Shutting fans out midway through the season is fast becoming one of the great AFLW traditions. For the second year in a row, fans have been locked out mid-year due to pandemic related nerves. Let's have another go at getting the full competition in without a break in 2022 shall we? By then the Coronavirus vaccine will apparently have us all so full of 5G that you won't even have to watch the games on TV, they'll be beamed directly into your head.
In one way, things are looking up. Last year the first game behind closed doors (half-arsed as it was, still allowing friends and family in) ended in defeat. 12 months later we're recovering from a wonky start to rumble the league's glamour club, offering some outside hope that perhaps, just maybe, if we're lucky, Jupiter aligns with Mars, and interstate teams are allowed to play against Victorians sometime before April that a team called Melbourne may actually be premiership contenders.
It was a night for reuniting with old friends. This is certainly not a reference to Casey Fields, which may as well be in Zanzibar for the good it does me, but to the return of Darren Crocker as opposition coach. Just when I thought that this post had cured me of referencing everything back to the Bailey years. In these circles, he's best known for being the opposition on that day when we were operating the most powerful tank since World War II, did weird things at the selection table, weirder things on the day, lost by 10 goals, and people still went home happy.
Over a decade later, via two further stints as caretaker for the North men, the league's most famous 'break in case of emergency' coach is back to have a crack at the women's game. This time he wasn't assured victory just by turning up. For all the efforts of the league to extract the grassroots enthusiasm from the competition so it's as tediously businesslike as the male equivalent, gratuitous chucking of games for the purposes of getting better draft picks still hasn't come to this league.
And for us, why should it? For we have never been a bad side. Given how many sides they've rushed into the competition in such a short time you'd be hard-pressed not to remain at least a mid-table mediocrity in this competition. But I thought if we were going to take a step back in any year it would be this one, having dumped so many senior players in the off-season. Instead - and god knows what's going to happen from here - we're going to end the weekend somewhere between the only and one of five undefeated sides. One of these options would be a touch more impressive than the other.
After beating two fair to complete bollocks teams in the opening rounds, this was our first real test. The tone was set early when the two midfielders ripped into each other at the opening bounce. At first, it looked like the Roos were going to have our measure, they just looked more likely to eb able to move the ball around in a fashion that would lead to scores.
We did have one marvelously constructed opportunity to score in the opening minutes, with an express end-to-end transition that started with Goldrick in defence, then went through Paxman, Cunningham and Hore. It was comforting to find that much space against good opposition, suggesting that some of the solid gold ball movement from the last couple of weeks wasn't just down to playing a pair of sides that currently hold percentages in the range of 32-33.
Goldrick's role in this setup was the first of a few fantastic runs out of defence. The only way to describe her play was 'marauding'. For somebody who has played about 15 games of the sport in her life she is a fantastic reader of the play.
The result was that Hore was marginally too far out and her shot was touched through, but you couldn't fault the quality of the setup. On the other hand, you could most certainly the question the NQR kick that cost us the first goal at the other end. Karen Paxman's status as the greatest player ever to wear our women's jumper practically puts her above criticism, but for once her solid as a rock delivery went astray, and a disastrous kick across goal led to North's first. She then botched returning the ball after a free, gifting North another. Well, even Muhammad Ali got knocked out a few times...
Things were not looking good. Even if the league is full of them, you can't play the shit teams every week. Our willingness to crack in and have a crack (copyright - S. Blease) showed that we could match North most of the way, but all signs were pointing towards a demonstration that we weren't in the top echelon of teams yet. And maybe we're still not, but this was the first real sign of 2021 that the 'good' sides should be worried about us.
We had plenty of inside 50s in the early going, but were always left just outside kicking range. Casey Sherriff got the best value for her kick, running in like she had no confidence of carrying the ball 40 metres, then nearly managing it. Indirectly, this led to our first goal.
One North player's blatant attempts to scoop the loose ball through for a point fell short, before another shit herself trying to clear the ball, shanking out on the full in the pocket. From the obscure angle, Hore hit the ball on the wrong side, causing it to float away from goal, where it dropped like a rock right into the waiting arms of Jackie Perry. Her conversion reduced the margin to a both understandably close and inexplicably close three points. We narrowly avoided giving it straight back out of the middle in Ms. Demontime, getting to quarter time four points behind.
There was still nothing on offer to suggest we were going to win, but that late goal was enough to keep things interesting. Then, just as I was hoping to get to play out the last three quarters with our dignity intact, we turned into the Harlem Lady Globetrotters. It started with another superb chain, this time via handballs, ending with Hore expertly stepping around an opponent to put us ahead. She is very good. So is Goldrick, who started another move that ended in the ball being speared onto Cunningham's chest for another.
Next thing you know Shelley Scott is lobbing one through from distance and angle, we were the best part of three goals in front and the game was being played entirely on our terms. It's not so much that North had packed it in, they just had no answers to us running rampant. It helped that we were converting at a (for us) a ludicrous rate, three goals from three inside 50s.
Just as you thought it was safe to think the best of a team called Melbourne, the Scott goal was returned a few seconds later. The defence battled hard all night, but this time they couldn't have made it easier, leaving a North forward on her own in front of goal for a simple finish.
We were, perhaps, lucky to get the reply. After Parry was perfectly legally tackled right in front of goal there was the lightest hint of squash on her back right at the end, leading to another goal. I don't want to see players give away frees for that level of incidental contact, but unfortunately the AFL do so that's the rule. This week anyway, the AFL comes up with interpretations more often than Victoria has lockdowns.
The good times kept rolling, with Parry adding another at the end for her third (equalling Mifsud, Cunningham and Newman for the most in a Melbourne AFLW game), and the team's sixth of the quarter. It was the second highest scoring quarter we've ever played, and considering how North looked to have us under control in the first term was a fantastic advertisement for our side.
Now the Roos must have been lamenting not being able to play shit teams every week. Having conceded two goals in total in their last two games they were all at sea here. It might have been our second best scoring quarter, but considering the competition was easily the best 15 minutes we've ever played. No good side has ever been carved up like that.
The second quarter may have been end-to-end butchery, but no Melbourne side of any gender plays two good quarters in a row, so when North got the opening goal of the third you obviously thought "here we go again." The lead was still three and a bit goals, welcome but still not enough to guarantee a win in one of the best quality AFLW games yet. There was too much time left to run the clock down, I wanted to win by adding more goals. Turns out the clock running option was the one to go with.
After a few minutes of crushing forward pressure North got another and things were looking ropey. Not nearly as ropey as a few seconds later when they plowed straight out of the centre for another, cutting the margin under 10 points. God bless the administrative 50 that saved us. Paxman got a free in the middle, and as the ball was thrown in front of her - bouncing into her hands - she was marched within range and exercised her champions' prerogative to call things down a bit. The serenity lasted a couple of minutes before North kicked their seventh, officially raising the total scores well above many 2020 men's games at the same stage (if you're into arguing that sort of thing).
Again, the last 90 seconds of the quarter saw us defending grimly, trying to hold on to a seven point lead. Somehow we got away with it, but the margin wasn't nearly enough to be confident about after kicking a combined 2.1 in last quarters this year.
A couple of early goals would have been nice, but while all the attacking went our way at the start of the quarter - heightening suggestion that there was some sort of mystery Cranbourne wind at play - but there was no real goalscoring opportunity. Cunningham dropped a mark after a kick was perfectly set up for her lead, but otherwise it was all hopeful hoofing into the 50, and none of the liquid football of the second term.
Naturally, North went straight down the other end and scored. Our AFLW games against North at Casey are like the men playing them in Hobart, every game a guaranteed thriller. At least we win some of these ones.
The umpires came good for us again, handing Alyssa Bannan a free for a hold in front of goal. She sprayed it, leaving us three points up with three minutes to go. If nothing else, the ball was at our end. Now a few minutes after demanding that we keep scoring and win it the 'real' way, I was right on board with running the clock down by any means necessary and hanging on.
North had their chances, but via some frightening close shaves at their end (including Colvin sticking her leg into an opponent, preparing to crack the shits when the whistle went, then realising it was her free) we got it down our end long enough to ensure against all but the most light speed transition. Obviously that's exactly what you expected to happen, but expectations were defied. We even got another goal, with Scott coat-hangered in a marking contest and allowed to kick after the siren. The last player who kicked a goal after the siren that didn't influence the result was Harley Bennell, so let's hope things turn out better for Shelley.
The loss of a three point margin, along with a 3-0 start stuffed up any chance of a 'Three is the magic number' headline, but might come in handy for percentage when things get hairy at the end of the year. Either way, we've built a fantastic base from which to tackle the rest of the year. Given that we don't know who the opposition will be for the last six rounds (or if there will be a last six rounds) it's hard to make predictions but surely, SURELY a 3-0 start in a top six in a competition with a lot of ordinary teams will be enough to see us slip into the bottom of the finals at the very worst. Now, watching us lose the next six and be replaced in the league by Hawthorn.
2021 Daisy Pearce Medal votes 5 - Sinead Goldrick 4 - Kate Hore 3 - Tyla Hanks 2 - Jackie Parry 1 - Karen Paxman
Apologies to Gay, Sherriff, Mithen, Cunningham, Scott.
Leaderboard 10 - Karen Paxman 7 - Lily Mithen 6 - Tegan Cunningham 5 - Sinead Goldrick, Tyla Hanks 4 - Kate Hore, Lauren Pearce 2 - Jackie Parry 1 - Alyssa Bannan, Eliza McNamara (JOINT LEADERS: Whatever It Ends Up Being Called Award for AFLW Rising Star)
Next Week Who bloody knows. Presumably a Victorian side. Maybe nobody at all?
When the Soviet Union folded, America got a bit nostalgic because there was nobody left to biff on with. They quickly discovered the joy of fighting Saddam Hussein, those of us who've served in footy's Cold War since 12 September, 2011 are now coping with a vendetta shaped hole in our heart that may never be filled.
The retirement of - and we'll give him the benefit of his real name in this post before he's never spoken of again - Tom Scully closes the door on a saga that has been both incredibly childish and absolutely glorious. I don't want another enemy, he was my best fiend and I'm bereft without him. Nobody else evokes the same feelings. Even when Jeremy Howe and Collingwood lost a heartbreaking prelim I was nowhere as high up the walls in celebration as the Dogs knobbing GWS in a thriller. Extra points for you-know-who being ripped off out of a 50 at the crucial moment.
With Tom goes my last serious interest in non-MFC topics. For a decade it's been us and whoever's been playing him, now nothing. It would be harsh to demand that somebody who'd lost interest in the game continued playing just for my benefit but I'm still having adjustment issues knowing that it's over.
What a ride it has been. Short of somebody involving themselves in serious criminal misconduct or committing the most grievous act of disrespect to our club ever invented, I don't expect to ever muster up the same level of disdain for any AFL player.
The only disappointment (other than him not investing his fortune on the Zimbabwean Stock Exchange) is that the feud was all one-way and he never dignified it by joining in. While it was an obvious Box Ticking Exercise he even thanked the Melbourne Football Club in his retirement notice, grabbing at the moral high ground once more on the way out. You could say this was a sign of professionalism and maturity, I just don't reckon he was capable of joining in. I'd have gone on The Footy Show and offered Melbourne fans tours of my mansion if they were ever in the area.
By reasonable community standards, he never did anything wrong. When you strip the emotion out of it he simply exercised a league-endorsed option to take a higher paying job. And if you can look at it from such a dispassionate, robotic viewpoint you're a better person than me. I prefer to see a player whose reluctance to commit contributed to the instability that helped blow the club. One who legged it elsewhere for big money rather than committing to being part of the solution, and who wouldn't admit he was going until suddenly appearing in a YouTube video saying how happy he was to be a Giant. A Giant tosser in my book.
In almost every one of the 10 matches he played against us since 2012, a commentator was left lamenting how terrible we were for booing him (and in a way I agree, using words helps make sure there's no ambiguity) but considering the state of total panic our club was in at the time I'd say the reaction was reasonably calm and measured. If an Argentinian soccer player did the same thing they'd set his car on fire. In fact, there may never have been a dispute in the history of football that has generated so many genuine laughs. Admittedly most came from a small faction of fans operating on the same disturbed wavelength as me but nevertheless it created comedy fucking gold.
Join us now, for an Australian Football Video style tour through the hate that stopped a nation.
The Next Big Thing There's been a dramatic rewriting of history to pretend that picking Scully first in the 2009 National Draft was the sort of tremendous blunder that only a team like Melbourne could make. In reality, he was a consensus #1 pick from a mile out. Take it from this random internet person, who correctly predicted the entire top 10, only losing his streak when ill-fated, two-time Rising Star nominee Jordan Gysberts went next. The same article also describes Scully as our 'future leader' and predicted success for Melbourne was 'just around the corner' so you can't be right about everything.
Surprisingly, given the clamour to throw the season and make sure we got him, he didn't rate a mention from until September 30. Even then it was from a third-party. Look at that old-fashioned retweet, doesn't it make you want to spew?
RT: @emmasq Tom Scully did a press conference too. Says he'll be back able to train in 4 or 5 weeks
I forgot that he arrived under an injury cloud. That's classic Melbourne, you go to all the effort to get the top two picks, one turns up hurt and the other's foot snaps in two a couple of years later.
As correctly predicted by every serious phantom draft, Richmond used pick 3 on Dustin Martin, who has subsequently won as many flags as our entire club since 1959. Which is fantastic for them, but let's put to bed the fiction that he would have automatically been as good for us. There were a few years where the Tigers woke up every morning expecting to find him floating down the Yarra, don't tell me that our system would have steered him in the right direction. At the time Scully was described as a Richmond fan, so if we hadn't chucked that Jordan McMahon game he might have played for them. And probably still won nothing.
I've never been one to get excited about potential draftees, and there are very few mentions of him by name in my tweets or posts from the time. The more pressing debate was whether we'd have the top pick or the top two picks. Third-party options included the Olympic Stand being torched by fans if we put up a fight and finished 15th. What they didn't know, though most suspected, is that there was a concerted effort behind the scenes to make sure Option A came through.
You can argue the technicalities of the Tankquiry, and I certainly have, but any jury in the land would have convicted us based solely on Name A Game evidence, much less the AFL investigation. Luckily for us, the people doing the investigating were keen to sweep it under the rug long enough to let us have unchallenged access to what seemed like the ultimate draft jackpot. Hawthorn did the same thing once and got Franklin/Roughhead. Some people have all the luck.
At first I was reluctant to get involved in the real filthy stuff, promoting a theory that we should strive to finish above Freo, but with the handbrake firmly applied to ensure we won less than five games and still banked the priority pick. This way we'd have got returned some self-respect by not finish last but would still have had the top pick.
If you believe everything you read, panic set in mid-season when we won two in a row and jumped ahead of the Dockers on percentage. Owl Eyes Harvey and the Freo hierarchy could have taken a leaf out of our book, firmly jammed the cue in the rack for the last seven weeks and finished last, but obviously decided it wasn't worth it for pick 2.
Had both clubs set course for self-destruction it would have made our match against them in Round 20 interesting. I picture the equivalent of that soccer game where the team deliberately scored an own goal. We never found out how bad it could get, local pride inspired Freo to win a derby and the ball of corruption was back in our hands. The plan worked so well that there was even room for a morale-boosting 10 goal walloping of the Dockers before the end of the year.
Once I'd learned to stop worrying and accept the tank, excitement about the arrival of the top two rated juniors in the country began to build. Things were looking up, we hadn't yet Melbourned either Watts or Morton, and had another two picks in the top 20. What, as we like to say around here, could possibly go wrong?
The frenzy peaked with a function held by the club on draft night, encouraging members to gather and celebrate our windfall. Al Capone himself would have applauded such a shameless celebration of the proceeds of crime.
There's a theory that GWS had already planned the Scully heist before he was drafted. Maybe that was their idea but as much as I want to think badly of the man himself you can't tell me he was in on it that far out. Perhaps the most shambolic rumour of the time was that he and Ben Cunnington were both going to join, but to take the heat off it the parents of the opposite kid signed the agreement on their behalf. I still have no idea how that would have worked. Maybe Phil crossed Cunnington's name out and wrote his own?
At the time everyone wanted to think the best for the future. Once the relationship had gone tits up the gloves were off for any sort of zany theory. The type of people who are now into QAnon and Pete Evans found hidden meaning in him not putting the jumper on during the parade of top 10 draft picks. Even I thought this was a bit far-fetched, surely if you really were involved in a conspiracy you'd do everything possible to give the appearance of normality, not broadcast coded messages.
After the excessive publicity given to Jack Watts being handed Norm Smith's old number, we did it again with Scully, making a big deal out of him wearing Ron Barassi's old #31. Paul Wheatley must have been sitting at home wondering why he didn't get a ceremony during any part of his decade in it.
Fans of Tom's 'Resting Dead Face' will appreciate the level of excitement he brought to being handed these once sacred digits. At this time what odds would you have got on Joel Macdonald making more money than the rest of them combined?
Even after the embarrassment of late 2009, there were still some lunatics who wanted to throw the next season and get another priority pick. As if the AFL would have been able to turn a blind eye to those sorts of shenanigans twice. After three seasons of watching complete dross, those of us who hadn't suffered a traumatic brain injury were looking forward to improvement. As excited as I was for the Round 1 debut of SCULLGOVE era, it didn't take long for normal service to resume:
You can jam draft picks up your chocbox. How about a gameplan and some senior players who have a clue? Absymal.
Despite that early setback, early returns for both Scully and the club itself were positive. Unlike when fans and journalists alike united in demanding excellence or death from Jack Watts after four games, our latest #1 pick was being given every opportunity to develop. Imagine we knew that neither of them would end their career with us? There would have been self-harm.
The first sign that we might have stumbled/rorted our way into something special came on that wonderful night where top of the league Brisbane were pulverised. His first goal for us was by the far the most memorable of his Melbourne career. In fact it's the only memorable one. There were five others and I'm buggered if I know what they looked like, but they weren't as good as this:
If that made people sit up and take notice, people were throwing babies in the air over his 39 wet-weather possessions against the Bulldogs two weeks later. Sure we lost, and many of the touches were clangers, but in his seventh game the sheer volume of accumulation, balancing contested and uncontested possession all over the ground was worth sliding off your seat over.
Turns out I had high aspirations for him both on and off the field. One of these people ended up corruptly acquiring millions of dollars. The other is Tom Scully.
Forget Jacob Zuma, I can't wait until President Tom Scully opens the 2022 World Cup in Australia.
The five votes he got that night were the first of 15 in his rookie season, landing him the prestigious Hilton Award for Best First Year Player. This was later revoked, robbing him of one of the few individual honours of his career.
Across 21 games and second place in the Rising Star, his career was bubbling away nicely. At the time nobody thought it was suss that a first year player hadn't extended his initial contract. Only people who realised what sort of concessions GWS had up their sleeve were getting hot under the collar about him going. "Surely not" I thought. Surely so as it seems.
Another BOG in the second last game of the year was a last-ditch reminder that bigger and better things were on the agenda in 2011. And indeed they were. Bigger wins, bigger losses, and for one player, in particular, the biggest payday of his life.
The Year of Living Suspiciously (featuring Technicolour Gawn) Some say that the infamous trip to China helped convince Tom that we were not the club for him. With a level of alcohol consumption reportedly matching a Captain Gronewagen style 80s footy trip, Liam Jurrah discovered the joys of sinking expensive booze in nightclubs, and Scully apparently decided to chuff off home early after Max Gawn stumbled in from a night of bulk piss and spewed on his duvet.
We know from Max alluding to it a couple of years ago that there was definitely a vom, but no DNA records are available to show how whether any of it landed on him. Given that he'd reportedly never touched a drop of drink I can understand the terror of a 208cm giant raining alcohol-laden spew on you with only a flimsy hotel blanket for defence. As unpleasant as that was, he might have overcome the trauma if we'd also been able to pay him a million bucks a year. He also missed the chance to win the Kaspersky Cup, which must have been a real personal blow.
Our off-field turmoil would be the talk of the town by the season's end, but was bubbling away behind the scenes for now. As far as plebs like me knew things were looking up. After flirting awkwardly with the finals late in 2010 before inevitably stuffing it up, confidence was high. Even the youth policy that saw Junior McDonald unceremoniously turfed and Cameron Bruce allowed to go without a fight was only being viewed with a "wait and see..." style level of suspicion.
With the enemy within not yet revealed, my main AFL villain remained Chris J**d, who'd talked up his great childhood love of the Dees in 2007 before spurning us for a lucrative joint bid from Carlton and Visy. Soon enough his supervillain status was minimised to the point where I even acknowledged his full name for a few years, until the joyless reaction to us making the 2018 finals saw him stripped of his middle letters again.
It didn't take long into the new year for temperatures to rise.
If Scully ends up in a will he/won't he scenario with GWS I will be furious. If he doesn't sign by R11 should be dropped for good.
I couldn't agree with myself more. In reality, he didn't even play until Round 11 due to a knee complaint, offering people who desperately wanted to believe we weren't being played the "just let him concentrate on rehab" excuse. Rehabbing the hand he signs contracts with apparently.
See also, the suggestion that he was welcome to leave as long as he was honest about it. And this goes to the heart of it, I'm not saying I'd have considered him a good bloke under any circumstances but just come clean. At the barest minimum don't pull the wool over the eyes of a dying man. More on that later.
He was making all the right noises, but we didn't want noises, we wanted a name on paper or full and frank admissions of treachery.
Says it all about what a cockup the league has made of the new teams that Scully all but says he's staying and nobody believes it. #justsign
Complicating this already shambolic process was the rule that allowed the Giants (and the Suns before them) to approach players within 12 months of their contracts expiring. Technically they weren't allowed to sign them until the end of the season but we all know what was up. Gold Coast used the same rule to have a ping at several of our players, including Frawley, Watts, Morton and Petterd. All turned them down and must have woken screaming in the night about it when we were being thrashed 12 months later.
While he was out injured, there was little thought given to the Scully contract. We were too busy riding an emotional rollercoaster at a million miles an hour. Dismembered by West Coast one week, thumping the Crows the next, going down to a series of limp defeats and still finding ourselves inside the eight after Round 14. In Scully's first game back from injury we beat Essendon, an under-the-pump Bails punched the roof of the dugout in joy and things were looking decidedly positive again. Not for the first or last time the light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be the light from an oncoming train.
Even though he'd passed my arbitrary deadline to re-sign, I still thought Scully's return raised the tone of the club, which shows some level of faith in him staying. Deep down I knew it was never going to happen. Tryign to match the offer of an organisation working with an unlimited budget was risky but I still wanted to keep him, just to stick two fingers up at everyone who'd assumed he would leave at the first opportunity.
A couple of weeks later, with out season very much still alive, the mood had clearly darkened.
Sick of the Scully saga. Just sign with them/admit you already have, buy your Ferrari and piss off.
To show there were no hard feelings, the next day I had him in the votes as we walloped Freo by 89 points. TA few weeks later he disappeared with an injury halfway through our win over Port, and by the time he'd come back for the last three games we'd suffered 186, the coach had been sacked and the club was in freefall. Would have been a fantastic time for an alleged future leader to call a press conference and say "I'm staying to fix this place". Instead there was dead silence and we knew he was gone. All that was lacking was him admitting it.
The reluctance to commit (to us anyway) came despite a grassroots campaign where fans pledged a treasure trove of novelty items to convince him to stay. I don't think trying to appeal to him with comedy helped, nor did talk about dinner with SEN's Gladiators of Sport (you had to be there...). One fan even offered to perform explicit acts on him in exchange for his signature, which was going well beyond the call of duty.
Once the deadline for accepting the trove expired the turn was on, leading to a #scullyexcuses hashtag trending in Australia. Must have been a slow Twitter day. Any excuse to take the focus off our club imploding like a disused casino. Players and administrators were feuding, board members were leaking like a sieve to the media, and the second-worst performance in the history of VFL/AFL football had somehow saved the CEO who the players were upset with in the first place. Supposedly, the Schwab sacking had been offered to Scully as part of the club's own treasure trove. I have a hard time believing that but the way we were going back then anything was possible.
I wonder what Tom was doing while his teammates were being ripped apart on that fateful day at Kardinia Park. Was probably so busy packing for the move that he didn't find out the bumper margin until later that night. "Oh that's a shame" he might have said, before sticky taping another box. Never before have I wanted a more boring person to write an in-depth autobiography. In fact, I'll write it with him. Makes sense, who knows more about the background of this issue than me? Maybe we'll come out of it as best mates? Maybe not.
By now it was so obvious he was going that the denials became almost comical. If he'd just admitted it the nuclear heat would have passed much faster. Phil Davis was polite enough to own up in early August, and while Crows fans initially treated him like Pol Pot things quickly blew over.
It's probably better that he didn't pull the pin on the same day as Davis, walking out three days post-186 would have been ordinary timing. Any time before, or between a week later and the end of the season would have been fine though. At least we'd have avoided being strung along for the last few weeks when it was clear he was going (see also the departures of Frawley and Howe). But because he wouldn't say he was going and we couldn't bring ourselves to make a stand they picked him for four of the last five rounds, before he was quietly withdrawn for the last game in case he buggered up our compo by doing both knees on an experimental Adelaide Oval deck.
Suffice to say nobody was really surprised when he announced. Even Sheeds - still bitter that we didn't hire him in 2007 - was giving free hints to journos in the lead-up.
#circusmusic RT @tomsteinfort Sheedy just hinted very strongly to me that Tom Scully will be announced as a GWS player next Monday
And he was. Any lingering issues with the knee were solved by putting a big bag of money at the end of the Hume Highway and watching him take off like Cliff Young.
This makes the events of Sunday September 11 even more ridiculous. Instead of saying "Yes, I am leaving, goodbye", he went on the Sunday Footy Show, claimed he hadn't made a decision and was just flying up to Sydney to check out their facilities. The good news is that he wasn't alone, Phil joined him to "meet the club". One way or another I hope they had a fire extinguisher ready in case somebody's pants caught on fire.
The tour of the contract signing room was so successful that he made the decision to take GWS' offer right there and then. The secretive nature of his departure is what really triggered the ill-feelings.
Then there was the rumour that he'd straight up told a dying Jim Stynes that he was staying before dicking us. Jim's side of the story was told in a posthumously released autobiography. Considering his general outlook on life and all the work he did with young people I don't see him making up shit to bury a bloke from beyond the grave, leading me to believe this is a true account of what happened.
Stynes wrote of meeting Scully in February 2011 and saying, "All I ask is that you be honest with us. If you make a decision to leave, then you make that decision, but I need to know so that the club can make some plans. Don't make us look like fools".
The alleged response was "GWS hasn't approached me, or my manger. There hasn't been contact with them in any shape or form. I love the club and want to play out my career with Melbourne."
At least one of those statements was cobblers. 2011 offered plenty of reasons to be upset about the direction of the Melbourne Football Club but it's a long way down from claiming to a man's face that you 'love the club' and starring on the GWS YouTube channel. According to Stynes, the big money offer for Scully's dad to work as a recruiter with the Giants was made three months before that conversation. Scully Jr. later claimed he had absolutely no idea that his dad had been offered the job. Draw your own conclusions.
Neutral fans, I know this all seems ridiculous when you weren't involved, but do you see how treating the fans of a club on its knees like they were stupid may have caused some aggravation? Of course it was all very irrational and child-like, and there are much more important things to be upset at in the world, but if you can't see why people got upset you're not trying very hard. Just like there are plenty of Melbourne fans who wanted no part of the anti-Scully sentiment and wished him well, a lot of your fans would set fire to a car if the same thing happened. Of course, most people got over it, I'm still angry even though he's retired.
The sort of people who think everyone should be friends say things like "what would you have done if you were offered a million dollars a year at that age?" I may very well have taken it, but I'd expect people to think of me as a dead-set mercenary for the rest of my days. Perhaps winning a Brownlow and a flag might have quelled that feeling a bit. Oh well, at least he's got the money eh?
It's not like he would gone poor staying with us. Like 16 other clubs we had to work within the constraints of the salary cap, but were hardly offering him KFC wages. He'd still have done extraordinarily well for himself (if he'd sidestepped the inevitable Melbourning), especially if we funnelled him extra cash for a J**d style third party racket. Either way, I doubt he'd have ended up scabbing for change in a blanket if he'd stayed. Maybe the difference in pay was worth never being truly respected. Maybe he looks at what happened to poor old, loyal Jack Trengove - who tellingly re-signed to much fanfare in mid-2011 - and is thankful that took the money and ran.
"What about [insert name here]?", they've said about Jeff White (retrospectively), Mitch Clark (laughably) and Jake Lever since. "Why was it alright for you to sign them?" Unfortunately for these people, White is the only even remotely similar case, with the added attraction of us having rorted the salary cap to pay for him. Even he put in three years before running away. We even handed the Dockers the second pick of the draft in exchange. Which, to prove you just can't help some people, they proceeded to swap for Chris Bond.
More importantly, who told the fans of the aggrieved clubs in these transactions that they couldn't crack the sads? I wish they had, nothing is more exciting in sports than good old fashioned bad feelings. It's not our fault that they were too soft to make a scene. Freo fans should be especially disappointed at their performance, they even got the dream scenario of him debuting for us on their ground. The only signs being held aloft that day said 'Messages On Hold'. Weak.
Once he'd made his apparently spontaneous decision to go, Tom was nice enough to ring around and let the key figures at Melbourne know. This was like calling your partner to say you're leaving while you're in the replacement's bed. Suffice to say the guy who made the Someone Like You video knew it was coming, having the whole thing produced (key line - "Oh Tom, why did you sell out?" Did our 30 goals losses leave you with some doubt?"), edited and ready to go on the day of the announcement. He knew, we knew, everybody knew. I still reckon that even that otherwise non-story about him touring the facilities was only posted because the idea was so laughable they wanted to make sure it was on the public record.
The Herald Sun cited 'sources' who said he got cold feet just before the switch but was unable to renege because he's already signed a contract. Which was about as believable as the celebrity gossip in Women's Weekly. The feet were very warm and now that his career's over I defy him to claim otherwise.
Two first round draft picks as compensation softened the blow, but it's ludicrous to suggest that's a reason not to be upset with the person who left. He didn't care if we got pick #1 or pick #123. It's not like dropped into AFL House on the way to the airport and hammered out the best deal for us. He did not give a fat rat's clacker about what happened to us after that point.
The whole thing was a scam anyway, the Giants immediately got pick #2 back in exchange for the rights to Jesse Hogan, who had never been their player in the first place. To say the AFL bent over to try and make GWS an instant success is one of the great understatements.
When Hogan was kicking goals and Scully was running around in (relatively) successful GWS sides, it looked like both sides had come out well. Oddly enough, less than 10 years later Hogan is now on his last legs as an AFL player with... GWS and we're left hoping Steven May - swapped for Hogan - pays off this trading pyramid scheme by delivering a flag. History since 1964 suggests that's unlikely.
Less than a week after Scully left we announced Mark Neeld. Which is another story entirely. I think they would have gotten on well together. That combination might have done wonderful things and ended their career showered in riches. We'll never know. By the time both were gone the only shower that counted was the stream of piss that had been poured over loyal supporters.
Carnival of Hate
Considering how rotten we were for the next couple of years, the Scully saga provided a much-needed distraction. From this point my teams were Melbourne and whoever played against him. It would be easy to say I was young and foolish, but I still felt like this all the way through to the end of 2020. Yes, I am an extremely petty individual, thank you for noticing. Meanwhile he's probably got a $6 million house so I'm sure he's not feeling too bad about his choices.
Suffice to say, once the cloak and dagger deal had been concluded the door was open for things to get a bit nasty.
$cully to be burnt alive to test if he's a witch. Not a #newAFLrule, just good public policy
... and that wasn't even near the sourest, most mean-spirited tweet I sent about him in the following 12 months. I'm not proud of them, but they happened. It's a wonder that he didn't double down and on his big payday and sue me as well. There was also much excitement over a shot of his sister where she was the colour of a terracotta pot and one with he and Blease posed on a beach like a bootleg Miami Vice.
Unless you were one of the sage people who cocked a quizzical eyebrow at Neeld's appointment, there was no indication of how bad 2012 was going to be. Yes, we had quite recently lost a game by 31 goals, sacked the coach, been knifed by our best young prospect, the President was fighting a losing battle with cancer, and had just appointed the youngest captains in the history of the league but other than that everything was fine. Hard to believe it got even worse the next year.
Somewhat sucked in by the fantasy of Neeld turning the place around, I wasn't ready to completely write the year off yet (that came in Round 2). Not until we'd played GWS anyway. I had many frustrations that needed to be publicly vented.
Given that the AFL create the fixture and own the Giants I'm surprised they didn't protect themselves from wild scenes by scheduling us to play them interstate. They probably thought it was fine to put it on at the MCG because our poncy, cravat wearing fans wouldn't tear the place apart. We didn't, generally opting for comedy instead of hateful abuse. Well, maybe a little bit of hateful abuse. But not much.
The timing of the first match couldn't have been better. By Round 13 they were still likely to be struggling, while we'd be a comfortably mid-table side building towards bigger and better things. Or so I thought. The alternative plan was to win one game from the first 12 and often play as if drunk. By the time the Giants arrived they were only behind us on percentage, had the shit hottest young forward in the competition in Jeremy Cameron, and only just lost to a finals-contending Richmond to two goals. A fortnight later they'd come back to the MCG and lose to Hawthorn by 162 points, but for now, I reserved the right to be VERY afraid of us humiliating ourselves.
In case you've got 2 hours and 22 minutes spare, here's the entire game. At least watch the pre-match package, featuring Scully saying he thinks people will "get over it". Unlikely mate.
It's no spoiler to say we won, and after an early scare won comfortably. I still get misty-eyed thinking how many goals Mitch Clark would have kicked this day if his foot hadn't been injured after the first four.
The real action was in the stands. Banners included '#1 Prick', and the pointed 'YOU LIED TO JIM'. Old mate was famously pictured jiggling themed money bags, and people were kicked out for pinning money to themselves. Somehow despite three signs reportedly being removed from the MCG, I got away with holding one side of this:
I'd never met the other guy, he just needed somebody to help hold it up and I was happy to oblige. Attempts to cover my identity and avoid potential defamation action was negated by instantly admitting to being under the mask. The next day Channel 9 asked for an interview, I was not hungry for publicity but should have asked if I could do it with the mask on and my voice digitally altered.
It was an excellent banner, saying everything you needed to know in four letters, two numbers and a symbol. Certainly far more successful than the other one, which mocked Phil for his love of Fish Fingers. It didn't have the same lovely font as the anti-Peter Moore banner that he threatened to sue over in 1983 but you can't win them all. I still have both of them, though the only other public airing JUDA$31 has ever had was for the work going away party of a Melbourne fan.
Some of the stuff that went on that day went a bit close to the mark but on the whole it was a triumph for comedy over agro. Mind you, this was the year the Collingwood cheersquad held up 'SPAZ FOR FAZ' and GWS had an ideologically unsound group of Krishna Kockheads following them around the country so you could pretty much do anything you wanted.
The carnival atmosphere was helped by there only being about 14 GWS fans there, including one planted kid holding a sign saying 'I HEART TOM SCULLY'. I hope moneybags Tom sent him a couple of hundred bucks to say thanks. To prove that we were not entirely terrible people, there was a universally positive reaction to the returning James McDonald, proving we did have some class after all.
We played them again two months later, where despite it being a GWS home game (in Canberra), every touch Scully got was treated with contempt by vocal fans. It was enough to warm your heart. As was beating them again, albeit this time in unconvincing fashion, against a side featuring Israel Folau as the most comically out of his depth senior AFL player ever at the bargain price of $1.5 million. As much as I disliked Scully at least they got some of their money's worth from recruiting him. Meanwhile, he must have looked at Jack Watts sitting on the bench in a green vest waiting for Tom Couch to be subbed off and thought "that could have been me." Or you could have helped drive the culture that would have got the best out of Watts. Either or.
Feelings never ran as deep as again as they did on the first day. They didn't need to. A handful of committed people booed him and I yelled rude things whenever he turned up, but there was no need for further public demonstrations. By 2013 I was probably the only person tracking our meetings with him, taking great glee in beating him again via the bonkers 12 goal last quarter game while everything else was crumbling around us. Our man did us a rare favour when he gave away a downfield 50 in that final term that led to not only a goal but me cramming all of the top seven words you can't say on TV into a delighted five second spray.
Later in the season the Giants finally got us, winning their first and only game of the season. Infuriatingly (but good for the feud), Scully was amongst the best on the ground. I reacted with the fear that he'd mock us by becoming a three-time Brownlow Medallist. Just fell three short. Got seven votes one year though, which was one more than Scott Chisholm in 1999.
From 2014-2017 we were never better than the Giants, regularly losing to them. He still didn't get the chance to beat us on the MCG, missing the game where we kicked 3.16 and lost by 10 goals, but it was clear to me that he was going to win a flag at some point and we weren't. If either side was going to fulfil the saying "the best revenge is living well", it was likely not going to be us.
There was a near-disaster in the opening round of 2016 when he nearly kicked a miracle goal to snatch the game with seconds to play. This coming after he got the first of the match, a none-more-Melbourne way to start the season. Our record of never letting him sully our home turf was about all we had going for us. They finished fourth in 2016 - hilariously losing that Prelim to the Bulldogs - and 2017, while we were splashing around in the middle of the league.
He beat us again in our last meeting before he left GWS, in front of a glory-hunting Canberra crowd swelled to nearly double what it had been for the first meeting there. No sane people really cared anymore but I still cursed the screen every time they showed him, it had become a habit. Even when we weren't playing there would be deep, dark, mutterings under the breath and demands to kick it on the full whenever he got a touch.
By the time we - temporarily - got good in 2018 he was on the sidelines after seriously injuring his ankle in the opening game of the year. After all this you probably wouldn't believe me if I said 'you wouldn't wish injury on anyone...' but I had matured somewhat by that point. However, once he was out of the way I developed a genuine interest in GWS. There was even audible disgust when they were narrowly tipped out of the finals by Collingwood. If we weren't going to win the flag (and we weren't), the idea of him missing out while his teammates got one appealed.
They had a shot the next year (and didn't that go well?), but he was well gone by then, with his salary dumped from their cap via a cheap-as-chips trade to Hawthorn, where the story would continue in 2019.
Toilet colours and beyond
Even though they'd just made the finals, the Hawks looked to be rapidly unfurling from their mid-2010s glory days. Still, weren't you a touch scared that they'd apply miracle cures to his ankle and burst back into premiership contention immediately? I was packing it. It would have been footy's version of Fatal Attraction to think the ankle injury finished Tom off only for him to roar back to life and win a flag.
They did only just miss the finals, ultimately not helped by losing to us, but it was their last gasp. You could be reasonably confident now that he wasn't going to win a flag, and that by peaking at 'good ordinary' status as a player that there would be no late-career revival Brownlow(s). Which is about all you can cling to when your team is no good.
Fittingly, for somebody whose career had been defined by the reaction of fans, our last meeting came in front of an estimated 750 people. I still heard somebody in the crowd boo him, maintaining the rage until the very last moment.
Now he's chucked it in and I don't know what to do with myself. Unlike the real Cold War there were no winners. Literally none, he never won anything team or individual after leaving, and neither did we. If anything you'd have to give him the advantage simply for making a shitload of money and playing in two more finals on his own than our entire club in the same period.
And so, in closing the book on nearly a decade of animosity against somebody who'd never heard of me (or he'd surely have sued for defamation), let it be said that while I despise him as a football personality I wish him well as a human.
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.
