstate. Given that she was only in the side because everyone else was injured, we'd also have had to redraft her. Still, if the way she marauded here there and everywhere taking marks and kicking goals this afternoon is anything to go by I'd have been more than happy for her to stay.
After losing all those players, only having to add three debutantes was a reasonable sign. We still had plenty of inexperience in the team but haven't needed to delve deep into the ranks of the young and Irish before the inevitable injury crises strike.
With respect to Gold Coast playing a reasonable first season in the competition, I was also pleased the COVID related fixture reschedule (brought to you by our premium partner Matthew Bate and the Vodafone 5G network) saved us from having to play Adelaide first up. Sure, the Crows had a rotten 2020 and finished half a game below Gold Coast, but I've still got uncomfortable memories of that 8-68 DEBACLE in the last round of 2019. It's like when we used to play at Football Park and you knew that no matter what factors were involved we would lose comfortably. And we always did.
This enthusiasm about playing the Suns lasted approximately 30 seconds, until their first forward entry prompted our defence to part like the Red bloody Sea and let them in for the first goal. Suddenly playing at Casey looked like a sensible idea. We had opportunities at the other end, but with the forward line playing like they'd met each other on the plane to Queensland, the Suns were able to execute the classic Demon Trampoline counter-attack and turn our forward 50 into them running into an opening goal.
For ticketholders in the 'First outburst of 2021' lottery, the winner was an exasperated "Oh come the fuck on!" Can you blame me? There have been days where we've barely kicked two in a game, let alone come from that far down. Early returns from our forwards didn't suggest a score much over double figures, and a likely replay of the St Kilda game last year when they were crap and we were crapper.
The game turned on a beautiful, centering kick from Tyla Hanks on the boundary line. She found Kate Hore all but directly in front for what could - even at this early stage - be called a steadier. She has missed easier (especially in that season where she kicked 1.7), but found the mark - just - this time.
As long as we could stop them kicking goals from every attack (we'd have got 270 points in some games if that was a thing) the game was alive again. Then we got an administrative 50 via an encroachment that the commentators couldn't even identify via a replay (which bodes very poorly for the rest of the year, no matter what gender you identify as) that handed Cunningham the easiest of goals and scores were level again. Strange stuff, but no harm done by the slow start.
Just when you thought the tide was turning, we demonstrated our commitment to equality in football by conceding a #demontime goal from the last kick of the quarter. And who better to take a ripping pack mark than our old mate Sarah Perkins. Any half chance we can ever find another player who can take an overhead grab like that? Notwithstanding the fact that we won, the secret weapon in this competition is forwards who can take overhead marks and kick 40+ metres.
Alternatively, you could execute the Eden Zanker method. She got the first goal of the second quarter by outbodying her opponent in a manner reminiscent of the time Jesse Hogan (remember him?) physically removed Zac Dawson from his space before marking unopposed. She converted our third set shot in a row and I bet you that's the first time we've ever done that. Usually it takes two quarters, nine behinds, and a goal shambled off the ground from the square before anyone finds the middle, let alone from set shots.
The fourth - and how often can you say that before half time - came from some delightful Petrevski crumb. It's hardly Marlion Pickett going from a Grand Final to playing against nobody in his second game, but good to see her in everything after barely going near it on debut in the finals last year. Next thing you know former Kung Fu enthusiast Shelley Heath was banking our second goal from an administrative 50 and the lead was out to 11.
I was up and down the confidence rollercoaster, and when Cunningham got her second I was at the top of it again. She was much maligned on these pages in 2020 (not without some justification), but was very good today. In this case she did a wonderful step around a defender, before being the subject of the most blatant trip since the hey-day of Dustin Fletcher. Comically, the umpire responded to her being dragged down like a shark attack victim by half signalling holding the ball before changing his mind at the last minute and making the correct call. That was six straight. Not quite the 10.0 against Freo in 2017, but without viewing the highlights I doubt such a high proportion of those were set shots.
Perkins - my favourite three game MFC player since James Cook - did her best to get the Suns back into it with a dazzling kick to one of her fellow forwards, who showed appreciation by missing from the top of the square. If you didn't see the miss just imagine any Melbourne AFLW game you've ever seen. Speaking of misses, the winning streak in front of goal ended at six when first gamer Bannan sprayed a set shot. That was only a temporary diversion, we got our own last minute goal. Cunningham was again the architect, bringing the ball to ground when outnumbered in a contest only for Hore to be clotheslined. She kicked after the siren for her second and procession mode was on.
At the heart of what was probably our best AFLW quarter (notwithstanding plowing through rotten opposition like West Coast last year), was an outbreak of Paxmania. She had 13 touches for the quarter than were about 500 times the value of her six in the first. Like either of the Pearces, everything she touches turns to gold. And what mention of Karen Paxman would be complete without reference to her outstanding hair. I believe mullets should be outlawed by Act of Parliament, but this barnet is so impressive that it transcends scepticism. Looks like one of the Thomastown Sharps, plays like Bob Skilton. She'll be 33 by the start of next season but here's hoping she carries on for a few more years.
For the first five minutes of the second half the Suns contained the bleeding, even if they looked unlikely to ever kick another goal. We were having them handed to us on a platter, with a third guaranteed six pointer delivered via 50 metre penalties for standing in the wrong place. If administrative 50s were a person they'd have tied the record of Alyssa Mifsud (whatever happened to her?), Cunningham, and Aleisha Newman for most goals in a single game.
After costing themselves a goal by failing to track whether they were running east/west or north/south, the Suns got a consolation charity free at the other end, but with the buffer we'd already built up it only caused slight discomfort. Any concern about a tremendous choke was banished when a hopeful kick to the square squirmed through the pack to Lily Mithen, who shrugged off a half-hearted tackle and tapped in to restore the big lead.
When you follow Melbourne confidence is usually closely followed closely by disappointment, but after that goal I was still moved to check our highest scores. This was already up there, with room to have a crack at the all-time record if things went well in the last quarter. I didn't hold out much hope, the combination of a year away from high-level footy, the warm weather and waking up at bullshit o'clock to fly in would lead to a tepid last quarter. And lo we did score but one more behind, leaving it our equal sixth best AFL score.
Much to my open disappointment but secret delight, last minute specialist Perkins got another at the end of the quarter to keep things interesting. This time there was ample opportunity for another, and if we hadn't escaped a ball bobbling hither and yon in the square during the last few seconds the margin would have been under 20, with the looming spectre of a tremendous collapse. I can't pretend to be as emotionally invested in this as the men's game, but it's still inconsiderate to subject fans to so many mood swings in the first game of the season. I'm not ready for this sort of inner turmoil yet.
Male or female, we never play two great quarters in a row, and courtesy of Perkins' second, the Suns won the third term. It helped that they shut the gate on Paxman, keeping her to two touches. She got a few kicks in the last quarter but it really was a one quarter performances. But what a quarter, especially as that's where the game was won.
Whatever was said at the last change, I hope more attention was given to the coach than when Simon Goodwin inspired Jayden Hunt to inspect Christian Petracca's grundle. No doubt the message was to just run the clock down as much as possible, but as much as I expected the last quarter to be a fizzer an early goal to settle the issue would have been nice. Instead, Gold Coast camped inside their 50 for the first few minutes. Fortunately, they had a couple of near-misses but wasted a third of the quarter on a couple of behinds, meaning we'd have to drop our bundle in record fashion to lose.
After an otherwise good game to watch, no doubt the "you're shoving this down my throat" fanatics tuned in just in time for the last five minutes when all interest had been lost and players were cramping up all over the place. If your TV/internet connected device cut out at this stage let me assure you that you missed absolutely nothing other than us holding on to win in the face of nearly zero pressure.
So, it's 1-0 for the Melbourne Football Club in 2021 (2-0 if you count practice matches), and that's good enough for me. An interstate trip in warm weather out of the way, another game into the young players, and the platform is there for a decent crack at the top whatever it is this year. Not to temper expectations too much but you'd like to see them do similar to a good side, the game was won in one furious quarter and we still let the Suns kick their biggest ever score.
Had they consulted their 2000 page AFL rulebooks they'd have realised that it's an offence punishable by death to lean on an angle of more than 90 degrees while running at a speed of no less than 10km/h within hearing distance of the kicker, and saved themselves at least one goal. In that case it might have been closer. But stiff shit, it wasn't, make with the four premiership points.
Just when you thought all was going well, Fox Sports finished the day in an appropriately ramshackle fashion but cutting off the theme song halfway so it said "it's the emblem of this has been a Fox Sports production". It was an interesting version, especially with Jonathan Brown's voice coming in over the top like Luther Vandross dueting with Janet Jackson but I doubt it'll catch on.
2021 Daisy Pearce Medal votes 5 - Karen Paxman 4 - Lauren Pearce 3 - Tegan Cunningham 2 - Lily Mithen 1 - Eliza McNamara (LEADER: Whatever It Ends Up Being Called Award for AFLW Rising Star)
Major apologies to D. Pearce and Hanks. Mid-range apologies to plenty.
Media Watch Like our commentating lord and saviour Jason Bennett, Nigel Carmody is never going to get a call-up to the AFL unless he stops commentating the game sensibly and starts to inject more of the top bloky, green and gold, Hogesy, Barnesy, matey, fair dinkum, piss sinkin' larrikanism than Channel 7 talent scouts are looking for. Perhaps like Bennett, he'd rather retain his dignity than be caught talking bollocks on national television. All the big money is in buffoonery but they can both comfort themselves knowing some of us still appreciate sensible commentary.
Next Week In theory, it's the Tigers at 5.10pm on Saturday at Casey. In practice, anything could happen at the moment up to and including being rescheduled to play doubles against the Williams Sisters. It would take me less time to get to Metricon Stadium than Cranbourne - including 14 days in hotel quarantine - so I'll be taking this in from home if you don't mind.
Richmond was shithouse in their first season but they've added a bunch of experienced players and should be much better.
Final Thoughts We've got a good record in Round 1 so it's not worth getting over the top excited yet, and I still reckon there's a bad patch in our future over the next couple of years when we lose experience at the top of side, but for now all we know is that a team called Melbourne played a game of Australian Rules Football and won. That remains a very good thing. On to the next battle.
Reminder - this year all voting will be conducted by Twitter poll this year. See @demonblog for daily matches. If you don't have a Twitter account why not start a fake one for the occasion? Then you can use it to anonymously harass politicians.
Because you can't pre-schedule a Twitter poll and I keep obscure hours matches may appear at any time on the listed date and results may not be announced until god knows when. One way or the other we'll get there.
Preliminary Round Adam Tomlinson d. Austin Bradtke 109-21 James Jordon d. Kade Chandler 71-45 Toby Bedford d. Bailey Laurie 80-44 Kysaiah Pickett d. Fraser Rosman 140-10 Trent Rivers d. Harrison Petty 121-14 Oskar Baker d. Marty Hore 75-59 Aaron Nietschke d. Jake Bowey 80-79 Ben Brown d. Tom Sparrow 104-36 Luke Jackson d. Mitch Brown 160-20
Round 1 1. Max Gawn d. Adam Tomlinson 160-10 Sam Weideman d. James Harmes 80-60 Neville Jetta d. James Jordon 142-18 8. Angus Brayshaw d. Toby Bedford 145-16
4. Jack Viney d. Kysaiah Pickett 111-47 Tom McDonald drew Michael Hibberd 76-76 Charlie Spargo d. Alex Neal-Bullen 84-72 5. Ed Langdon d. Trent Rivers 142-67
2. Christian Petracca vs Oskar Baker 221-12 Jayden Hunt vs Joel Smith 152-12 Bayley Fritsch d. Jake Melksham 121-50 7. Christian Salem d. Aaron Nietschke 160-7
3. Steven May vs Ben Brown 166-13 Nathan Jones d. Aaron vandenBerg 106-52 Jake Lever d. Jay Lockhart 115-42 6. Clayton Oliver d. Luke Jackson 119-44
Round 2 1. Max Gawn d. Sam Weideman 121-26 Neville Jetta d. 8. Angus Brayshaw 91-74 4. Jack Viney d. Tom McDonald and Michael Hibberd 124-30-14 5. Ed Langdon d. Charlie Spargo 157-16
2. Christian Petracca vs Jayden Hunt 158-14 7. Christian Salem d. Bayley Fritsch 114-56 3. Steven May d. Nathan Jones 125-44 6. Clayton Oliver d. Jake Lever vs 134-22
Quarter Final 1. Max Gawn d. Neville Jetta 146-62 4. Jack Viney d. 5. Ed Langdon 106-82 2. Christian Petracca d. 7. Christian Salem 159-14 3. Steven May d. 6. Clayton Oliver 100-99
Semi Final 1. Max Gawn d. 4. Jack Viney 141-51 2. Christian Petracca d. 3. Steven May 166-38
Against all odds it's back. Stuff contested board elections up your jumper, this is the only vote that people are really interested in. Yes, it's Demonbracket, the competition that will not die.
Burnt out by the admin of having to count votes from and update multiple sources I'd lost interest by the end of last year and was going to wrap this concept up before it got tedious. Then I found a way to do it in a half-arsed fashion that would still allow small-scale electoral action and not cause undue disruption to my mid-life crisis.
This year voting will be conducted entirely by Twitter Polls, allowing anonymous voting for the first time. I'm hoping that anonymity and the smaller voting pool will lead to a handful of zany upsets. Stranger things have happened.
The draw will be posted on @Demonblog from 6pm on Tuesday 26 January, and as it tradition, the competition will kick-off the next day. Warm up on Australia Day by hitting the piss and having a political argument. Up to four matches a day will be held until the final on Thursday 11 February.
The rules
Given that Twitter Polls can't be pre-scheduled, there will be no set kick-off time for games. Each contest will run 24hrs from time of posting. Some reminders will be issued but check the @Demonblog Twitter account daily for matches.
The voting criteria for each match-up is your personal business. It need not have anything to do with football if you don't want it to, but if does then the best of British luck to you. We won't ask questions, and nor should anyone else. Vote shamers will be denounced.
You no longer need to cate votes for every match but you still should, just for the sake of tradition.
Non-MFC fans are more than welcome to vote as long as you follow all other rules
Players are more than welcome to use social media, real media or paid advertising to promote themselves. Outright bribery is not permitted.
In the event of a tie both players will advance to the next round, except in the case of the Grand Final where a replay will be held the following day.
If a match features three or more players and two or more tie for the most votes they will advance with all other players eliminated.
If a player is added to the list before 27 January he will be randomly added to a Preliminary Round match.
The decision of the Demonbracket Organising Committee is final. Unless somebody takes us to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lucerne.
Here endeth our 55th straight season without a premiership, a drought that is stretching towards record proportions. Only one thing can comfort me now, the greatest ever rendition of our national anthem. Please be upstanding and remove your veils of negativity.
Finishing ninth in a photo finish was certainly a step up from missing out last year by virtue of finishing 17th but that's cold comfort in the grand scheme of things. If good feelings won flags there's be about 11 of them handing out every season.
Realistically, we were never going to contend for the flag anyway, so while it would have been nice to make it just to get some dignity about the place, how much did we really lose?
In a way, I'm just happy to get through a season where we were shunted around the continent like backpackers with the club in one piece, still financially viable and without our players or coaches (openly) wearing deep psychological scars. Let's have another go next year. We won't win anything then either but it'll give me about 30 weeks to come up with some new content.
It was hardly the best of times, and it was nowhere near the worst of times. The games were shorter, barely anybody (if anybody at all) was in the stands, and the only comparisons to recent years were endless whinging about umpires and Richmond winning the flag.
Let's just be thankful that it's over and if Victoria can avoid cocking up hotel quarantine for a second time we should be allowed to watch games in person again early next year. That novelty will wear off after about two weeks of schlepping to the 'G to see limp performances, I can't have been the only one to start enjoying watching at home and getting on with my life immediately after the siren instead of packing onto a train carriage with 2000 people.
If you ever live through a stranger season something has gone terribly wrong (think Threads), but to start our look at the season with the Disease that Delivered we flash back to a simpler time...
AFLW Season in Review
In this case, seven weeks was the longest time in football. When the women's season started we were busy PISSING ourselves laughing at people who spent thousands of dollars on cruise ships only to catch a mystery virus. By the time the competition was left unfinished we were PISSING ourselves with fear of losing our jobs and ending up on a ventilator. Can't win 'em all.
Contrary to popular belief, the Melbourne Football Club did win one final in 2020. You're welcome to decide how much that means to you on a scale of 1-100 but it was nice to see the AFLW side finally make the post-season, even if it happened in Bradbury-esque circumstances when the season was subject to arbitrary shutdown.
To say things changed quickly would be an understatement. The 3500 crowd for the first MFC related contest of the season seemed like a decent warmup for the rest of the year. Hard to envision that male and female combined we'd only play in front of more people three times.
One thing that remained consistent was our inability to turn dominance into winning scores. This was best demonstrated by opening the season with a 0.0 quarter. Fortunately, we both defended stoutly (cliche) and North attacked for the rest of the game like they were drunk, allowing a comeback two point win. We'd got a difficult game out of the way in the first round and things were looking up...
... and surprisingly we carried on with it. For one more week. The wonderfully surly Libby Birch (who I Trengoved by calling Burch for half the season) helped restrict the team she'd fallen out with to just 1.6, including going scoreless across the middle two quarters. Suddenly it looked like we were going to romp to the first MFC flag (no, AFLX doesn't count) since the 1993 Reserves.
Then just as we'd established ourselves as premiership favourites, along came the expansion side that had barely fired a shot in its first two rounds. Like the night we inducted Mo Hope as the first female Kingsley, there is nothing that excites people in a Melbourne jumper more than suffering an unexpected reverse. This was a ripper, with our forward line functioning like a Yugoslavian car on the way to 1.8.14 - none of which came in the last quarter. Somehow we still only lost by five points and the people who hate-watch this stuff just to complain must have been absolutely pulling themselves.
It was all over if we lost here, and the gravity of the situation must have contributed to the bumper crowd of 21,528. Well, that and the Victoria vs Allies state game that was on right after. I was not amongst them, firstly you couldn't pay me to watch reheated state football, and secondly the 5.35pm start time left me in disarray. Seemed like a weird and wacky time to play football until the men were involved in even more obscure timeslots later in the year.
As it was I barely saw any of it, just enough to know that we won in thoroughly unconvincing fashion. Good enough to keep the season alive, if we could avoid another humiliating reverse against an expansion side.
... which we surprisingly did. In fact, the Eagles were clubbed to the tune of 66-7. If the West Coast ladies had scored one fewer point Margaret Court would have thrown battery acid at them when their plane landed. It's not often you get to dismantle West Coast so it was welcome, even if it was in no way payback for the great Preliminary Final fuckup.
The title made more sense when you know it was also International Women's Day. Which was never once referenced in the post itself, so top marks for me there.
Round 6 vs Carlton - The Sound of Silence What better way to follow a thumping, brutal victory than starting favourites and going down without a fight? Of course we did. Maybe we were spooked by the crowd being reduced to 80 people, the first time we'd played under Corona conditions. The reaction was to kick 2.3 in the first quarter and 1.3 in the next three combined. Good thing the home and away season was immediately called off or there was no earthly way we'd retain a spot in the finals.
Elimination Final vs GWS - Miracles in an emergency If the men pulled off a comeback like this you'd never stop talking about it. For now the women's game doesn't arouse the same passions - not in me anyway - but at the time it was still exciting. Unlike the rest of the game, where we kicked one goal in the first three and a bit quarters and found ourselves in what could only be described as deep shit. 15 points down with time running out there was frankly no bloody chance of a win.
Then, after a year of Peg Leg Pete kicking for goal we converted three set shots in a row to win. The hero was Lily Mithen, who sank a set shot with 30 seconds left to put as ahead. That was as good as it got, the season was immediately cancelled because the unbeaten Freo were being locked behind the Great Wall of Western Australia. Saved us from being savaged by them the next week. By the time footy teams were allowed back into Perth it was too late to get the competition started again. So we finished the year with a finals win and still ended it empty-handed. Seems like an appropriately Melbourne scenario, except for it requiring a finals win.
Daisy Pearce Medal for Women's Player of the Year
For only the second time in the history of Demonblog awards we've got a hat-trick winner, with the peerless Karen Paxman matching the feats of Nathan Jones 2011-2013. I suspect that one day she will be getting this medal named after her, with Daisy respectfully relegated to a secondary award. We love Daisy but Paxy is by an enormous distance the most dominant AFLW player we've ever had.
Somehow she only finished sixth in the league-wide voting, but we've never trusted the opinions of umpires yet so complaining about them now is about as useful as whinging about breakdancing in the Olympics.
Second, albeit miles back, was Footscray refugee Libby Birch, whose dominant defensive performances inspired (we assume) Steven May to play the season of his life.
31 - Karen Paxman
20 - Libby Birch
13 - Kate Hore
7 - Eden Zanker
6 - Elise O'Dea, Daisy Pearce, Shelley Scott
5 - Maddie Gay
4 - Lily Mithen
3 - Tyla Hanks
2 - Casey Sherriff
1 - Harriet Cordner, Sinead Goldrick
Honour Roll
2017 - Daisy Pearce
2018 - Karen Paxman
2019 - Karen Paxman (2)
2020 - Karen Paxman (3)
Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance
Ahh pre-season, where everything looks like a good idea. We've been misled before, but things seems to be heading in the right direction this time. Not counting a glorified Casey team being unmercifully humped by first choice Essendon, we won comfortably thrice.
Turns out that Adelaide, Hawthorn and North Melbourne were all complete wank during the regular season, so the long-term value of the wins is debatable. However, at the time I was ready to run through brick walls.
Mr. February/March proved to be Bayley Fritsch. At the time it looked like Max Gawn's bold - some would say piss-taking - prediction of him winning the Coleman might have some legs. Bayley proceeded to lead to the boundary line all year and kick 22.24. Still, you can't take away his place on the most eclectic honour roll in the history of VFL/AFL football.
10 - Bayley Fritsch 7 - Jack Viney
5 - Christian Petracca
4 - Trent Rivers, Adam Tomlinson
3 - Angus Brayshaw, Clayton Oliver
2 - Mitch Brown, James Harmes, Jake Melksham
1 - Nathan Jones, Jake Lever, Oscar McDonald
Honour Roll
2008 - Aaron Davey
2009 - Cameron Bruce
2010 - Brad Green
2011 - Colin Sylvia
2012 - Nathan Jones
2013 - Nathan Jones (2)
2014 - Jeremy Howe
2015 - Heritier Lumumba
2016 - Jack Watts
2017 - Jesse Hogan, Jayden Hunt and Clayton Oliver
As far as predictions go that headline was a fair old understatement. Still, at the time it looked like our off-season fitness campaign was about to deliver a year of runaway wins. What a campaign it was, complete with fancy promotional videos that made it look like our next step was to invade Grenada. Then the length of games were reduced, mostly negating our advantage. There were a handful of romping finishes but none against top sides.
More importantly, the afternoon featuring Christian Petracca announcing his arrival at the AFL's top table with one of the best individual games you'll ever see. Usually, you'd write it off for being in a practice match but given there were more people in attendance than most of our 2020 matches I'm counting it.
Where we confirmed suspicions that North weren't going to be very good this year by beating them comfortably. A 55-33 final score offered a hint of what was to come when teams packed up and stopped trying to score once the real games started.
In which we went to Tasmania, when interstate travel was still a thing, and beat Hawthorn in a fashion that you were both happy about and unconvinced by. Melksham kicked four before disappearing for the next six months. And like 80% of his career games vandenBerg injured his foot and wasn't seen again for a few months.
Featuring one of the most farcical scenarios we've ever been involved in. Just think about the ground that covers. The spiralling pandemic already meant we'd be playing in front of an empty stadium for the first time in history, then shortly before the bounce it was announced that the season was going to be put on hold with no firm date for resuming.
There was every possible chance that there wouldn't be another game, which would have been the biggest stitch-up ever after we'd put players through a torturous pre-season. Perhaps thinking about this unfortunate twist of fate said players rolled over for a few minutes late in the first quarter and let the Eagles open a winning margin by quarter time. We broke even for the rest of the game but fat lot of good that did.
Then for a long time nothing happened. Until about 80 days of watching our lives go down the tube (the first time eh Victorians?) footy returned, still without anybody in the crowd bar a handful of parents of debutantes. Some got snarky that Jeremy Howe said he was used to playing in front of empty stands because he used to be at Melbourne, but to be fair this wasn't a much worse Docklands crowd than the day he played his last game for us against GWS.
The break seemed to have treated us well when we stormed to a 42 point lead early in the second quarter. Conversely, Carlton looked like they'd had their drinks spiked with deadly nightshade. We followed this with a one goal second half, allowing the Blues to draw level in the last quarter. I was consulting the manual for my oven with Fritsch got a late point (of course he did) to put us ahead again. We narrowly avoided two Carlton attacks and got away with it. All's well that ends well but it didn't bode well for the future.
Round 3 vs Essendon was postponed when an Essendon player got the sniffles, causing everyone to shit themselves. Connor McKenna's mucus worked in our favour, moving the game from when they'd have undoubtedly beaten us to the end of the season when they'd gone to water.
Where the Cats toyed with us for three and a half quarters, playing the sort of chippy, keepings off footy that works a treat when the other side stands around and lets you do it all day. Unlike other times where Geelong has treated us with contempt (refer extensive list of unbelievable thrashings) they couldn't put us away, leading to the ridiculous scenario of us almost winning. Indeed Adam Tomlinson even kicked to put us ahead. It would have been pure and simple thievery but I'd have taken it.
Neither side was impressive but somehow they ended up in the Grand Final while we spent the finals series in our traditional position of on the couch with thumbs up arses.
Speaking of teams that played off for a premiership, this was arguably a better performance than the Geelong game but we were beaten by three quarter time. You had to feel for the players who'd been told they were going interstate immediately after the game with no indication about when they'd get to come back to Victoria, but I was still getting ready to become morbid and concede the season.
Salvation came at the unusual location of the Sydney Showgrounds, our temporary home until New South Wales also achieved disease pariah state status. Even though Gold Coast was already showing the signs of their usual post-Round 4 collapse this still got far too close for comfort. It saw the birth of the Rankin Wankin' phenomenon, as a first gamer threatened to win the game off his own boot and gave the Fox Footy commentary team the firmest horn since Gerard Healy met Nic Nat.
The game ended with Harley Bennell kicking a heartwarming goal after the siren and being mobbed by his teammates. Surely nothing was going to stop him now.
Round 7 vs Hawthorn - Mask on, lid bubbling From the post title I presume this was around when Victoria went COVID crazy and we were confined to our homes. Unfortunately on this day I had to leave said place of residence and watch the game on the world's most malfunctioning television. Somewhere in the midst of Fuzz/distortion/NO SIGNAL I saw us recover from a nervy, possibly season-ending start and run away to a comfortable win. I don't know if the lid deserved to be bubbling but at this stage we were desperate to find something worth looking forward to.
Unless you're into statistical anomalies and unusual scenarios the "sure, why not" game against Brisbane on the Gold Coast was not something to look forward to. Unlike some clubs we could mention they followed their breakthrough season with another finals appearance instead of plummeting back to the bottom of the ladder and were clearly the better side here.
However, we were far from humiliated. And like the Geelong game nearly nicked it. I wouldn't have complained if we'd won, but the twin fiascos of an unnecessary goal review at one end and Fritsch giving away a numpty 50 at the other made sure that wasn't a factor. Realistically, the margin flattered the buggery out of us.
Jeff Hilton Rising Star Medal
Accused in some circles, mainly this one, of merely being a fluffer to keep fellow Westralian, Luke Jackson from getting the sads and going home (because we've all seen how well that worked for Jesse Hogan...), Rivers proved a handy player in his own right.
Even before his mysterious goalkicking interventions against the Giants, Trent was proving a handy user of the ball out of defence. As you can see from the mixed bag of previous winners it's no guarantee of bigger and better things but at least he's got his name on the prestigious Demonblog honour board.
6 - Trent Rivers
1 - Kysaiah Pickett
0 - Toby Bedford, Austin Bradtke, Kade Chandler, James Jordon, Luke Jackson, Aaron Nietschke, Tom Sparrow
Honour Roll
2005 - No players eligible.
2006 - Matthew Bate
2007 - Michael Newton
2008 - Cale Morton
2009 - Jack Grimes ($4)
2010 - [REVOKED]
2011 - Jeremy Howe ($30)
2012 - Tom McDonald ($8)
2013 - Jack Viney ($5)
2014 - Jay Kennedy-Harris ($15)
2015 - Jesse Hogan ($4.50)
2016 - Jayden Hunt ($50) and Christian Petracca ($10)
2017 - Mitch Hannan ($15)
2018 - Bayley Fritsch ($4.50)
2019 - Marty Hore ($8)
2020 - Trent Rivers ($40)
Demonbracket IX
AKA - The year I lost interest. Where despite relatively low voting numbers I could no longer muster up the enthusiasm for counting ballots from a variety of sources. Especially when everyone just voted for the favourites anyway.
My first instinct was to shut the competition down and concentrate on the memories, but after an unpredictable change of heart I've decided the bracket will be back in January 2021. Whether it's for just one more season or my love of footy related democracy is reinvigorated will be decided in January/February 2021.
What I'm hoping is that because Twitter voting is a) anonymous, and b) will mean less people voting, that we may get some more 2013 Summer of Sizzle style upsets. And if not I've saved myself several hours total in admin work.
Orthodoxy peaked this year with a final between the #1 and #2 seeds. The dramatic emergence of Petracca was the only thing that stopped the semis being played by the top four. There was little drama throughout the tournament, and the final ended in a landslide win for Maximum. Well deserved but we'd like some tension about whether Aaron Nietschke is going to unexpectedly romp into the quarters.
Quarter Final
1. Clayton Oliver d. Neville Jetta 102-45
4. James Harmes d. 6. Bayley Fritsch 103-44
5. Christian Petracca d. 3. Jack Viney 114-33
2. Max Gawn d. 7. Christian Salem 125-22
Semi Final
1. Clayton Oliver d. 4. James Harmes 99-43
2. Max Gawn d. 5. Christian Petracca 101-41
Final
2. Max Gawn d. 1. Clayton Oliver 160-48
Honour Roll
2012 - James Frawley d. Nathan Jones
2013 - Tom McDonald d. Mitch Clark
2014 - Nathan Jones d. Jack Watts
2015 - Nathan Jones [2] d. Dom Tyson
2016 - Jack Viney d. Nathan Jones
2017 - Max Gawn d. Jack Viney
2018 - Neville Jetta d. Clayton Oliver
2019 - Clayton Oliver d. Neville Jetta
2020 - Max Gawn d. Clayton Oliver
Welcome to my vendetta
A salute to the tired/poor/huddled masses that have come to us from far and wide. Some of them might leave with their lives and careers enriched but don't count on it.
Ben Brown He looks like the lady out of Arcade Fire and has the most tedious set shot routine in the history of the sport, but also holds a strong record of kicking goals in an era where scores are crashing like a Russian airplane. And as long as the 3200m run-up is happening at our end who are we to complain?
After one injury riddled season in a crap team, the discount price paid for him can only be a good thing. If nothing else it takes the heat off Weideman, providing some mystery about who we're kicking to inside 50. Add Jackson to the mix and this is a marking forward group that might even be able to cope with the mystifying array of shanks, slices and genuine clangers that will be coming their way.
Adem Yze Or as he's more commonly known, the Goodwin Insurance Policy. As long as we don't short circuit his senior career Choco Royal style Ooze will coach at the highest level eventually, the only question is whether he'll have to wipe his predecessor's blood from the office floor first. Obviously I hope that his input as an assistant is maximised in a setup where Goodwin suddenly turns into Norm Smith and goes somewhere else with our blessing after a flag. Realistically I'm expecting him in the top job by the end of the year. Before then, let's have some topical Queen's Birthday footage of him tormenting the Pies.
Board member Brad Green This doesn't feel as consequential as Yze but it's still a good news story. How much influence a board can really have (unless they do something catastrophically bonkers) is debatable but I can't see any downside. When you add Matthew Whelan returning in a community role it's a welcome return to the (relative) glory days of the early 2000s. And a reminder of just how old I am.
Several draft picks If there was ever a time to make like a modern person and just post an emoji this would be the time to put up the guy shrugging and move on. On paper all three of Bowey, Laurie and Rosman (sadly not a silly Rochford Devenish-Meares still name amongst them). The only initial thoughts I've got are that Bowey looks like somebody who'd love to punch on in a suburban pub and Rosman will be fighting women off with a stick.
Hawthorn's 2021 third round pick Acquired in exchange for this year's fourth pick at the point where draft night had dragged on for so long that everyone just wanted to go home.
Choke Yourself With A Tie And here's the main event, a near 10 year campaign to get the real Mark Williams (no offence to this guy) to Melbourne finally pays off. Should have been the coach after Bailey and never had a look in when Roos came on the scene but his madcap brand of lunacy has finally arrived. It may only be a developmental role but it will do me. I've never been a sack Goodwin fanatic but Yze/Choco 2021 has a ring to it.
First my long-held desire to sign Steven May paid off, now this. I don't think I've got anything else I deeply want from another club except a bloody flag.
Celebrate his arrival in the traditional manner.
... and if it goes tits up then let's forget everything I've ever said about him.
Goodbye, and varying degrees of good luck
Lots of AFLW players Bittersweet stuff for those of us who suffered through the various near-misses of the early AFLW seasons. Other than Elise O'Dea there was nothing to get really upset about, but Harriet Cordner, Bianca Jakobsson, Kat Smith and to a lesser extent Maddy Guerin were classic names as part of the struggle.
Other than O'Dea I was most distressed at losing Tex Perkins, who turned up as a mid-season injury replacement player and provided the best forward target we've ever had. Pending a rookie season to remember from top pick Alyssa Bannon I guess it's back to the classic 300:1 ratio of inside 50s to goals.
Harley Bennell You don't want to judge somebody without knowing their circumstances. As far as career-killing moves, costing the club thousands of dollars by escaping the hub to get on the piss then refusing to answer phone calls was quite the way to go. I haven't seen anything like it since the flight attendant who denounced passengers over the PA, grabbed two beers and escaped by deploying the evacuation slide.
It's not only a shame for him personally but I think for the team. He was adequate this year but considering how little he'd played recently you had to think there was improvement in his future. Instead his career has gone to the great footy oval in the sky. Wherever he is now I hope he's well.
The Wagnii The powers of this none-more-Germanic duo peaked in 2019, when Corey came from North Melbourne and was quite good. Obviously the coaches didn't share my enthusiasm because he didn't get near a game in the improved 2020 side. Josh only got a couple of token appearances late in the year and their AFL careers simultaneously went kaput. Should do well on the suburban circuit if they're interested.
The Sizzle Brothers Continuing the campaign against brothers, the Sizzle family were simultaneously railroaded out of the club at speeds that would impress the Japanese bullet train. We were so harsh on siblings this off-season that even the Wright Brothers would have been told to shut up and walk.
Hang on, I'm getting word that our efforts to shift Tom by any means necessary failed and he'll be with us next year. Fine by me. I wasn't going to slash my wrists if he went, and maybe clearing his salary would have given us a chance to join the Collingwood fire sale but I think he's still got something to offer. I doubt he's a Round 1 player, but if one of the key forwards or defenders is hurt he can take their place. Then presumably at the end of the season we do a Collingwood and pay anybody we can find to take him off our hands. Which is a shame because no player has ever embraced my online shenanigans more. To paraphrase Huey Lewis, I'm happy to be stuck with him. Not sure he's thrilled to be stuck with us though...
On the other hand, Oscar is not coming back. It's no surprise that his time has come to an end, having failed to kick on from what seemed like a breakout game against Hawthorn at the end of 2016. Wasn't in my first choice team but I thought it was a bit harsh how everyone treated him like he killed puppies in his spare time. He never excelled but he was ok, it's just that you can't plod on with ok players forever. We wish him well.
Mitch Hannan Mitch has returned to his roots with the Bulldogs but we'll always have the 2018 Elimination Final to remember him by. His career never hit anywhere near those heights again, but other than an injury ravaged 2019 he was usually a decent forward and should go alright at a better club. Give the placement of that goal in the 21st century folklore of the club his loss gently tugs at the heartstrings, but at the same time he kicked one goal in his last five starts this year so that shouldn't be hard to replace. The Dogs obviously have a plan, hope it works well for him.
Braydon Preuss Here endeth one of the strangest recruiting moves ever, as we say farewell to the Comedy Moustache Lips that brought a touch of vaudeville everywhere he went. I still don't know why he joined us just to sit behind Gawn in the ruckman pecking order for two years but I suppose the idea would have been hailed as genius if Maximum hadn't been so resilient.
I have faith he'll do well with GWS, where he'll form an unlikely ex-MFC partnership with Jesse Hogan (see also Mitch Hannan meets Stefan Martin at the Western Oval). Either it works and we claim to be good guys for giving him two years of development or it fails and we can be smug about how he wouldn't have worked out with us anyway.
Assistant coaches by the truckload Max Rooke, Daniel Cross, Ben Mathews and Justin Plapp, butchered en masse as part of a joint cost-cutting/mediocre performance resolving initiative. Whether their replacements are an improvement is anybody's guess but we couldn't carry on doing the same thing that has got us nowhere and next to nowhere over the last two years. Shithouse timing to lose your job just as the industry tightens its belt but, and this may surprise you, we're not running a charity. I reckon we're about eight poor weeks at the start of the year from the senior coach joining them on seek.com.au.
Our original recipe picks from 2021 We must be the first club ever to trade away all its picks for the following season. We got selections in return but they'll be tied to the fortunes of Brisbane, Footscray and North Melbourne. What we do on field will not make one red hot shit of difference to our position at next year's draft, only whether or not we look like buffoons for trading Brisbane our top pick.
Josh Mahoney You couldn't say Essendon's new GM of Football presided over spectacular success with us, but he certainly had amazing longevity. Just think of the chaos and carnage he's seen since joining us in 2007, in which time he's been an assistant coach, forward coach, Football Manager, Football Operations Manager and christ only knows what else. If you look at pictures of him then and now I think he's developed a bit of the mad eyes, but who wouldn't after 13 years with us? Good thing he's moving to a perfectly sensible club where absolutely nothing unusual or bizarre ever happens.
Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year
Considering only seven players on our list got a single hitout this year this is one of the flimsiest awards around. Five of them failed to qualify by averaging less than 10 hitouts a game. The end result was Maximum winning by a lot.
I can't rule out a future challenge by Jackson, but you feel that if anyone other than Max wins this for the next couple of seasons then we're probably not winning many games. Mind you, he's won it ever year since 2015 and we've had two winnings records in that time so who knows what it all means.
30 - Max Gawn
0 - Braydon Preuss
DNQ - Mitch Brown, Luke Jackson, Oscar McDonald, Tom McDonald, Adam Tomlinson
By now we'd been shifted to Queensland, and with limited options for the continuing the season if the COVID took off nationwide, the AFL came up with the idea of the idea of stuffing as many games into a couple of weeks as possible. Nothing to do with keeping the broadcasters happy you see. Definitely all about keeping the fans happy.
I was not very happy, at first anyway, considering that we took to the prospect of four day breaks with all the enthusiasm of prisoners of war. Port were very good this year and demonstrated that by strangling us from the first bounce. At the 60 second mark we may as well have called a halt to proceedings and conceded. We lost by heaps and looked as unlikely as ever to feature in the top eight.
Here's an early 1990s clipart representation of how I felt watching it:
That dreadful performance led to a game that couldn't have been any more dangerous if it was played at Chernobyl. After flopping against the good South Australians we had to fly to Adelaide to play the ones who'd lost their first nine games.
All the ingredients were there for the sort of embarrassing loss that we'd have been left moping over for the next 20 years, and when we'd only eked out a two goal lead by three quarter time you felt they were going to win. But you were wrong, instead the much-vaunted Darren Burgess fitness program sprung into action and provoked a (relatively) rampant seven goal to one finale. The only person not to come out of it with a smile on his face was Alex Neal-Bullen, who got four games for bouncing a Crows player's head off the ground like a basketball then discovered that we didn't think enough of him to pay for an appeal.
I could have been the only one who thought we'd used up all our reserves of mental strength beating one side in turmoil at the bottom the ladder and would come of this looking like cockheads. But against all odds we won again, wobbling unsteadily through three quarters of generally awful football before exploding in the final term and stomping the opposition to dust. We've never won a league game in South Australia by more. Which just goes to show how shizen we've been there.
After a pair of unexpected (albeit slowly developing) thrashings, this big win came as more of a surprise. The Pies were in the midst of a duel injury and form crisis but you didn't expect them to fold like a house of cards. More injuries during the game didn't help, leaving them vulnerable to another free-wheeling, high scoring rampage. Things were looking up again.
Somehow the Pies, despite being coached by somebody who seemingly has the man-management skills of David Brent, made it to the second week of the finals. At that point they were duly beaten to a pulp and responded by trading half their list for magic beans. They will still be back in premiership contention before us.
After three wins in a row this was our chance to consolidate a spot in the eight and strike a blow against a fellow contender. For a while things were looked good, until we came back after half time like the team-talk had been done by Sylvia Plath. The Dogs took advantage of a few minutes of madness to open a winning margin and we never looked likely again. After a few weeks of "maybe this is going to turn out alright", the anti-Goodwin society went ballistic again. I couldn't be bothered joining in.
Where we got to cash in on our annual Alice Springs game AND rescued our season with a thrilling victory. Another defensive masterclass by May, Petracca kicking a goal that took the biggest turn since Shane Warne, and we held on in the face of a furious attack in the last few minutes to put ourselves back in the box seat for the eight. If we won our next two games as favourites. Guess what happened next?
Having subdued our natural instinct to lose games we were supposed to win for the first 14 rounds you wanted to believe we were going to win this but secretly knew it was going to end in tragedy. Even a 4.40pm start on a Thursday in Cairns shouldn't have made a significant difference but down we went. There were arguments over Sydney having more time in Cairns to prepare but that shouldn't have stopped us. If we couldn't win here we were not a finals team. We didn't and we weren't.
Offered one last chance to enter the final fortnight of the season with our destiny in our own hands we responded to another game in Cairns by playing Preuss at full-forward in pissing rain. Surprisingly with quality selection tactics liek this we kicked 2.4 in the first three quarters. Getting within eight points in the last quarter was nothing more than an unnecesary tease. The season wasn't dead yet but it was hooked up to a malfunctioning oxygen tank.
The equation was relatively simple, win the last two games to stay alive. Then our fate depended on results elsewhere. All of a sudden after barely scoring a goal in eight quarters in Cairns, our return to Queensland saw the strangest collection of goalkickers all season. Baker, Spargo and Rivers each got two, including the wobbling snap from the latter that theoretically sealed the win. Of course, nothing comes easy and we were left fanatically defending a five point lead in the dying moments. It's debatable whether the occasion was worth the near heart attack it caused me but at the time I felt good about it.
It came down to winning on Saturday and hoping Freo beat Footscray the next day. We did our bit, albeit in a complicated way that left the result in doubt until late in the last quarter. Against an Essendon side who'd ceded their interest in 2020 weeks earlier we got out to nearly six goals ahead late in the third quarter before switching off and letting them get five of the next six. The margin was back to seven, prompting me to unleash an expletive-laden tirade while stomping around the room like a petulant child.
We recovered in time to win comfortably but it was all for naught, Freo gave a decent account of themselves but couldn't summon up the same sort of upset that they'd pulled against us and our season was over. About two days later I was entirely over it and looking forward to next year.
Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year
Welcome to the year where we finally won a high-profile trade. As much as I want to see Hogan do well, his career going into the shitter at Fremantle at the same time May went ballistic in our backline proved that we ultimately did the right thing in swapping them.
Now, you could argue that if we'd kept Hogan things might have worked out but history suggests that's wishful thinking. Some also like to moan about we could have drafted one of the King brothers but that's a false argument considering we traded Hogan specifically to get a ready-made key defender.
All I know is that after the disastrous 2019 campaign May played a ripping season and I'm dying for him to get a crack at a full year in 2021. He was the rock in our backline and the real electoral irregularity for Donald Trump to get upset about is how he didn't make the 40 man All-Australian squad.
28 - Steven May
13 - Christian Salem
6 - Michael Hibberd, Trent Rivers
4 - Jake Lever, Adam Tomlinson
1 - Jay Lockhart
0 - James Harmes, Neville Jetta, Oscar McDonald, Harrison Petty, Joel Smith, Corey Wagner, Josh Wagner
Honour Roll
2005 - Nathan Carroll and Ryan Ferguson
2006 - Jared Rivers
2007 - Paul Wheatley
2008 - Matthew Whelan
2009 - James Frawley ($22)
2010 - James Frawley (2) ($3.50)
2011 - James Frawley (3) ($4)
2012 - Jack Grimes ($7)
2013 - James Frawley (4) ($2.80)
2014 - Lynden Dunn ($25)
2015 - Tom McDonald ($14)
2016 - Neville Jetta ($13)
2017 - Michael Hibberd ($16)
2018 - Christian Salem ($20)
2019 - Christian Salem (2) ($4.75 fav)
2020 - Steven May ($11)
Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Unusually I can't find any specific footage of Petracca's goal against GWS that won the award. I was going to just post the match highlights and make you find it yourself, then I remembered that the legends who make the videos didn't rate it worthy of qualifying for a seven minute video package. From memory, and there's been plenty of water under the bridge since it happened, he scooped it off the deck 50 metres out and thumped it through like a long-range missile. Imagine that in the space provided below.
[Your mental picture goes here]
It was one of seven (!) nominations for the season, leaving him kicking outrageous goals at a rate that early Sam Blease would have been envious of. Not only does he take home the Davey for the first time (and who would be against him being the first man to capture it twice?), but his tally of nominations takes him beyond Jeff (never, ever Jeffy, even in retirement) Garlett to the top of the all-time leaderboard.
Nominees
Round 1 - Kysaiah Pickett
Round 2 - Christian Petracca
Round 4 - Christian Petracca [2]
Round 5 - Mitch Hannan
Round 6 - Christian Salem
Round 7 - Kysaiah Pickett [2]
Round 8 - Jake Melksham
Round 9 - Christian Petracca [3]
Round 10 - Jack Viney
Round 11 - Christian Petracca [4]
Round 12 - Charlie Spargo
Round 13 - Sam Weideman
Round 14 - Christian Petracca [5]
Round 15 - Charlie Spargo [2]
Round 16 - Bayley Fritsch
Round 17 - Christian Petracca [6]
Round 18 - Christian Petracca [7]
Honour Roll
2014 - Christian Salem
2015 - Nathan Jones
2016 - Jack Watts
2017 - Tom McDonald
2018 - Mitch Hannan
2019 - Marty Hore
2020 - Christian Petracca
All time nominations (2014-2020)
18 - Christian Petracca
16 - Jeff Garlett
7 - Jake Melksham, Jack Watts
6 - Mitch Hannan, Jayden Hunt,
5 - Jesse Hogan, Nathan Jones, Dean Kent, Bernie Vince
4 - Tom McDonald, Cameron Pedersen, Jack Viney
3 - Max Gawn, Jordan Lewis, Jay Lockhart, Christian Salem,
2 - Angus Brayshaw, Chris Dawes, Bayley Fritsch, Mark Jamar, Alex Neal-Bullen, Clayton Oliver, Kysaiah Pickett, Braydon Preuss, Charlie Spargo, Dom Tyson
1 - Oskar Baker, Sam Blease, Chris Dawes, Jack Fitzpatrick, Sam Frost, Marty Hore, Matt Jones, Ben Kennedy, Jay Kennedy Harris, Heritier Lumumba, Oscar McDonald, Ben Newton, Aidan Riley, Charlie Spargo, Corey Wagner, Sam Weideman
2020 Allen Jakovich Medal for Player of the Year
And here he is again, the man who played a dominant season and somehow still went within one game of having to share the award. That's 5-4-3-2-1 voting for you, the greatest of all systems.
Petracca's maiden win in our premier award was not a surprise result, every major collection of Melbourne fans, best and fairest voters, umpires, and the media all had him as our best player. The only surprise was how close Oliver got.
This is no slight on the Hamburgler, who played a fine season, but it just felt Truck should have won in a landslide. Coaches didn't think as much of Oliver, only landing him fifth in the B&F, a mile behind Petracca, but they agreed on the winner.
It's hard to believe that the promise of that pre-season Adelaide game paid off, I was almost certain he'd immediately turn it into a mediocre up and down season that left us with red and blue balls. Instead he was reasonably consistent across the year, with several Brownlow quality spikes throughout. Some nonsense talk about him being as good as Dustin Martin failed to distract him, and I've got faith that he's going to continue playing like this next year. Many congratulations from everyone associated with Demonblog, Demonwiki and Brunton Avenue Publishing.
Leaderboard
46 - Christian Petracca
41 - Clayton Oliver
30 - Max Gawn, Jack Viney
28 - Steven May
23 - Ed Langdon
13 - Christian Salem
10 - Angus Brayshaw
6 - Michael Hibberd, Trent Rivers, Sam Weideman
4 - Jake Lever, Adam Tomlinson
2 - Jayden Hunt, Jake Melksham
1 - Mitch Brown, Mitch Hannan, Jay Lockhart, Kysaiah Pickett
Honour Roll
2005 - Travis Johnstone
2006 - Brock McLean
2007 - Nathan Jones
2008 - Cameron Bruce
2009 - Aaron Davey ($8)
2010 - Brad Green ($4)
2011 - Brent Moloney ($9)
2012 - Nathan Jones (2) ($3.50)
2013 - Nathan Jones (3) ($2)
2014 - Nathan Jones (4) ($3.50)
2015 - Jack Viney ($15)
2016 - Nathan Jones (5) ($8)
2017 - Clayton Oliver ($35)
2018 - Clayton Oliver (2) ($3.25 fav)
2019 - Max Gawn ($9)
2020 - Christian Petracca ($6)
And that is it... usually the man who lives underground and the Solid Brown Dancers get a run in this post but you can't just dredge up the same tired old gimmicks every season. Alternatively, as you may have noticed, this year has sapped my life force to the point where I just can't be bothered working them in.
Thank you again for your support during this absolute shit of a year, and I hope that we've given you some entertainment while you were striving not to catch a deadly disease. We'll be back for a 17th year (!!) of blogging madness in 2021, but which point I'm hoping my enthusiasm transfusion kicks in and I can get through the year without resigning from the AFL and taking up go karting.
Much love and don't forget to buy your membership,
