Demonland

Wow … a lead change this late in the season Progressive 166. Kate Hore 156. Tyla Hanks 102. Elizabeth McNamara 77. Maeve Chaplin 66. Megan Fitzsimon 61. Tayla Harris 60. Shelley Heath 52. Eden Zanker 41. Tahlia Gillard 27. Ryleigh Wotherspoon 17. Sinead Goldrick Paxy Paxman 15. Olivia Purcell 5. Lauren Pearce 4. Saraid Taylor 3. Blaithin Mackin Maggie Mahony Molly O’Hehir 2. Alyssa Bannan 1. Gabrielle Colvin Laela Ebert Jemma Rigoni

Kate Hore says, this way! Last week’s bitter disappointment turned into player-led resolve as Captain Kate Hore marched her team onto a pristine Princes Park under perfect skies. The #DeeArmy banner said Bring The Heat and the Demons delivered a fierce, high-quality contest and ultimately outworked and outpaced the gallant Adelaide Crows to win by 11 points. Hore — the first AFLW player to record 25+ disposals and 3 goals in a final — produced a captain’s game for the ages. Reminiscent of Daisy Pearce’s iconic 2022 snap, but this time it was a sustained four-quarter masterclass. Mick Stinear, coaching his 100th match, masterminded a tactical turnaround after halftime to keep Melbourne’s season alive. Second chance taken. Still alive. Still believing.  The Match Melbourne burst out of the blocks. Speedy Shelley Heath set the tone, winning the first clearance on her way to the most influential game of her career: 24 disposals, 8 tackles, game-high 375 metres gained, and 6 clearances. Fitzsimon’s classy snap opened the scoring before Hore pounced for her first goal. After five minutes, Adelaide lifted their pressure and Gould capitalised on a defensive error to peg one back. Mahony’s brilliant buzzer-beater gave Melbourne a two-goal lead right on quarter time. The second term belonged to Adelaide. Goals to Allan, Charlton (another defensive lapse), and N. Kelly — plus a dubious 50m penalty goal to Prowse — swung momentum. Ponter’s set shot on the halftime siren stretched the Crows’ lead to 13 points. The Demons looked flat heading to the rooms, but Stinear’s halftime moves — including Harris into the ruck — sparked a revival. Blaithin Mackin’s brilliant snap ignited the comeback, and Hore’s trademark show-stopping dribbler levelled scores at three-quarter time. Goosebumps! The final term was all Melbourne. Hore struck early, then came the play of the day: Campbell’s follow-up effort, Heater’s juggling sprint, and Mahony’s vision ended with Wotherspoon outmarking Biddell and calmly converting. Campbell added another, and despite Marinoff’s late goal, the Dees held firm. The penultimate roar came when Tahlia Gillard chased down Chelsea Randall in a mammoth sprint along the wing — a moment that summed up Melbourne’s #demonspirit. What a win! Match Moment Hard to pick just one: Hore’s highlights reel dribbler, Mahony’s buzzer-beater, Gillard’s colossal chase-down on Randy, Heater’s wing tackle on Hatchy, or Kate’s captain-on-captain dump tackle on Noffy. Take your pick! 😉. Meggs Musings What a game! Skills and pressure from both teams were first class — this was elite entertainment. Crowd of 2,624? AFLW deserves bigger. Time slot? Marketing? Spread the word: this is unmissable footy. Footy thoughts: • Goldrick and B Mackin together give us speed and pressure. Add D Taylor and we’re a more mobile, dangerous squad. • Ry Wotherspoon (4 marks, 1 goal) continues to impress — tough and talented, a real find. • Molly O’Hehir had strong moments. Speed, height, and courage. With fitness, a wing could be hers. • Laela Ebert always makes smart choices with ball in hand. • Maggie Mahony (12 disposals, 2 goals) delivered a breakout game. The small forward Melbourne has craved. Quality stuff, Maggs. It was a more even team performance this week — and that’s why we won. Champion forward Eden Zanker watched on, cheering every moment. She’ll be back next week along with intercept queen Maeve Chaplin. Confidence high, stars returning — good signs for the Prelim. One Club. #demonspirit. Coaches Mick Stinear: “Kate told me, ‘There’s no way we’re losing this.’ She led from the front.” He praised Hore, Fitzsimon, Heath, McNamara, Gillard, and emphasised the importance of Goldrick’s return. Loved the efforts of the young brigade, especially Mahony and Wotherspoon. Emotional in his 100th game. Selection headache looms with Zanker and Maeve set to return. Matthew (Doc) Clarke: “Great quality match as a fan, not so much as the losing coach.” No excuses — he praised Melbourne’s efficiency. Steps down after 10 seasons as Adelaide coach. Doc departs as a triple premiership coach and one of AFLW’s most respected figures — a true pioneer. NEXT WEEK Preliminary Final: Melbourne v North Melbourne Saturday 22 November 2025 at 3:05pm AEDT at IKON Park, Melbourne | Wurundjeri The unbeaten North Melbourne awaits in a preliminary final. North’s unbeaten run is built on contested ball dominance — Melbourne’s speed and pressure will be key to breaking through. Mission Impossible? Maybe. But Mick, Kate, and the returning stars will throw everything at it. Demons alive in 2025 — and believing. PS Carlton looked awesome on Saturday night and might give those lethal Lions a few sleepless nights this week. MELBOURNE 3.2.20 4.3.27 6.5.41 9.6.60 ADELAIDE 1.2.8 6.4.40 6.5.41 7.7.49 GOALS MELBOURNE Hore 3 Mahony 2 Campbell Fitzsimon B Mackin Wotherspoon ADELAIDE J Allan Charlton Gould N Kelly Marinoff Ponter Prowse BEST MELBOURNE Hore Hanks Mahony Gillard Heath Harris ADELAIDE Marinoff Biddell N Kelly Newman Hatchard INJURIES MELBOURNE Nil ADELAIDE Nil REPORTS MELBOURNE Nil ADELAIDE Nil UMPIRES Baigent Coyne Devenish CROWD 2,624 at Ikon Park

Brent “Tiger” Crosswell was a great footballer of the 60s to the 80s. He was recruited to Carlton from Tasmania and was a premiership player for the Blues and the Kangaroos. He finished his career at the Demons (48 games) under the great Ron Barassi. He is against the Macquarie Point Stadium and will be speaking against it next week. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/16j57RyEje/?mibextid=wwXIfr He’s been suffering from a rare illness for some time so it’s good to see him looking so good in this vision.

Make sure to let us know your observations.

All the houses are ash from the past quarter century of preseasons.

He laid some bone crunching tackles today too. He has come to play.

It was a beautiful sunny morning for a preseason training run out at Gosch's Paddock and a couple of Demonland Trackwatchers were in attendance to bring your their observations on the last session of the first week of the 2026 campaign. DEMONLAND'S PRESEASON TRAINING OBSERVATIONS It’s a beautiful morning for some preseason training. PLAYERS PRESENT: Kozzy (first session of the season), Salem (first session of the season), Lindsay (No #5 today), Chandler, Fritsch (first session of the season), Bowey, Howes, Johnson, TMac, Adams, Kentfield, JVR, Windsor, Langford (#4), AMW, Heath, Sparrow, Berry, Jefferson, Culley (No #13 today), Henderson, Kolt & Mentha Jr PLAYERS MISSING: Max, Lever, May, Melksham, Langdon, Turner, Mihocek, CJ, Campbell, Steele, Viney, Laurie, McAdam, Rivers, Sharp, Petty Players going through some warm up short sprints REHAB: AMW & Henderson Hand balling drill running fast in waves of 3 spread out and hand balling to the guy on either side ahead of him running towards goal. Full length ground Match SIM drill Some nice skills on show. And just as I say that a couple of howlers. Got to love the preseason. Greatest time of the year. Henderson has joined the Match SIM drill so AMW the only rehabber. Jogging laps. Lots of very quick ball movement. Kozzy ELECTRIC wearing the pink vest as the swingman playing for both teams in the middle. Skills sublime. Interestingly Fritsch playing more on the wing/half back as a link player on the wing utilizing his kicking skills. Could just be for lack of numbers and personnel as the two key (only) forwards at either end are JVR/Jefferson & Kentfield/Heath. Split into 3 different groups for drills and rotating the groups through each one Jared Rivers kicking the ball high up to a one on one contest. Some good matchups. TMAC/JVR, TMac/Heath, Lindsay/Langford. Keepings off handball drill with 5 on 2. One on one tackling drill. Windsor doing some work away from the 3 groups with a trainer testing out something with his lateral movement. Doesn’t look too concerned. Windsor rejoined one of the groups but a few minutes later returned to the same trainer on the boundary with what looks like some complaint with the legs/foot/ankle. Physio twisting Windsor foot to test out the ligaments in the ankle. Windsor back with the main group. Watch this space. 5 (red) on 5 (yellow) handball keeping’s off drill with ferocious tackling with 3 pink vest players in the mix one at either end of the drill area and one in the middle playing both sides. Jonesy and Chaplin taking control of this drill while King watches on. Henderson and Johnson running laps together. As are Mentha Jnr and Oscar Berry. Almost end to end (from half back) drill Red vs Blue bibs. When red are attacking the order of the day is very quick ball movement with lots of forward hand balling to players running. When Blues bibs have it’s a lot slower and more controlled movement of the ball back to the other end. Windsor being used as the link man at half back. Kolt substituting with him when Windsor resting. Ending the session with sprints up and down the Centre Square. That’s a wrap on the first week of Preseason Training for the 2026 Season. We’ll be back next week. 📆 Monday, November 17 ⏰ 10:00am - 11:30am 📍 Gosch's Paddock 🏃‍♂️ Session type: Training BLWNBA'S PRESEASON TRAINING OBSERVATIONS Pickett’s ball movement is sublime, some very fancy footwork. Tholstrup definitely looks leaner; agree with previous observations. Chaplin: “as soon as the ball comes back (into the forward line) we move with speed! Move with intensity.” Current exercise is a full ball movement exercise. Fritsch just slotted a pearler from the boundary. Jefferson with a lovely pass to JVR who was sprinting at full pace. JVR looked far quicker to an I’ve previously noticed, though I doubt the offseason has made any difference. Chandler’s kicking has stood out for me, some lovely passes that have hit targets in the f50. Constant encouragement from the line staff to “get to the cones”. McDonald being used as a linking player outside of the D50 along the win. Being told to “get forward”. JVR looks remarkably more confident marking. Taking quite a few nice marks at full stretch. Encouragement, leadership and voice from XL is astounding for such a young player. JVR continues to impress with his pace, led most laps comfortably for his running group. Heath already looks fully integrated and one of the boys already. Langford wearing #4; also looks slimmer than last season. TOM DYSON'S PRESEASON TRAINING OBSERVATIONS Home from Goschs and loved the buzz around the group, couple of quick observations from me; Before training had really gotten underway, Kingy looked like he had spoken to just about every assistant coach in a meaningful way. Don't want to overanalyse but it really does seem he is taking a collaborative approach at least initially which is nice to see. There seemed to be an emphasis today on disposal under pressure and disposal with a general intent of speed on the ball. The whole ground match sim looked to prioritise fast ball movement through the corridor or quick switches from wing to wing and the quality of disposal throughout this was i thought pretty good. Windsor looked very good in the guts and he looked even better running and carrying with pace on the ball. Kozzy did what Kozzy does, ultra impressive as per usual. You would have all seen the sparrow run down tackle on the socials but that really was chef's kiss, and given how quick leb was moving today it was an extra impressive effort. Oscar Berry might be a surprise packet next year, his footy iq in tight surprised and he had a great defensive stop in the handball keepings off drill. It was a very basketball esque rejection and the thud echoed around the whole ground. Definitely a watch and see how he goes for Casey early. I echo what has been posted throughout the week about kolt. He looked fast and explosive and he had an air of focus and slightly less jocularity then in previous years. I really hope this both continues and translates into on field form. Rooey looked more adept aerially and seemed to be flying for marks more confidently. Monnez was doing his runs along the boundary but was looking longingly at the main group like he badly wanted to get stuck in to the match sim. Backing him in to lock down a spot in the backline next year and fingers are well and truly crossed no more injury trouble. I also feel the need to reiterate that Max Heath is a behemoth of a man! Was a beautiful morning to watch the lads and it's got me feeling very excited for whats to come!

He, like Bowey, is not required to attend these sessions because they fall outside the 1st to 4th year bracket. Bowey missed the first session but has been at the next two. While we always applaud the enthusiasm and commitment of the more experienced players who choose to attend, we should not hold it against those who are not there. During the offseason, players are given programs to maintain their fitness, and some even exceed the expectations set for them. We also do not know whether they were doing extra gym sessions at the time, and they can certainly be forgiven for taking an extra couple of days of rest and relaxation, provided they show up on Day One in super good nick and raring to go. Of course he could also have an injury. 😱

I know it’s become a bit of a running joke at the expense of the old guard, and maybe a cheeky dig at Trac, but I honestly don’t remember seeing soccer balls used in past preseasons. From what I recall, the soccer sessions have always been a light-hearted recovery activity in the first session after a game, not a replacement for proper training or skill work. I’m sure other clubs have their own equivalent fun drills too. If King pulls out the frisbees for a post–Round 1 frolf session, I’ll have to start upgrading the server immediately.

Agree. His kicking in this role this morning was fantastic albeit under little to no match day like pressure.

That’s a wrap on the first week of Preseason Training for the 2026 Season. We’ll be back next week. 📆 Monday, November 17 ⏰ 10:00am - 11:30am 📍 Gosch's Paddock 🏃‍♂️ Session type: Training