Monday 18 March 2024

Where it all begins again

Forget the radical idea of all teams playing in the same round, nothing says "footy is back" like fans queuing at the edge of a cliff to jump off after one loss. As one of the teams lucky (?) enough to have been chosen for , we were able to do both 'fork in toaster' and 'everything's going to be alright' by the end of Round 1. 

Fans have probably been making premature judgements after the first game since 1897, but at least they got to proceed to directly to Round 2, where all the same teams were involved. This year we've had two of the participants in the round so bad they didn't number it play each other in the second week, the other six take on sides in the first game of the season, and byes for Brisbane and Carlton after two games.

I'm sure the AFL has a long list of made-up benefits from last week, but spin until your arm falls off, the whole thing has been a cock-up. Even uncrowned Hall of Fame Legend website AFL Tables went bonkers, just threw digital hands in the air and called the first two games - get this for revolutionary - Round 1 and Round 2. I think the Demonwiki plan of Round 1A/1B was cleaner, but after 25 years doing the league's historical work for them who can blame them for refusing to rebuild the database for what should be a one-off wankfest. 

In 1897 you'd still be seven weeks away from Round 1, but in this ludicrously stretched out season we've already bounced from one side of the misery spectrum to the other by mid-March. Even if you doubt the other side is any good, the best medicine for a first-up loss is to beat somebody for premiership points at the next available opportunity. Things looked ropey at the start, and it took a long time to finally shake Footscray off, but we ended the afternoon merrily sinking the slipper into their lifeless shell, so consider Sydney to be the formation lap and we'll take this as the official start of the season.

The latest stop in the Premiership Hangover Tour nudged the Doomsday Clock back towards 'on-field', but the key danger to our fragile dignity was the next chapter of the administration's war on quiet contemplation. I'm all for Kate Roffey, but will vote for a Glenn Bartlett/Peter Lawrence group ticket if she and/or associated people keep going on about fans not making enough noise withour providing scientific evidence that it makes a jot of difference. To paraphrase Ron Barassi, you give me something to get excited about and I won't shut up. Otherwise you're just trying to force atmosphere, which took the form of fanging chart hits at 3000 decibels before the first bounce. Funnily enough, when we started kicking goals people fired up without needing somebody to yell "make some noise" like an NBL game. We've lost six consecutive finals in all competitions, you can forgive fans for pacing themselves.

Instead of worrying about what people do when they show up, the Prez should go through the membership database from Aaronson to Zakowski and ask where the rest were. I can't believe we ended up with a crowd of 44k, because at the first bounce it looked like a #fistedforever era game against Gold Coast. The more the merrier, but could any of the people hanging shit on us for not drawing more please explain what an acceptable crowd for Melbourne and Footscray at 1pm on a Sunday in mid-March is? 

People who get into games free and are paid to barrack for the code think that because Essendon and Hawthorn got 73k that people are going to come from everywhere to see (relatively) better teams, when it hasn't worked like that in about 50 years. I'm impressed so many did turn up after the comprehensive botching of the usual pre-Round 1 hype.

The announced crowd recovered some moral-highground for whinging about the MCG closing the top of the Ponsford Stand. When I expected the announced crowd to be 25k, there was an element of "I can't justifiably complain about this", but now I've got the green light to go full Karen. Unless the club was involved in trying to fake up atmosphere by packing the crowd together, I'm accusing the alleged 'People's Ground' of being tightarses who don't want to risk a sliver of their $5 million annual profit into paying for staff to patrol the area. These are the same people who turned the lights on in blazing sunshine.

It's good that they've got a sensory room for those who need it, but anything for people who just want to see live games without being around people? I know I'm abnormal, but there must be a few of us. The alternative of Row MM Olympic Stand ended in kids sitting literally next to me at half time, then some bloody family reunion breaking out during the third, leading to flouncing off (and there was a lot of flounce in it) to another section. If that wasn't enough of a live-viewing issue, there was an added degree of difficulty from that bloody camera on a wire that kept swooping down from the stands like Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 12. I'm sure home viewers had the best time since IMAX was invented but it gave me the shits. The camera failed to reappear after half time, and as TCL is now sponsoring footy (please enjoy their not at all written by AI announcement of same) I'll assume it got hacked by the Chinese government.

Once all the niche grievances were taken care of, the main event was footy, and for the first few minutes it looked like the humble fan was going to in the firing line for not providing players a more frenzied workplace environment. Against Sydney, we defended well but wondered if that was just because they had sod all good tall forwards. 'Good' is in the eye of the beholder, but the Dogs have a lot of players who can pull down marks inside 50 and they were all queuing up to get involved early. It's a blip now that you know the result, but the first two goals were a big, flashing 'oh shit' warning. Even as somebody who called for calm after the first game I saw the season flash before my eyes.

Getting hands on the ball would have helped. I don't think there was a single disposal before their first goal, and at best one flubbed handball and Salem being caught HTB before the second. I could have made a case for it going tits up against all those talls, with Marty Hore and Tom McSizzle at the same end for the first time since Carrara 2019, Blake Howes without first game surprise element etc... Enter Steven May, whose professional pride was so wounded by early setbacks that he played the rest of the first quarter like Rambo, going on a one-man crusade for justice. He crashed packs, laid clobering tackles, and was just generally ace. I did think "hope he doesn't get too excited and belt somebody", and was scared to death that his high forearm fend in the last quarter was going to end in suspension.

I didn't realise at the time that May's big tackle was on Harmes, and that he put the exclamation point on with a verbal spray. Big deal, Harmes got a week for headbutting him in the last quarter and they still cheerfully embraced at the final siren. And I'll bet the lunatic fringe of Footscray fans were delighted to see that. Harmes didn't do much to make you miss him, but could have done anything on the way out short of sticking Norm Smith's jumper between his buttocks and he'd still be a hero to me. The dickhead minority who booed him should be boiled in oil, but it's a step up from Pies fanatics (ina all senses of the word) going from flag to hooting serving players within six quarters.

Just when things were getting a bit dodgy, enter opening goal specialist Jack Viney. To prove his unexpected versatility, this was completely different to last week's effort. Instead of activating Beast Mode and powering through a pack, he converted a you-know-the-appropriate-reference style burst from the centre bounce, taking on the extra challenge of fumbling a handball, before regathering and belting it through on the run. It was a good finish, and very much needed to calm the nerves. We still didn't know if the forwards were going to kick anyway, but in an era where I expect every game to finish with both teams scoring between 50 and 70 I'll take anything on offer.

Pickett got the second, and even though he didn't add another major until the last quarter you understood how badly we missed him last week. Whether forward or midfield he produces more energy than Loy Yang B. Now we'd settled into the game, what the Dogs really needed was a goal via absurd clanger. Gawn obliged, running onto a ball in the back pocket that he could easily have let go over the line and trying a weird handball that skewed off in the wrong direction and cost a goal. After facilitating yet another Rising Star nomination in Mystery Week, I was ready for anyone from Riley Sanders to Colonel Harland Sanders to get the next one against us, but it was their other first gamer who got the MFC First Game Fun Pack. He didn't do anything else, but will always fondly recall the gift from Big Max.

Other than getting over-excited there, there's no need for the same 'woe is us' ruck content as last week because Gawn was nearly BOG. I thought Footscray might use their bonanza of tall players against him, but like defending the goalside of centre bounce stoppages at crucial stages of a Grand Final they had less other ideas. He was back to his best, in the sort of game where you can't imagine what Grundy would have done as second banana. Certainly wouldn't have contributed as much as the back-from-the-dead Ben Brown, who might have had the mobility of an Eastern European car but contested well, and took a few good saving marks along the wing.

The Dogs still had a handy lead in the dying minutes of the quarter, before going to pieces and letting us crumb a pair to regain the lead. NFI how that happened but we were never behind again, and for all the "no plan B" mockery of the coach, our recovery from a poor start was nearly flawless. 

We did have to survive one attack straight from the next bounce, but everything was going so well now that it turned into Fritsch having a Malcolm Blight style long distance torp after the siren. It missed, with the third (?) review of the quarter determining which side of the point posts it went. Everyone was hanging shit on the goal umpires for not backing themselves, but I feel bad for them because the same people will be calling for blood in the streets when they don't review a howler. After that Adelaide fiasco last year, there's only one direction review numbers are going.

May did his best to drag us back into the game with brawn, but after a decent warm-up last week, the sixth sense ball-getting was provided by who else but Clayton Oliver. He had a shitload of touches in the first quarter and never slowed down. He's had more disposals in a game, but not many better overall performances considering the pressure of everyone watching, and the lowest rungs of society desperately wanting him to fail.

I don't know - or need to know - what happened to him last year, but I sense he's much better in the club environment than left to his own devices. You could see the joy he was getting out of this, and the ovation when he left the field in the last quarter was tremendous. I don't know what he's got to redeem after missing a grand total of zero competitive games, but I'll take a redemption storyline if it ends in him playing out a glittering, legend status career with us and/or a happy, stress free life that doesn't end in medical emergencies or related drama.

The full Oliver experience was on show early in the second when he ran onto a loose ball, bumped off an opponent as he gathered, considered having a flying shot for about 0.1 seconds, before somehow seeing Neal-Bullen standing on his own near goal from the corner of his eye, and guiding a handball to him between three defenders. This left ANB to kick the most casual rolling, bouncing goal of all time. He had so long to set it up that he'd have looked a bit of a tit if it didn't get the all important last rotation as was touched through.

In an episode of Air Crash Investigation, the voiceover would have greeted this by saying "that was the moment when Bulldog Airlines Flight 1 was doomed", but we didn't officially shift them for another two quarters. That's something to go on with isn't it Dogs fans? Maybe not. 

If you'd told me a few weeks ago that there'd be an early season quarter where everything went Brown I'd have thought you meant a) Kynan, or b) the colour of Simon Goodwin's undies if we were getting thrashed. The Ben variety had flown so far under the radar that there was mass confusion when he turned up at VFL level last week, before an extra round of 'is he still around?' from casual fans when the teams were announced. Recent history suggests he doesn't make it through the full season, but he did a great job all day. The peak came here, where he first brought the ball to ground for Chandler's goal, then get one of his own after nimbly (!) stepping around a hapless defender. His second came from a completely unnecessary free kick for holding while covered by two defenders in the square, but they all count. Refer to several hundred previous posts about how if you create enough genuine contests you'll get some lucky frees.  

Down the other end we hadn't quite killed off their forward line, but it was reduced to Jamarra Ugle-Hagen marking everything but spraying kicks, while the law firm of Naughton, Lobb and English were stricken from the record. This was a triumph for the returning Marty Hore, who played in a winning AFL side for the first time since before old mate from China set us on course for a flag by eating an infected bat. Also back in the defensive winners' circle, Tom McDonald, who was very good as more of a running defender (for want of a better term) than his old old job as a flat-out key position back. I thought Tomlinson was unlucky to be dropped, but this did add an extra element of rebounding attack. He'll probably be back at full forward in six weeks when everything else fails, but I'm willing to bet now that he won't get to the cherished (by me) career average of a goal a game after giving it a 60 game head start.

As the Big Book O' Footy Cliches would have it, this is a game of inches and after they got the final goal of the first half you do wonder what would have happened if that hadn't been followed by a miss in the opening seconds after the break. Instead, we went down the other end of ANB's second and some much needed breathing space. Alas, Footscray just would not piss off and leave us to enjoy a nice day out. At about the same time the family reunion broke out in front of me, we let another goal in, and it was only a late Chandler shot that made things even remotely comfortable at the last break. 

That goal was a historical moment that will go unreported because it's strictly for sickos like me. Chandler's third made him the all-time top MFC goalkicker in jumper 37. Hard to see why that didn't make the front of the paper. A cautionary note to young players from the previous record holder Jim Mitchell, whose switch to #1 in his last season has cost him glory 75 years later. Commit to an unusual number and for the record books.

More importantly to normal people, Chandler was a world ahead of last week. Doesn't hurt to have a certain K. Pickett back in the small forward department, but in the absence of the injured Charlie Spargo I'm claiming 'Mission Accomplished' on my theory that you can't play them in the same side. Charleston hasn't had a game this good in a long time, so it's advantage to KC. That's the way I like it etc...

Also significantly better than his first outing, Jack Billings. In retrospect, it does seem silly to pick a sub who's fanging to prove himself after a long career at another club, and after doing nada off the bench in Sydney, he was really good here. He's hardly going to win our B&F and trouble the All-Australian selection committee, but if fit he could be an astute gap-filling selection. 

Running away from Footscray was embedded in our club culture on 25/09/2021, but I wasn't ready to accept a 19 point lead was enough. Last week might have been an anomaly based on occasion, opposition, available players, and conditions, but the most recent evidence of Melbourne in the last quarter was us flailing around as if drowning, reduced to accidental goals because nothing else was working.

My deepest fears got a workout when they stayed forward for the first few minutes. I was ready to demand enquiries about everything up to and including not using the sub early enough on a hot day, when Gawn marked pretty much right in front. To the joy of basic people everywhere he missed, but more importantly they went straight down the other end for a shot that would have made things uncomfortably interesting. It missed, and next thing you know Fritsch fed Petracca with a beautiful handball to goal on the run and they'd wasted their chance to set off our self-doubt.

It was not quite all over yet, because after missing all the easy shots, Footscray's last gasp came courtesy of a recycled defender who only had about two previous career goals cracking one through from distance. Didn't have any long term negative impact, but possibly only because an attack where they had all the numbers fell apart with a fumble and turned into us kicking the reply goal. 

That caused air to finally evacuate the Bulldog balloon with a big "pffffffffffft" sound, and once the body hit the floor we merrily took out some of our frustrations from last week by sticking the boots in. From there we converted a ludicrous (for us) percentage of attacks into scores, while the opposition was losing the will to live. They briefly got it back to four goals the difference with six minutes left, but even I wasn't worried about a comeback... after we turned back an attack from the next centre bounce.  Good thing it wasn't close, because Lever spent large parts of the last quarter in cramp hell. He returned at the end, god knows why, but looked likely to go into full body spasm at any moment.

ReviewMania continued when they stopped the game with the ball in play to try and work out if it had crossed the line for a point. It hadn't, so they bounced it and things were getting really silly. I've accepted that reviews are never going away, but I'd save them for deciding if the ball crossed the goal line, and for hitting the post. Somebody will go off about "what if the game was decided by a point?", but that's a false argument (and here I go with this for another year, see also Score, Expected) because one you pay it the other way, the game goes off on a different path. We'll live if a couple of points a year go the wrong way.

The Dollop of Wallop portion of the afternoon began when Pickett kicked a Pickett-esque goal from nowhere right in front of the MCC Members, delighting the only full section of the ground. Later the same people were pictured going apeshit when Oliver ran off after playing his heart out, but any of our fans who weren't moved at that point need their pulse checked. He had another chance for a running goal that would have lifted the roof off the standards, before doing the team thing and setting up JVR instead. What a man.

As usual I've only paid scant attention to the previous career of our new arrivals, but I'm reliably informed (by who else but AFL Tables) that Jack Billings once kicked five in a game. But then again so did Sam Blease and Brent Heaver. He got his first in our colours here, even if - and you'll never guess what happened next - it had to survive a video review. When the question is the ball hitting the post, why don't they got to the snicko first instead of frame-by-frame vision at the same resolution as full motion video from mid-90s video games?

The Dogs' descent into madness was complete when a kick-in disaster saw Billings feed Salem a cheap one from the square, and a Brown miss on the siren is all that cost us a 50 point win. It sure didn't feel that brutal, but who doesn't love reminders of another time we unexpectedly ran up the score against this opposition?

So, the other side may be no better than mid-table mediocrity but watching us win at the MCG (or anywhere for that matter) was a nice way to kick the season off for real. The next six months is going to be a potentially fatal rollercoaster of emotions, but now you know that we can beat somebody, the mission is to do that about 20 more times, ending on a similarly sunny day at the other end of the season.

2024 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Clayton Oliver
4 - Max Gawn
3 - Steven May
2 - Christian Petracca
1 - Jack Billings

Massive apologies to Viney and Chandler. Significant apologies to Brown, Lever, McDonald, Rivers and Salem 

Leaderboard
8 - Steven May (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
5 - Clayton Oliver
4 - Max Gawn (LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year), Jack Viney
3 - Judd McVee
2 - Christian Petracca, Tom Sparrow
1 - Jack Billings, Blake Howes (LEADER: Rising Star Award)

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
It's welcome back Pickett, and straight to the top of the leaderboard for that out of thin air one in the last quarter. In the unlikeliest scenario ever, he shares the podium with 2x Jack Viney. I liked last week's power move goal, but the one this week was very good because he had to regather it first. You'll notice there's no JVR vs Sydney included, even though it won Goal of the Week, because that was the worst thing we've been nominated for at the SCG since Howe took Mark of the Year while we were 85 points down, then immediately botched a handball.  

1st - Kysaiah Pickett (Q4) vs Footscray
2nd - Jack Viney (Q1) vs Sydney
3rd - Jack Viney (Q1) vs Footscray

Matchday experience watch
Our first home game of the year is the activation (*spit and spew simultaneously*) equivalent of Homer Simpson and new billboard day. This year's big innovation was 'Simba Cam', which encouraged fans to hoist their child into the air and... not much else. It certainly wasn't because Disney paid us a huge pile of cash, so wait until their lawyers find out what we're up to. Either that or it'll go the way of Hogan's Heroes/Howie's Hangers when somebody trips over a seat and their child ends up in ER.

Crowd watch (incorporating White Line Fever and Sorted For G's and Whizz)
I've never seen so many young men patiently waiting for bathroom cubicles at half time. Doesn't seem like a sanitary place to whop foreign substances up your nose, but given that the gear is probably cut with 72% oven cleaner anyway, what's the difference? One distant New Year's Eve I sampled the genuine article and ended up walking from Toorak to Southbank to Richmond, via singing the Grand Old Flag out loud in Fawkner Park. Which seems like a much better use of excess energy than watching more wonky footy. 

Next week
I've given Hawthorn no respect this year, so next week will either confirm my suspicions about them or end in an embarassing reverse that will have the vultures back on our doorstep. They pushed us late last year, in a game so tedious that it caused at least one of our players to go on the rails, but on paper things should turn out ok.

Selection gets interesting after Ben Brown's surprise revival, last week it was how quickly can we get Petty back, now there's probably scope to warm him up in the Reserves. Petty has played more damaging games in the last 12 months, Brown has years of experience so you know what you're going to get, and each has lower extremities that could catch fire at any moment.

There's also a question of whether we need all these tall defenders against a side not called Footscray. As far as I'm aware, and get ready to be proven wrong when Jason Dunstall 2.0 kicks a dozen, Hawthorn isn't exactly flush for exciting marking forwards. Regardless, the Cararra Club of McDonald and Hore should be rewarded for good performances. So for once, especially because Casey lost a practice match to perennial stragglers Coburg, let's say no change. Woewodin didn't do anything wrong so he can go again as sub, and after making five changes this week let's relax and not worry about our flimsy depth for a few days.

IN/OUT: Nil
LUCKY: Nil
UNLUCKY: Petty, Tomlinson

Final thoughts
Don't block out your calendar for September yet, but this was a much-needed reminder that we were only slightly off last week. If we keep enough players upright until the end of the year things can still turn out well.

Standard 'post delayed' notification


Dees win, I'm getting to the review. Do something good for society while you wait. 

Keep an eye on Twitter or Facebook for a link. Send any thoughts on the game via the usual channels and I'll incorporate/shamelessly steal them.

Saturday 9 March 2024

Open. Shut.

Considering our long history of being unwatchable, I can understand why the AFL doesn't trust us with the first game of the season. Given how many years they had Carlton and Richmond bore the tits off everyone I'm surprised we've been the opening act six times in the last 30 years. Don't stay up for the next one, after another repeat of the same low-scoring sludge we've lost 15 times in recent years, they won't be asking us back anytime soon.

This was nearly enough to turn me off the sport of Australian Rules football, but as I set up these links to previous opening games we're going through them anyway. The teenage misery years helped me avoid the unmerciful humping by Geelong in 1996 (made up for it later...), but I do remember being shocked by the next year's 'eventual wooden spooners beat reigning premiers' false start. There was a temporary setback in 2000, and a near-permanent setback in 2007, before we returned to raise the flag 15 years later. Not much joy in all that, but '22 was good.

We'll judge the historical context of this year's loss later. For now, you can either drop your bundle and try to sack somebody, or curl into a ball and hope for the best. I'm taking the second option with a side serving of confirmation bias for my theory that we're a fringe finals side that will need everything to go right to contend for the top prize.

The key difference between all the opening rounds since 1897 and this 'Opening Round' was the AFL torching convention by not giving it a number. Who cares where they play the games, just have a split round instead of playing a full card of Round 1 games next week, featuring all the teams who have already played. It's harmless stuff, unless you're a sicko like me who values order over marketing department bullshit. They also played the first game in Sydney, which has never happened in the history of the game if you ignore 2012.

I thought the focus on the frontier states (where footy is the game of the future and always will be) was a sad attempt to leap into a gap in the NRL calendar, only to find out that their season proper started on the same night. They may as well be honest and admit it was a consolation Gather Round. Hopefully the competing clubs are cut in on what bung the AFL got from New South Wales/Queensland for doing it. Just send a cheque, best we stay clear of whatever coke and hookers side deals they had going on. 

Channel 7 and the AFL are practically two wings of the same cartel these days, but the artificial "how much fun are we having?" excitement about being in Sydney was hilariously overblown. The highlight was their vigorous, dignity-free walloping over the crowd, when the last home and away game at the SCG, against the same opposition, drew more people. I'm looking forward to the crowd for GWS/Collingwood being talked about as the dawn of a new era when 90% of them are going for the visitors. Like the NRL in Vegas, Port Adelaide in China, and AFLX, they're well within their rights to do unusual things, just don't piss in our pocket by pretending it's a game-changing historical moment when any sensible person can see otherwise.

Even before spending four quarters making the sound of a slowly deflated balloon, I didn't want to be involved in this nonsense. Surely the only reason we got the call-up was because somebody still harbours fantasies about a CityWars rivalry between 'Melbourne' and 'Sydney'. This dates back to the Swans' first home game in Sydney (with the added bonus of us coming off a 1-21 season, all but guaranteeing a home win), but in the 40 years since nobody's found a way to make people care about the meekest organisation in Australia against a reheated Victorian side. For this, they got two solid defensive sides with ridiculously malfunctioning forward lines, and not surprising one of them (guess which one) sat on a sad-looking 1.8 just before half time.  

Meanwhile, in the core footy states plenty of people who don't live their life on the internet thought this was another practice match. Like it or not, Victoria is still the powerhouse of the game and there hasn't been a flatter build-up in recent memory. They were rooted for a big Round 1B angle until Carlton launched a miracle comeback against Brisbane, setting up their game against another side who has already played, while we're against... one that hasn't? What a farce.

They'll build up a frenzy eventually, but I'll be interested to see how strong it is by September. This season is so drawn out that it started a day earlier than 2000, which was brought forward for the Olympics. Playing for premiership points on March 7 helped us lose the weather lottery, setting up the sort of greasy, humid conditions that are usually followed by us toiling for four quarters to kick a rotten score. And here we are again, but blaming the conditions would be an even cheaper deflection than blaming umpires, and I sure won't be doing that after they gifted us one of the most ludicrous advantage goals of all time.

Officially, Round Zero Dark Thirty began 2024 but it may as well have been a continuation of last year. We didn't need a moist footy to kick barely defensible scores that left us relying on good luck and/or the opposition necking themselves spectacularly. So that's something to look forward to. No need to drop your toaster in the bath yet, I'm not panicking until Pickett, Petty, McAdam etc... come back and it still resembles the Oscar McDonald at full forward era.

If you're searching for bad omens (and at 0-1 who isn't?), there was a bit of 2019 about it. Troubled pre-season leads to three quarters of competitive footy against decent opposition before total collapse in the final term, while an ex-player has the time of his life in new colours. I'm not expecting the same kind of death spiral, but if we mix a slow start and injury drama it could end in collective loss of will to live. Famous last words, but don't hold your breath if you're waiting for the coach to be booted. He's going to get McGuire/Buckley levels of protection until the lawsuits are sorted out. Though I wouldn't rule out secret documents in the safe that will be used to 'persuade' him to 'spend more time with the family' if things go really bad.

I was woefully underprepared for the new season. It would have been easier to watch a couple of neutral games first before emotionally committing. Like a surprise nuclear strike I only had a few minutes to come to terms with impending doom before the blinding flash and shockwave. We got the doom, but with none of the expected fireworks.   

I'm happy that Blake Howes and Caleb Windsor made their league debuts, but sorry they had to do it in a weird round that will confuse the piss out of everyone in years to come. Howes can also cherish his first touch in league footy being met with a giveaway "no idea who that is" pause from an underprepared commentator, then the second had an equally telltale pause as they frantically scanned the team sheet for his name.

To nobody's surprise, the season started with us indiscriminately hoofing the ball inside 50. As the first one reached the contest I had a brief, hopeful flash of "maybe we'll pull down a mark" optimism. And you know how that went. Cue opening minutes where we had the ball down there a lot but NFI how to turn that into goals, with our backline easily dismissing anything Sydney threw at them. Whoever proposed this matchup for the first game must have been thinking about chowing down on a cyanide pill.

With artisan goals off the agenda, we nearly got the opener when Gawn gently dismissed Grundy in a ruck contest. He hit the post and it was all downhill from there. Max hasn't had a worse Round 1 since Port Adelaide beat him up while the rest of the side stood around going "gee, that's not good". This was great content for simpletons and Channel 7 personalities (plenty of crossover in those groups) who had "stir up Grundy controversy" right under "treat this like the greatest night in the history of our sport" in their talking points. On his return to first ruck duties, Grundy played the sort of quite good but not great game he did multiple times for us in Gawn's absence last year, while the callers carried on like Polly Farmer had been reincarnated.

Any sceptical rugby fans who'd turned in for the first time (and been temporarily paralysed so they couldn't turn it off) would have thought he'd left us in the most acrimonious circumstances since T. Scully, when in reality it was a perfectly amicable split. Unless you buy into the unlikely idea that he'd have replaced Gawn as first ruck, pretending he'd have done exactly the same thing for us as against is incredibly dumb. Mind you, I might have been a bit more interested in holding him to his contract if I'd known we were going to go from two All-Australian ruckmen to an ageing Gawn, a Brisbane discard, and kids so raw that they'd give a cannibal food poisoning. 

While the Grundy experiment wasn't a spectacular success, he was good enough during Gawn's early-season injury, didn't do anything horribly wrong, and helped get Max through to the end of the year in one piece. Now, if Tom Fullarton or A. Random don't come good we'll run the captain into a coma by Round 10. I don't care what happens at centre bounces, we need him in one piece to get us out of jail with contested marks around the ground. 

Whatever the answer to the second ruck question is, I don't think the answer is Josh Schache. Remember picking him instead of Grundy in a final then leaving him on the bench all night? For want of any better options it was fair enough to give him a go, but he's got Jordan Gysberts-level intensity and doesn't kick goals so no need to see him again until we're desperate in about Round 19. 

van Rooyen wasn't much better in front of goal, but I know which one I trust to do something if he gets the right support. The other night he was on the Weideman 2020 plan, expected to beat the entire opposition backline to kicks arriving as if dropped from space. I hope any combination of Petty, Fullarton, McDonald or B. Brown (who I never expected to see again but just played in a Casey practice match) will shift focus enough so he can get his confidence up. There's structural work to be done too, but based on last year's experience we've got stuff all hope of that being addressed.

If this is a replay of 2023 (and to be fair we nearly blundered into a Prelim), get ready for months of May, Lever et al working themselves to a standstill keeping the other side to gettable scores and hoping we can pluck something from our forwards to cover it. Sydney's forward line was almost as bad as ours, but if nothing else they had targets, and we generally kept them quiet. The locals helped with some bonkers kicking for goal, but not for the first time our defenders would be justified cracking the shits about their hard work being wasted. By the end, May should have sent himself forward and ordered somebody else to go back and see how it feels.

It took a goal from thin air nowhere to get us going, with one of the 10,000 forward stoppages ending with Viney struggling manfully through a tackle to put ball on boot. He was very good, but it was easy to stand out in our midfield with Petracca well held and Oliver slowly working his way back into it. Sparrow was fine, but it could have been better considering how many key players they were missing. Salem got a lot of it, but I don't know whether bulk collection of ball in the middle is better for us than accurate kicking in defence. I'm confident Oliver's going to be ok, he was rusty, and perhaps a bit nervous, but you could see that his sixth sense instinct for being in the right place was still there. It was 100% "will be better for the run" stuff.

We wasted all these chances while Sydney produced goals directly from the arse. How often has the difference been us spending minutes/hours/decades trying to find a traditional route to goal, only to concede to some fluky kick over a pack? It was a mark of how (relatively) well everything else was going, and Sydney's equally wonky attack, that we were only a couple of goals behind.

Unless you were committed to one of the teams, the second quarter must have been like watching paint dry. We kept them to one goal, and finally rose above the forward flops to get the much-needed reply from ANB. Then we didn't, as he surely became the first player to have goals taken away by mystery video reviews in consecutive games - as if we needed another reminder of that Carlton final. Now that we've been on the wrong end of this twice, I'm begging for the result of a game to be reversed after the siren when the final kick is shown to have brushed a fingernail. For extra impact, let it happen to a team whose fans will take it really badly. Later the goal umpire asked for replay when the ball had furiously cracked off the post and I'm not sure any of this was good for football.

Just as I was about to spend half time watching the Grand Final edition All The Goals video and crying, Langdon did what the forwards couldn't and found acres of space inside 50. He converted the set shot despite an unnecessary lecture from the umpire about how he wasn't allowed to run off his line when practically right in front. That took us to the dizzying heights of 2.8 at the half, and it was a mark of how ordinary the night had been that we were still a reasonable chance of winning.  

Even in the most self-indulgent era of this page I'd have struggled to go into forensic depth on this game, but the third quarter was easily the only bit worth watching. There was even a brief, lovely moment where we hit the front. It didn't last, but nice to know the evening wasn't completely wasted. After an early goal to Fritsch, we were let off the hook but some dreadful Sydney misses. Then we did our bit for the game in expanding markets by gifting them a goal via a 50. The rest of the game featured players from both sides dancing around on the mark after being told to stand so apparently that rule has gone the same was as dissent, which will lead to controversy when an umpire shocks everyone by enforcing the actual written laws of the game.

The goal that put us in front was one of the most shameful applications of the advantage rule in history. We won a perfectly normal free kick, somebody toepoked it forward, and the umpire didn't call play on until it had gone another 10 meters beyond the spot the original free was paid and Fritsch found the ball in acres of space to turn and snap. That has definitely happened against us at some point because I remember being outraged by it, so as morally suspect as it was, I'm glad one finally went in our direction.

Considering that freebie, you couldn't really argue giving the goal back via a rare defensive meltdown. In the interim, Bowey blew his shoulder with a brave defensive effort, then had to sit on the sidelines watching the game go up in smoke. I was ready to crack the sads when we conceded a late one via Spargo lightly whacking somebody off the ball. Mind you, everything is off the ball when you're watching Channel 7 broadcast everything on 500x time zoom. Thankfully, that was wiped out by Petracca reemerging from the Witness Protection Program to burst from the middle Mad Minute style for the response. It may have been Alice Springs-level humid, but if we were still capable of outrunning teams in the fourth quarter things might have turned out ok. We're not and they didn't.

After 30 minutes of acting like a normal team, it was back to attacking misery after three quarter time. The Swans slowly pulled away, and our only goal came in Three Stooges fashion when JVR dropped a mark onto his upper leg, with the momentum propelling it over his head and through. We were in a better position for a comeback than... say... Brisbane last year, but went back to having all the firepower of the Mongolian Navy.

We were already long finished when the pain was prolonged by ground invaders. It should have been Extinction Rebellion protesting the extinction of our forward line, but turned out to be just two plonkers going for a run across the ground. This seems to happen quite a lot in Sydney, but unless the flange is on display it's not a 'streaker'. In this case it appeared to be a close relative of Jordan Gysberts in long pants, which is about as far away from streaking as you can get. Commentators love to talk up the fines for this sort of stuff, ignoring the fact that the sort of people who are likely to interrupt a major sporting event for the lols are probably not the type to bother paying fines in the first place.

So it ended in slow, drawn out sadness, and you'd be forgiven for getting a bit sad about any pre-season optimism flying out the window at warp speed but I suggest not trying to launch a military coup just yet. Things can only get better, and if they don't we'll have a great time burning the place down.   

2024 Allen Jakovich Medal
5 - Steven May (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
4 - Jack Viney
3 - Judd McVee
2 - Tom Sparrow
1 - Blake Howes (LEADER: Rising Star Award)

Apologies to Fritsch, Lever, Oliver, Salem and Tomlinson 

... and a reminder that we're changing the name of the Rising Star after the passing of Jeff Hilton. He was attached it in the early days of this page as a cheap excuse to talk about a 90s cult figure, but I don't want the name to come off as a pisstake now so it's being retired. All the remaining awards are named after somebody from that decade, so it's about time we moved into the 21st century. A snap poll of Twitterists preferred another obscure figure over a fitting tribute to somebody like Nathan Jones. Poor Chunk, first I failed to deliver on the promised LOYALTY statue, now this. Stay tuned for a shortlist of potential nominees.  

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
I can't justify sending van Rooyen to the top because it was a complete fluke, but he can start the year on the leaderboard because there aren't many other options.

1st - Jack Viney (Q1) vs Sydney
2nd - Christian Petracca (Q3) vs Sydney
3rd - Jacob van Rooyen (Q4) vs Sydney

Next week
It's our old chums Footscray, who are arriving via the traditional method of playing their first game of the season in Round 1. This season could go in any direction for them, and it doesn't bother me whether they make finals, finish last or burst into flames, but I really need to win so we don't have to put with 'club in crisis' video packages with foreboding music and clips artistically shown in black and white to emphasis trouble in the air.

Because this competition is run like a Tijuana whorehouse, the VFL doesn't start for three weeks so god knows how we're supposed to decide on changes. When I started writing this post I couldn't find any mention of Casey playing a practice game. Then updates started appearing on their Twitter, for the first three and a bit quarters before the person who runs their account finding something better to do. I was astounded to see a mention of Ben Brown, and had to double check to make sure they weren't talking about Kynan. If he's got any mobility left he could come in handy, especially when Petty breaks again five minutes after returning.

As far as changes go, nothing happened to dissuade me from a deeply held belief that you can't have Spargo and Chandler in the same side. For now it's advantage Kade, but not by much. I feel bad for chucking Laurie, but he's never done anything yet to suggest being a first choice player.  

Pickett obviously comes in, and Billings should get a full game to see what happens, but otherwise the depth warning light is flashing before the second game. I'll have a McSizzle cameo to fill the gap until Petty returns, and will give Kynan Brown a run, but otherwise blah. We've still got enough available quality to win but the Veil of Negativity is slowly descending towards me. 

IN: Billings, K. Brown, Pickett, McDonald, 
OUT: Laurie, Schache (omit), Spargo (omit to sub), Bowey (inj)
LUCKY: Chandler
UNLUCKY: B. Brown

Final thoughts
I'm still all-in on a fairytale run to the flag, where we make finals in unspectacular fashion, then shock the world by making the Grand Final, only for Joel Smith to return on a technicality, kick six, then voluntarily retire while being off on the shoulders of jubilant supporters. Could happen.

Thursday 29 February 2024

Better than the alternative

There's a time I'd have committed everything to attending a 6.40pm Wednesday practice game, in 38 degree temperatures, at a crumbling suburban ground. Not this decade. Maybe in the future when this sort of weather is considered mild. Instead, I did the right thing and took my kid to gymnastics, only to completely ignore that and watch the game on the phone while the helpfully provided fan blew the stench of an unrelated child's rogue borry directly up my nostrils. 

Speaking of foreign substances in the nose, it was another perfectly normal week at the Melbourne Football Club. First came the screaming headlines about Joel Smith's supposed 'drug trafficking'. I thought he must have upped the ante by importing millions of dollars of rack from Bolivia in spaghetti tins, but turns out he just (allegedly) offered gear to mates, making it about the lowest level of 'trafficking' you could imagine. After they'd incorrectly led you to believe that Smith had gone full Tony Montana, there was something about teammates being involved and anguished fans were about to set themselves on fire. I'll get wound up about it when the names are revealed to be anyone currently senior listed at the Melbourne Football Club. 

I've got zero professional sympathy for Smith failing the 'fuck around and find out' test, but even if the spontaneous combustion of his career is entirely his fault you're still dealing with a human who's done the most pissweak crime since jaywalking. Even if Joel never plays again, I hope the club supports him, while journalists who have about as much credibility lecturing people on drug use as Pablo Escobar can wind their outrage back a bit.

There was a short departure from self-inflicted woes as we dealt with Angus Brayshaw's immediate retirement. This was the sort of massive story I'd have found about on Twitter before current ownership botched it up. Instead, it was back to the old school (by modern standards) method of finding out crucial information via email, and when I saw the subject line 'Thank you Gus' I knew it was all over. At first I was sad about him having his career taken away, then I realised that it's better if he doesn't come back and risk long term damage. He can't get better than being part of that flag side, and will still pocket a metric shitload of money over the next several years so why not something you enjoy that won't end in serious brain damage. They can't take him starting the greatest hour in human existence away.

Now we'll never find out if Pies fans were going to disgrace themselves booing him on King's Birthday. Never mind, 2024 will still have 'Americans reelect Donald Trump' for confirming stereotypes. Maybe we should lure them into it by holding off on his lap of honour until then. If we can just get one or two red-faced scumbags yelling at him over the fence, or at the very least somebody with a mullet giving the finger, it will provide years of entertainment/moral highground. I'm not slightly into pursuing Brayden Maynard until the end of time, there's far more comedy potential in arguing with their cult-like fans.

Before officially concluding the biggest week of footy you're going to get in February with a match (remember them?), there was hysteria over some bullshit Facebook post about Simon Goodwin. Even the pre-match interview with him referenced it, shortly before he used the word "connected", said Clayton Oliver was "connecting" with his teammates, and was told "we hope you get through tonight" in a way that implied Kate Roffey was going to jam a black hood over his head mid-match. By now if he gets sacked for any reason other than starting 0-10 it'll make Glenn Bartlett look right so that's not going to happen. It did make me wonder if this could be the gateway to a long-awaited Choke Yourself With A Tie reign. Probably not, so best to just stick with the incumbent for a bit longer.

There was so much other nonsense going on that Oliver playing in the earlier Casey game barely rated a mention, but no doubt somebody's got a hot exclusive about him putting recycling in the wrong bin to drop the moment he's recalled to the senior side.

Unlike last week's non-existent game, this got the full Fox Footy treatment. I thought it was a bit rude to show highlights of the Blues knocking us out of the finals, then they balanced the ledger by reminding everyone that Carlton blew a five goal lead in the Prelim, giving everyone the chance to go into the official start/actual end of the pre-season campaign in some degree of misery.

I resolved not to take any of this seriously, but by the final siren was at least confident that if either of these sides goes into a 2019 MFC style death spiral it won't be us. Obviously that will come back to haunt me. For now, we did what was required, nobody got hurt, the players got some sort of minor morale boost from playing in a win together for the first time since R24 last year, and we head towards what I'll refer to as Round 1A until the AFL takes out an injunction to stop me. Well done Leigh Montagna for openly calling it Round 1 on commentary. He obviously got a tap on the shoulder after quarter time and started buying into the nonsense, but if Dwayne Russell worked frivolous contests like this you can imagine how excited he'd be to push the marketing department's line.

We had a lot going on inside 50 early, for about as much reward as you've come to expect. Ironically, Pickett is about to serve a one game suspension for walloping Patrick Cripps but nobody batted an eyelid about him playing against the Blues here. He turned law and order on its head by winning a free for the first shot on goal. It missed, but even after kicking 15.11 I suspect you'll need to get used to us doing that. 

It would help if we didn't set up so many shots 40 metres out hard on the boundary line. The delivery to Fritsch was reminiscent of 2020, when he was subject to enforced social distancing from any reasonable angle. When he finally got a shot, Bayley charitably tried to set it up to the top of the square where it was easily chopped off. Let's have no more of this sharing is caring rubbish, just take the shot.

As the game went on we found unexpectedly large holes in Carlton's defence, but for now targets were hard to find. Enter Max Gawn, who decided that the best way to overcome the shortage was to boot a nuclear missile set shot from about 60 metres out. Hint to opposition teams - when the real stuff begins, probably have somebody standing as close as legally possible to his right so he can't wind up like this. The difference in philosophies between the sides was shown by Carlton wiping this out about 10 seconds later by bursting from the middle and sticking the ball right into Harry McKay's guts. It involved a massive throw first, but good luck if you can get away with it.

We soon found out that forward targets were overrated, when the second goal came via a 50 to Chandler. So if other teams could just be incredibly ill-disciplined all year we should be right. When we finally did kick the ball effectively to somebody inside 50 it was van Rooyen landing it on Schache, and while I'd much rather that happen the other way around it was duly converted. For want of any other options, I think the Schache Attacke is going to feature early in the season. I'd like to say 'feature prominently', but am waiting further evidence. Maybe he's a Carlton specialist and would have done something like this if we'd ever let him on the ground in that final?

There was a claim on the commentary that the crowd was "starting to build with people coming from work", which is the most pre-COVID thing I've ever heard. They would have had plenty of time to get to Princes Park if they'd done the traditional 9-5, the delay was them getting from all points of the compass after a big day of moving the mouse to be seen online and then walking the dog.

In a real pre-season scenario, we had the benefit of kicking with the shade in the first quarter. The Blues had plenty of entries that died because the forward couldn't see a thing. Blake Acres didn't have sun in the eyes to excuse the dropped mark that gifted us another goal, and I would like to ask where were unforced errors like that when he was dicking us in the last minute of a Semi Final? In case you were focusing on that unpleasant memory, Gawn brought back thoughts of happier days with a shot after the siren. This time he couldn't run in via Moreland Road, but converted a weird set shot that looked like it was going OOF, then dragged back to practically straight through the middle. 

It was a solid quarter, but I wasn't ready to have my house on us turning it into flag. Let's just start with making the eight and not kicking ourselves out of finals then work up from there. I'm worried that we'll have a good start to the year, then fall apart when the wafer thin depth is tested. If you thought there wasn't much in the tank last year consider that Brayshaw and Smith are gone for good, Turner is already injured for half the year, Petty probably will be 10 minutes after he returns, Melksham won't be seen until August, and Ben Brown is one step from 'where are they now'. I'm all for Salem in the midfield,  Windsor on the wing, and the ongoing development of McVee, JVR etc... but none of that's going to be any good when we get to Round 20 with Oliver Sestan, Kyah Farris-White, and some rando from the mid-season draft.

If we don't even wait for an injury crisis before going tits up this year, you can be sure that the CLUB IN CRISIS montages will include Lever and May having a frank and honest discussion in the wake of a Carlton goal. I say there should be more of it, if the two greatest modern defenders in club history can't demand more from each other who can? It's not like May was yelling at some poor rookie, he was debating the issues with somebody on his level and good luck to them. At least this time he ended an argument without being punched.

Hopefully whoever was cutting up footage of that 'dispute' left the tape running long enough to see Caleb Windsor kicking a turbo goal on the run. Wherever Lachie Hunter was, I think he might have asked Google for directions to Casey Fields after seeing that. Though are we absolutely sure that Langdon even finished 2023 ahead of Hunter? Either way, I think Windsor will have the memories of his debut spoiled by it occurring in a fictional round but don't expect him to play every game so there's opportunities for all of them yet. Mind you, I thought Judd McVee was just warming a spot for Salem last year and look at him now.

Considering what Joel Smith was reportedly up to at the end of last year, it should be noted that he was having the best forward run of his career. Maybe he was like that snooker player who could only play effectively when pissed? Take note Fritsch, who came in to this game presumably stone cold sober, then kicked for goal like he'd just come from New Jack City. To keep things interesting he even punted one set shot straight into the man on the mark. JVR also missed an opportunity, before the increasingly Todd Viney-looking Sparrow randomly appeared at the top of the square for our seventh.

It took the most blatant two handed shove in the back that you'll ever see to finally get van Rooyen a shot from close range, but that balanced out the rugby pass they scored from in the opening quarter. Things were going better than I'd expected inside 50 but if Carlton doesn't have somebody else to stand in Weitering's spot they may have to rely on another miracle recovery just to make finals. When Pickett unloaded another goal from distance not long after it was almost time to pack the stars away. For some reason we didn't do this, and I can only imagine the CHAOS if anyone had been injured.

Midfield Salem may be a necessity due to the disappearance of Brayshaw, Harmes, Jordon (and temporarily Oliver), but the potential for great things was shown by the beautiful pass he put on for Billings' goal just after the restart. This seemed like the cue for Gawn to finally get the precautionary hook, and coincided with me pausing to drive home, then battling home internet suffering the biggest meltdown since Three Mile Island. When I complained to the kid she said "it must be Drugs o'clock", which makes no sense but proves we've reached the point where even nine-year-olds can take the piss.

By the time I got working vision back at something above Zero Definition, Gawn had returned. No earthly idea why. The internet died again, but fortunately Maximum survived. If Visy was still running Carlton, another cracking goal on the run from Windsor would have been the start of Recycling Time. they got a couple at the end to drag (NB: I first wrote that as 'drug', so even I'm doing it now) the margin back under 30. Which lasted about 30 seconds before Schache put them away again.

I'm not expecting anything beyond a top eight finish, but while these games mean stuff all you can tell the players weren't affected by minor off-field rumblings. Of course they'd be sad about Brayshaw, worried for Oliver, and probably burning their SIM card if Smith has been in touch, but once the ball is bounced we're far more vulnerable to an injury or confidence crisis. We've got six months for one/both of those to show up, see if you can guess the exact minute it'll happen. I'll be waiting in a secure bunker with canned food.

Hands up if you could understand why Gawn was still playing halfway through the last quarter. Tom Fullarton resumed in the VFL practice game earlier in the day, but even if 100% fit he's no Max. There was no need for risk, when it didn't matter a jot if the Blues reeled in a 40 point lead in 10 minutes. This was when we sent in Kynan Brown. If Ben is ever fit again and they're both picked at the same time a Send In The Browns headline would be good. Verrall and Tholstrup were also introduced for cameos, as we tried to turn a meaningless practice match into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Sparrow kicked a third, which was nice, as the game ended in excitement levels equivalent to the sixth period against Richmond that I never bothered to watch. I think we're still reasonably good, but are sitting on top of the wobbliest house of cards known to man, ready to be knocked over by the first strong breeze. Here's to surviving far enough into the season that everything turns back in our favour and we end the year elbow deep in the throats of our critics.

2024 Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance
5 - Max Gawn
4 - Tom Sparrow
3 - Christian Salem
2 - Kysaiah Pickett
1 - Christian Petracca

Final results
It's as ridiculous as ever to judge this off two games, but unless the National Panasonic Cup comes back what are you going to do? Under the circumstances I'm surprised this is the first tie since 2021, and sees Petracca go clear at the top of the Prymke leaderboard with four titles. Other joint winners are, inevitably, Gawn and Oliver. One thing they'll never take away from us is that this is the only award anywhere on the face of the planet previously won by Jesse Hogan, Jayden Hunt, Heritier Lumumba and Jackson Redvers Watts.

6 - Christian Petracca, Kysaiah Pickett
5 - Max Gawn
4 - Tom Sparrow
3 - Christian Salem, Jack Viney
2 - Kynan Brown
1 - Jake Bowey

Next Week
It's Round 1A (it is to me anyway) against Sydney on Thursday night. I'm not going to self-harm if we lose, but it would be nice to demonstrate that we're still alive in a high profile game. We know Pickett won't be there, Oliver is questionable, and if anyone's going to have the sad scenario of their debut coming in a nameless round it'll be Caleb Windsor. Otherwise, there shouldn't be any surprises on the agenda unless something NQR happens between now and then. I predict we'll pick the boring half-half option and make Oliver the sub, allowing him to sit around for three quarters listening to the most boring people in Australia shouting 'funnies' from over the fence. Then he'll have 17 touches in the last quarter, carry us to victory, then romp to the Brownlow. Or something.

Projected ladder
Nothing says yellow-streaked cowardice like picking the reigning Grand Final teams to finish top two. Doesn't mean they'll win the league but I can't see either plummeting to the death, unless the Pies finally run out of luck and start losing thrillers every week. Not sure if I've ever had a bigger bracket of potential finals teams, but everything points to a pre-September battle royale. Even the 10th - 13th selections have their charms, and now that I'm burying them this will probably be the year when Essendon finally turn up, probably to beat us in a final.  

1. Brisbane
2. Collingwood
-------------------
3. GWS
4. Melbourne
5. Sydney
6. Adelaide
7. Gold Coast
8. Carlton
9. Geelong
-------------------
10. Richmond
11. Fremantle
12. Port Adelaide
13. Footscray
-------------------
14. St Kilda
15. Essendon
-------------------
16. North Melbourne
17. Hawthorn
18. West Coast

2024 betting markets
With thanks to our official gambling partner PovertyBet, lose your house on one or more of these fictional markets:

Allen Jakovich Medal for Player of the Year

$5 - Christian Petracca
$9 - Jack Viney
$10 - Clayton Oliver
$12 - Max Gawn, Christian Salem
$20 - Steven May, Tom Sparrow
$22 - Bayley Fritsch, Kysaiah Pickett, Trent Rivers
$25 - Jack Billings, Jake Lever, Judd McVee
$30 - Harrison Petty
$35 - Jake Bowey, Ed Langdon, Jacob van Rooyen
$40 - Caleb Windsor
$45 - Alex Neal-Bullen
$60 - Kade Chandler, Shane McAdam
$80 - Lachie Hunter, Tom McDonald
$100 - Kynan Brown, Charlie Spargo, Adam Tomlinson
$150 - Blake Howes, Josh Schache
$250 - Tom Fullarton, Marty Hore, Taj Woewodin
$300 - Jed Adams, Koltyn Tholstrup
$500 - Will Verrall
$1000 - Oliver Sestan, Matthew Jefferson
$3000 - Kyah Farris-White, Daniel Turner
$5000 - Jake Melksham
$10,000 - Angus Brayshaw (well, he might get a second opinion...)
$15,000 - Joel Smith (well, he might get a second sample...)

Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year
$8 - Steven May
$10 - Jake Lever, Judd McVee
$15 - Christian Salem, Trent Rivers
$20 - Jake Bowey
$40 - Harrison Petty, Adam Tomlinson
$50 - Marty Hore, Blake Howes
$80 - Tom McDonald
$120 - Jed Adams
$150 - Josh Schache
$500 - Daniel Turner
$10,000 - Joel Smith

Rising Star Award
Congratulations Taj Woewodin for landing right on the four game mark to remain eligible. Bad luck to Bailey Laurie, who just missed out.

$6 - Caleb Windsor
$12 - Kynan Brown
$15 - Taj Woewodin
$20 - Blake Howes
$22 - Jed Adams, Koltyn Tholstrup
$50 - Andy Moniz-Wakefield, Will Verrall
$75 - Matthew Jefferson, Oliver Sestan
$200 - Kyah Farris-White

Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year
$2 - Max Gawn
$10 - Tom Fullarton, Josh Schache
$20 - Will Verrall
$30 - Tom McDonald
$100 - Ben Brown
$150 - Kyah Farris-White

Final thoughts
I'm a bit scared, but open to being amazed by a series of unexpected positive results. 

Monday 19 February 2024

Sims 24

When the first Demonblog post went up in 2005 you'd have got better odds on Melbourne winning a flag than me going into a 20th season but here we are. It's also been about that long since I was last this woefully underprepared for the new season. Probably since the inauspicious inaugural match review when I accidentally missed seeing the first quarter. It's not that I wasn't interested in 2024, despite all our recent seasons ending in massive flakeouts, my brain just couldn't comprehend that it was time to go, even after realising that we had something approaching a game at the marquee time of 10am Sunday morning.

I'd like to blame my struggle to warm up for 2024 on the Donald Trump Appreciation Society being defending premiers, or our involvement in the absolute nonsense that is 'Opening Round', but it's probably just self-defence because I'm scared that we're going to spend another six months battling our guts out to make finals then blow it by playing as if drunk again. It'll be years until the flag anesthetic completely wears off, but you still can't help feeling like we're walking into an ambush this year. Between our questionable depth, injury concerns, and let's politely say 'off field issues', everyone's waiting for a big, face-first, comedy flop. I don't think that's going to happen, but at the same time wouldn't have five cents in Chinese money on us comfortably finishing top four. Can't lose two finals in a row if you don't get the double chance [insert picture of the guy who looks like Eddie Murphy tapping his head]. 

Hopefully we reread this post at the end of the year and go "blimey, I didn't expect that to do happen", like in 2021 when the campaign of a lifetime started with an even more obscure 9.30 Friday morning game against the Tiges. At least we could watch that for free through the website, I had to reactivate my Kayo subscription before schedule to see the modern equivalent. Apparently they're cranking up their price soon, and you could see why when the long break 'entertainment' provided was an interminable segment of Ben Dixon and Andrew Gaze having a vom while eating sardines. Otherwise I think they've still got the rights to Slippery Stairs and the European Tram Driver Championship, so I'll look forward to that.

I'll be saying this in practice match posts until dropping dead, but it still feels crazy that we can even watch these games. It took long enough to get all the official pre-season games broadcast, and there are still a few from the early 2000s where nobody bothered to record all the goalkickers or quarter-by-quarter scores, but being able to watch really off-brand matches like this is relatively new. If you're past it like me and count 2015 as new anyway.

Of course, this was not officially a 'game', but a 'match simulation'. Not sure what the difference is, unless it's an administrative scam to make sure people can't bet on it then dispute whether the result counts at the end of four quarters, or after the full seven period/episode/chukka extravaganza featuring fringe players, comeback stories and VFL players you'll never see again.

I'll take it that there's a good reason why they don't just play a proper four quarter senior practice match, then another four quarter 'reserve' match after. Nobody's going to riot if the curtain-closer is called off early due to lack of interest, but it would be a lot neater than this weird seven part series. Any credibility the game had went out the window when it was revealed that a Richmond player didn't have to turn up because his sister was getting married. They didn't even make him participate in this tepid kickaround for a couple of quarters first. Just "nah, this is bullshit anyway, don't bother coming".

The players who turned up took it seriously, but they were about the only ones. It didn't even get the real Fox Footy treatment. No stirring orchestral theme, a scoreboard that looked like it had been generated by the Sega Megadrive, and a pair of break-in-case-of-emergency commentators who opened coverage with a reminder that we'd gone out in straight sets last year. Which gender? Doesn't matter.

Somewhere, somebody was probably taking things really seriously, and they'd have been emotionally spent after what turned out to be a ludicrously up-and-down game that everyone would remember for years to come if it happened in the real stuff. But it didn't, so you can file it alongside other low-profile pre-season matches of the last decade like our trip to CraigieburnSpencil Does Subiaco and somebody tripping over the power cord

We've seen enough pre-seasons to know that they can give some clues to the future (e.g. Petracca going nuts against Adelaide), but ultimately there's little relevance to what will happen under normal conditions. They're arguably more interesting when your team is shit because you can squint and try to pretend there's light at the end of the tunnel. Now that we're a couple of years off our glorious peak and you can make a case for going backwards, this was more like watching through your fingers and hoping that none of the key players shattered their spine, or needlessly shirtfronted an opponent into another galaxy. I think we got away with it, and that's about as much as you could ask for.

As much as I'm desperately trying to play down the relevance of this game, the first possession was a thing of beauty. The Gawn years have taught me that centre bounce rucking is the least important thing a ruckman does, but his fancy backhanded tap to a charging Viney was a reminder that there's some things you can't recreate by just sticking any old player in there and hoping to win the ball when it hits the ground. The joy of seeing artisan ruckwork lasted about three seconds before our first forward entry of the season died in the hands of a defender who outmarked two forwards. Barring disaster we've still got Petty and McAdam to come in attack (+ McDonald and Brown if they ever walk again), but that was the earliest 'here we go' moment in history. 

I've got a misguided confidence that we can find a way to put up decent scores this year, but you could have put Coleman, Carey and Lockett down there and they'd have walked off in disgust when the next forward entry saw Petracca scrub the most 10am Sunday kick of all time along the ground. That was a slight blip before he went back to being awesome, but it did make me wonder whether I really needed to be watching this live. But like a complete tool I did, for the first four bits anyway. Mystery players are my passion, but even I couldn't justify hanging around for parts 5-7 just to see Andy Moniz-Wakefield and Kyah Farris-White play the hyphenation derby. Was going to watch the rest later. Didn't.

So far, so 2023. Getting the ball inside 50 was one thing, putting it to the advantage of a forward was another. After JVR dropped what looked from the cheap seats like an easy one, it was time for the old 'everyone get out of the way and let a superstar do his work' when Petracca gathered in the pocket, did a fancy step, then snapped it. According to the on-screen scoreboard we were 6.1.7, which was interesting. By the time Fritsch got another soon after they'd consulted the laws of the game and put us back to 2.1.13.

The suspicion that we weren't supposed to be taking any of this seriously increased when Richmond fielded a player named after the band Steely Dan, who were named after a dildo. So he's got that going for him. It may have been the silliest name to appear at Casey Fields since Freddie Clutterbuck's famous MFC pre-season. 

There wasn't anything new in Gawn/Viney combos, or goals from Petracca and Fritsch, so if you were looking for a new and exciting angle to concentrate on may I introduce you to Kynan Brown. Crazy name, crazy first goal. He gathered with the ball as hard as possible on the boundary line with his back turned, then kicked it off his left foot with chuff all space available. It was tremendous, and he did several nice things that made you think he might turn out to be one of our few father/son success stories. It shouldn't be hard to crack a top five that's currently Barassi, Viney, [THE DISTANCE FROM HERE TO THE SUN], Other, Other.

If you were somebody intent on taking this contest overly seriously, you'd probably have been thinking flag when we pelted straight from the middle for a fourth unanswered goal. Or if you prefer to gently drape the Veil of Negativity over your eyes, romp the regular season then explode in September like a Russian fighter jet. 

This was all very good, and when a Brown HTB ended in Petracca hoofing his second you couldn't have had many complaints, but the house of cards nature of things was best demonstrated when we turned to Josh Schache as second ruckman. He's going to do as much as anyone else when Gawn's not available, but no matter who does it they've got to kick a few goals in the other 95% of the game or we may as well have just held Brodie Grundy hostage.

Because it's the pre-season I wasn't even worried about being five goals up. Normal people wouldn't comprehend that sentence, but I still need a lot of convincing that any decent lead is real and not the start of a slapstick comedy routine. 

Under normal circumstances I'd have been sweating up at the prospect of blowing that lead (or, you know, conceding the next 10 goals in a row) but under normal circumstances there wouldn't be somebody in the crowd dressed as an unhealthily green banana, roaming just behind signage for the local swim school.

And that's where things temporarily went tits up. At this stage of the season, savagely ramming home the advantage isn't particuarly important, but I could have done without going to sleep at the end of the quarter/bit and letting in three. Nobody's at their best in February, including the graphic designers, but the backline looked excessively wobbly all day. I'm very much trying not to fall into the trap of thinking this means anything, but there was a little part of me that thought "we're not going to kick a score, we're going to concede heaps, oh dear god". It didn't last long.

For once it wasn't blowing a force 10 gale at Casey, but the scoring action quickly resumed to the left of screen. Before long scores were level, and if this happened in May I'd clamber up an MCG light tower. On February 18 it had the same effect on me as a mid-winter Port Adelaide vs Gold Coast superclash.  

Conceding goals hand over #fistedforever was one thing, but things got a bit drastic when top draft pick and potential Round 1A (fuck 'Opening Round' in the ear. That will be referred to as Round 1A, the next game will be Round 1B, then we can stop doing American things) debutante Caleb Windsor briefly looked to have broken himself running in an opponent. Fortunately he returned later with no harm done. He was pretty good in senior company for the first time, and given that like 75% of our list Lachie Hunter is injured he'll probably play from the start. Explaining to the kids that you debuted in 'Opening Round' will be like the poor bastards who played 10 minutes as a sub in their first game. God knows what was happening on the opposite wing, where you could easily have missed that Langdon was playing. Might be time to go through the middle a bit more.

Richmond's 10th unanswered goal came from May completely botched a simple mark inside 50. I don't blame him, the poor bastard probably still harbours resentment at playing one of the best key position defender finals you'll ever see against Carlton before being stitched up by everyone else. I'm not that worried, he strikes me as the sort of White Line Fever character that would struggle to get excited about a flimsy contest like this.

What level of rot there was finally ended with a Gawn set shot. Given the A4 paper depth of our ruck division it didn't fill me with joy that he already had massive bandaging around his lower leg. Never mind, there's always Tom Fullarton. Oh he's injured too. What's the Spencil doing these days?

We got another after the siren when Chandler clearly didn't mark in time but the umpire invoked the Fake Game rule and let him have the shot anyway. It dragged the margin back to 19, which was way better than the direction it was heading but still hardly indicative of what we're going to be seeing in Round 23, 24, 25 or however many rounds are in this bloody season now.

By now I knew I had better things to do. So did the coaches, who packed Gawn away for the rest of the game. It would have been a great time to have a look at the rest of our ruck division but we don't have one. Verrall played the rest of the game, but he's a longer-term project than high speed rail so we'll be in a drastic state if he's called on again.

The comeback rolled on with a Pickett goal after half time, before we gave it back x2. Novelty value went through the bloody roof when Lever kicked a goal but it was still unlikely that there'd be dancing in any streets if we overrun them to win. I was still happy for Brown to get his second goal straight from the next bounce, then Schache put us back in front, and for something that didn't even qualify as a real game this was an entertainingly off chops start to the year. Maybe I was just enjoying a Melbourne game where I didn't have to live and die on every kick, shortly before spending the next six months taking things way too seriously. 

Our lead didn't last to the moral three quarter time, wiped out by a Richmond goal after the siren. And that was about where I really lost interest. Coincidentally this came just as Richmond ran away with it, including a homecoming goal to an ex-Casey player who wasn't even officially on Richmond's list yet. And from there Richmond merrily bolted away to win comfortably, despite Verrall becoming the most unusual pre-season goalscore sincer Trent Zomer.

I can't think many people were watching this to start with, but as viewing figures dropped to community TV levels the commentators got bored and started pretending that (relatively) high scores in a defence optional kickaround was going to translate to the regular season. This happens in the first couple of rounds every year before coaches realise that they love nothing more than squeezing the life out of the opposition and scoring floats back down to normal levels. If that's the sort of rubbish they were left with in the main game I'd hate to think how the last 90 minutes went.

And err... that's it. This doesn't bode well for my performance in 2024 but let's just pretend I'm a big game writer and see what happens when a big game turns up.

2024 Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance
5 - Christian Petracca
4 - Kysaiah Pickett
3 - Jack Viney
2 - Kynan Brown
1 - Jake Bowey

Next game
All our 2023 straight sets disasters come together when we play the team that knocked us out of the men's comp at the ground where we were knocked out of the women's comp. All it needs is for some Collingwood buffoon to shirtfront Angus Brayshaw while he's lining up for a hotdog and we'll have the full shithouse. I'll be taking the result of this one a little bit more seriously but still not reaching for razorblades if it goes tits up.

Final thoughts
Get on with the real stuff.

Tuesday 21 November 2023

Going down in flames

Back when Twitter still had some life about it people were always demanding that you "name a more iconic duo". Turns out the correct answer is 'Melbourne premiership defence' and 'straight sets finals disaster'.

Last week suggested an uphill struggle to go back-to-back, but I thought we'd do the obvious thing and stretch things out for another week before being dismissed. Instead, the wheels came off with such force that they bounced up Royal Parade, onto Sydney Road, and are currently on the Hume Highway somewhere near Albury. 

There will be no chance to avenge our loss to Brisbane, no Preliminary Final, and no chance of a Grand Final in Victoria, because we've ended the season with downhill skiing records never to be beaten. We've got the option of playing the Chris Scott 2021-style illness card after late-season COVID anarchy, but as Alan Partridge said, "knock it off with the fancy words. It went tits up".

For all the sooking about us retaining players when expansion clubs were granted shoplifting rights at the end of last season, don't say we're not interested in equalisation. After Adelaide pounded Sydney on Saturday night, AFLW was one game away from being confirmed as a four team comp with the other 14 making up numbers. Now we've provided the "look, anything can happen" example by going out to a sixth-placed side that we'd thrashed two months earlier. 

That's a lovely feelgood story - until the Cats are held to nil by Brisbane in the Prelim - but it's giving me 'consuming water in a third world country' level shits. Pound-for-pound I'm more upset about this than our last Semi Final Fiasco. All those years thinking the men would never win anything beyond AFLX makes 2021 an emotional support flag that will take years to lose impact. On the other hand, the women have been somewhere in the mix for eight seasons straight so it's tormenting me that we got so far behind AND still nearly took it to extra time (or better) when starting hot favourites.

If you'd offered me premierships in both grades in exchange for an endless string of finals defeats I'd have done a tendon signing up, but as we won the flags without (as far as I'm aware) the help of Faustian pacts there's no reason to be losing games in Victoria hand over #fistedforever so I reserve the right to be gloomy about it for months.

You can't say we'd have played the same way/kicked the same score if the margin had only been three goals at the last change, but based on evidence from the rest of the season it's not difficult to imagine us finishing all over them. It's just the bit about trying to pull off the biggest three-quarter time comeback in the competition's history that got us. The death-or-glory recovery deserves credit, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't finish the job. We got what we deserved for the three quarters before, which completed a run of the nine worst our W side has ever played.

Much like North, apparently the Cats just needed a second look at us to get things right but let's remember the best bits of 2023. Like when we were tonking lowly sides with such ease that the coach let somebody else take over for a night (the club is pretending it didn't count but until I get advice to the contrary on MFC letterhead, Demonwiki is counting Shae Sloane as being in charge against Hawthorn), and I foolishly pondered whether this team could score a better points-per-game average than the men. That went out the door when the good teams turned up, but I still had faith that we could repeat right until last week, when the forward line disappeared into a massive sinkhole. 

When you look at how foundation clubs like Carlton and Footscray are going, it's a mark of quality that this is our first ever three game losing streak. Regular readers will know this all coincides with my AFLW membership purchase, which is reaching 'Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I' levels of joining backfire. I don't know what was supposed to be in the membership packs, but they still had plenty of the bag/water bottle combo to shift, because when I asked the staff member outside the ground if it was too late to collect mine she reached into one of several boxes and handed it over without even checking if I was really paid up. Shame, they might have seen the red flag next to my name and saved me from watching us drop another steaming turd in the middle of Princes Park.

Somebody's going to complain that we'd have won this at Casey, and you never know what weird things will happen there but if we weren't good enough to beat Geelong at Princes Park then forget the venues and concentrate on the bigger picture. Besides, for the good of the competition you can't play finals in Cranbourne. I'm sure Cats fans appreciate the irony of a team playing finals at a premium venue instead of an undersized ground about 100km from the Melbourne CBD.

It didn't need to turn out this badly. The woe of being held to one goal last week was nearly removed by fanging straight out of the middle and landing a pass with Hore after 20 seconds. She was too far out, but it was a nice reminder that we could find forward targets instead of booting the ball straight to defenders. We then switched to the innovative tactic of playing with zero forwards, and spent much of the first quarter down the other end, unable to escape and feeding them repeat entries until they couldn't help but take advantage.

For now we kept the ball down there for a bit, which was an improvement, but with absolutely not a cracker of crumb to be had you had no faith that somebody was going to pluck a goal from nowhere. Then we blundered around with some dreadful turnovers and next thing you know Geelong had the opener. This summarises the first three quarters - them converting from everywhere while we struggled to create any chances in the first place. 

I'm sure Casey Sherriff is appropriately sad for her teammates, but for the purpose of contract negotiation she must be secretly chuffed at how bad the forward line has looked since her injury. She may have only kicked 4.7 in 10 games but can now claim 'underappreciated role' status. My problem is that on the surface it doesn't look like we tried to replace her (and yes, the obvious question is "with what?" but fark me somebody's got to be paid to think about plans B, C and beyond), and it led to Bannan's influence being nuked. Between Hore's goal against the Lions and Zanker trying to win it single-handedly on Sunday, we haven't had a more awkward-looking forward line in years. And even then, a lot of the time low scoring games saved us.

The Cats were into the same Big Book Of Beating Melbourne as North, leaving no space for artisan rebound football. Instead we kicked straight at packs, and in many cases directly to their players with none of ours in the ara. Even when we did get the ball in the middle our players would look up to see nobody ahead and just madly boot it forward in hope of a miracle. There was no damaging ball movement until the last term when it was too late. I was sour on West by the end of the season but credit to her for not only being the best ball-winner but leading the disposal efficiency. However, when most them are close-range handballs to somebody about to be tackled what's the overall benefit?

We're were reduced to defending a siege, with Geelong doing us a solid by dropping a couple of marks inside 50. They seemed to pull down all the ones we booted straight towards them, including Gay having unpleasant flashbacks to playing for Carlton and turning over multiple exit kicks. Not that there were any good targets to aim at but any contest would have been better than a Geelong player 60 metres from goal. Everything was on their terms, and I'd have been sweating up like a doped racehorse if not for the memories of running all over the top of them in our last meeting. I sat there gritting my teeth and thinking things might still turn out ok if we didn't do something stupid like, or I don't know, going five goals behind.

Eventually, we gave them so many chances that they got a second. It was just the sort of goal from nowhere that we haven't gone near kicking in this final series. We'll get into snap, uneducated, and possibly dangerous suggestions about drafting and recruiting later in the post but for the love of all that is holy please find me a forward who can turn a loose ball inside 50 into a goal. 

I'd have been sweating up like a drugged racehorse if not for the memories of finishing over the top of them in the last meeting. People who hhate Melbourne (and admittedly I would have been pissing myself laughing watching as a neutral), this was the modern equivalent of "who would have thought the sequel would be just as good as the original". Against North we got the ball forward but were wrecked by their defenders, this time the only player with any sort of aerial presence was Gillard, who was a) on the last line of defence, and b) trying to break the world record for spoils.

The forwards were basically fictional characters by this point. Not much point having the league's top two goalscorers, a player renowned for running into open goals, and one who is probably the best contested mark in the competition on her day if they're never down there. We weren't going to kick goals from 80 metres out like Malcolm Blight, and with a 0.0% chance of crumb it was back to hit and hope in the off-chance that Geelong might do something stupid and let us get a steadier. But by now we'd lost the chance to stamp authority and they were having a wonderful time. 

You will recall, now that we need to pretend this isn't as embarrassing a loss as it seems, that the first time around they had us on the rack in the opening minutes before we goalled from a ludicrous free, then followed that with another straight from of the middle. You can't get silly frees in the forward line if the ball is never down there, and when Geelong had a Goal of the Year contender hit the post via wild ping from the pocket this was in danger of turning to shit even quicker than last week.

In the dying seconds we just got forward quick enough for Zanker to mark and miss from an obscure angle, but tellingly the ball movement was assisted by a free. Otherwise we'd never have strung together enough possessions without turning the ball over.  

I'm baffled as to how things got so bad for us in attack. Harris has not had a good season but I didn't like the idea of dropping Campbell and not picking a proper second ruck. Harris was backup ruck in a flag last year, but this was the point where we really could have done with somebody crashing packs and taking big grabs inside 50. When she finally got on one well within range later in the game she did a ridiculous pass to somebody in a worse position so who knows what the hell was going on. We should have sent her back into the ring mid-season to get the bloodlust going.

A 14 point margin at quarter time wasn't ideal but somehow it could have been worse. Still, we had three quarters to get things right and overrun them right? Apparently not. The added novelty value was Geelong fielding four of our exes, and it worked much better than when Port Adelaide tried a Barry/Toumpas/Trengove/Watts led-recovery. Everyone remembers Shelley Scott, and most will recall Chantel Emonson and Jackie Parry, but you'd do well to recall the four game career of Erin Hoare. She's one of only two players to have a career Daisy Pearce Medal tally of one, scored on debut in Round 1, 2018. And now, despite not having a kick all day she's in a Prelim and we're not. Parry was a forward who didn't kick a goal in her last 13 games for us, so who else would you want to open the second term with a goal?

We were in deep shit now, and even a good side had to be doubting themselves at a time like this. The ideal scenario was to do a men's Prelim Brisbane and come back to stamp out the underdog, but we kept going backwards at speed. When they got another goal almost straight after I was ready to discuss surrender terms with the captain who sounds like a Miami Vice character, the ex-MFC contingent, and that midfielder who used to carry Kevin Keegan's 1980s hair. 

After her rocky first quarter, Gay randomly ended the half as a hero by pulling down a tumbling kick in the dying seconds. The way things had gone I expected it to fling off the boot at right angles and kill a boundary umpire, but she converted after the siren and the comeback was ever so slightly on. The problem was wasting several minutes forward after the break without another goal, then conceding. By the time one of their players was allowed an eternity to run after a loose ball like Rocky chasing the chicken, then tap it through after a few half-hearted 'tackle' attempts we were absolutely rooted.

With the first choice forward options exhausted, our last desperate move was putting Lauren Pearce down there. Now, she's a great ruck and can take a mark but may be the least reliable set shot in Australia. We were stuck one one goal approaching three quarter time, so when she took a much-needed grab inside 50 it would have been an excellent time to rise above the ruck goakicking curse a'la Gawn 2021. We achieved full 'escaping a burning building' panic mode when Harris marked well within her traditional range on not too bad an angle and passed to Gay 50 metres out. 

At one point our 22 point recovery against Brisbane in the 2022 summer season was the greatest of all. Not sure if that's been topped since but if anybody's come back from 23 points or more they surely haven't wound in a five goal last quarter deficit. It felt stupid to stay, but I thought if I sat through Geelong beating us by 186 I could pay my respects to the death of our premiership defence in person. Last week fans voted to hear Zombie by the Cranberries at three-quarter time, and in the absence of any songs about violent civil disorder they should have played the theme from Poseidon Adventure.

We started the last quarter with Gillard in the ruck, which felt more like "let's see if we discover something for the future" than a tactic that might get us back into it but blow me down we went straight out of the middle for a goal. After mocking Pearce's goalkicking she pulled down a great mark, then did the sensible thing and dished it to a passing Hanks to finish. "Bit late for this" I thought, until Zanker whomped through a pair of set shots to cut the gap to 18 and our chances of winning were nudging just ahead of 'peace in the Middle East'.

It still needed three goals, but for the first time all day we were on top and finding space in attack. So the obvious turn of events was for Geelong to take a fortuitous mark in the square that seemingly ended it all again. In the end, it did, but not without a tremendous scare. After losing a few more minutes attacking as if drunk, we got the ball to Zanker for her third, and a minute later Mackin II was kicking a goal on the run to make the margin an even six points with a couple of minutes left.

I'd been reduced to watching the clock tick down on the AFL app, wondering how much of a lag there is between it and the real time remaining. Extra time would have done me nicely, not just for the novelty value of being there for the first time it's ever happened in a Melbourne game, and my life flashed before my eyes when Pearce grabbed the ball out of a ruck contest and ripped a snap that looked like it might go through - from my vantage point - for a millisecond. 

If my failing memory serves me correctly they had eight seconds to navigate and just got away with it. The ball was flying back towards our goal at the siren, but even though Gillard optimistically tried to claim a mark well after the siren I think she was helped by the defenders breaking off into celebration when they realised it was over. If we'd won it would have toppled coming from a shitload down in 2003 as my finest Princes Park moment, but instead I went home flat as a tack. Lucky the train across Royal Park got dismantled about 70 years ago or I'd have considered making contact with overhead wires.

Last time we ended a season this early it was at the hands of COVID-19, but at least that came after a win. So it's been a bit of a shambles, but let's agree that the pieces are there and just need to be arranged into a format that stands up all season against everyone. I appreciate the good times we had, but like watching the men all next year and thinking "yeah, but what are they going to do in the finals", I'm not going to be able to truly enjoy winning regular season AFLW games by any margin until we start winning finals again.

2023 Daisy Pearce Medal votes
5 - Eliza West
4 - Lauren Pearce
3 - Eden Zanker
2 - Tyla Hanks
1 - Sinead Goldrick

Apologies to Purcell, B. Mackin and Paxman

Final results
How many years have I been doing this and only just realised you can't have a 'final leaderboard'. That's what I call post-straight sets clarity. Anyway, as there are now zero votes on offer may we offer a hearty congratulations to Tyla Hanks on her victory. After sharing the title with Olivia Purcell last year, this is her first outright victory. Paxy remains the boss, with five career titles.

No alterations in the minors, with Pearce winning her umpteenth consecutive ruck count, and Tahlia Gillard just holding off a last minute contest from Goldrick to take the award for defenders. No score in the Rising Star, so Aimee Mackin and Georgia Campbell can argue it amongst themselves but we'll be showing 'No qualified players' on the all-time leaderboard. The carryover mark for AFLW is three games, so Georgia Gall will be the only existing player to start next year eligible for the title.

34 - Tyla Hanks
29 - Kate Hore
15 - Lauren Pearce (WINNER: Ruck of the Year), Olivia Purcell
14 - Eden Zanker
11 - Blathin Mackin, Shelley Heath, Eliza West,
9 - Tahlia Gillard (WINNER: Defender of the Year)
8 - Sinead Goldrick
6 - Tayla Harris, Paxy Paxman
5 - Alyssa Bannan
3 - Sarah Lampard
2 - Lily Mithen
1 - Libby Birch

Goal of the Week
It would have been Pearce if that snap went through, but under the circumstances I'm going with Aimee Mackin's ice-cold finish in tense circumstances. Nobody would have blamed her for missing it - god knows the players who have grown up playing the game probably would have - but she gave us hope of pulling off the most ludicrous of all comebacks. Doesn't influence the overall result, so congratulations to the captain for holding on to win.

1st - Kate Hore (Q1 #2) vs GWS
2nd - Paxy Paxman (Q4) vs Geelong
3rd - Tyla Hanks (Q3) vs North Melbourne

Next year
Time to throw the baby out with the bathwater and try to change everything. Firstly, if the same conditions are there that almost had Paxy doing a post-flag runner to Perth for this season I wouldn't be surprised if it was on the cards again. If we can do the right thing for a legendary player and start to plan for the future at the same time it might work out for everyone. Otherwise the only first-choice players over 30 are Goldrick and Pearce, and they're not going anywhere so any other improvements are going to come via draft or trade.

From the risky suggestions department, are we sure Tayla Harris is a going concern? For all the free-scoring mayhem this year she kicked three goals and barely went near it in games that counted. I don't know if there's an injury problem, and don't doubt she can still play very good games but if you're all in on Zanker and Bannan for the future it might be a chance to improve elsewhere. Double on this if they like Gall and want her to play more senior games next year.

I'm assuming Watt retires, and without knowing contract statuses I'd suggest the majority of Fowler, Ivey, Johnson, Taylor, and Wilson will get the chop now that the real national draft is back. There's 'depth' and there's depth, so now that topping up with experienced players hasn't helped it's time to put some kids on the list and hope for the best. We're never going to have things as good as they've been over the first couple of 18 team seasons, but the pieces are definitely there to have another crack if we can fill in some of the gaps.

Final thoughts
I'm happy to take the piss out of us for losing finals left, right, and centre. Opposition fans can join in after submitting written acknowledgment of how good it was that we won a pair of flags first. Now I'm taking a long break from anything footy-related beyond trawling old newspapers for Demonwiki. See you in 2024 for M, W, and probably WTF.