Demonland

Posted on Harley Bennell’s Instagram.

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Introducing our new AFLW correspondent … DEES IN OCTOBER reporting on the Demons’ win in their Hampson-Hardeman Cup over the Bulldogs. Greetings Demonlanders, and welcome to the first match report of the 2022 AFLW season! Melbourne is heading into its sixth season with great expectations and a degree of external pressure, with most pundits predicting finals and many talking of a Grand Final … and more. DEMONS DOMINATE AT THE KENNEL Whatever’s to come, it all started with an away game at VU Whitten Oval on a sunny yet windy afternoon. I stayed away due to the travel factor and putting a bit of a pause on crowds in the current Covid19 scenario. Instead, I relied on the televised broadcast, including some “interesting” camerawork combined with glorious drone work that showed off the venue’s surrounds and city views. The team was as selected, although I spent a fair few minutes early wondering where Paxy was — her missing the practice match had me spooked, but there she was … yet a niggling premonition still nagged at me. Meanwhile, the commentators helpfully informed us that Parry would play second ruck. Likely she will in other matchups, but in this one it was a strange insight given Caris was out there presumably solely for that purpose! Pre-game I was a bundle of nerves after watching the Tigers tear the game apart the night before. Who knew what the Bulldogs had conjured since our last AFLW meeting, which certainly was a day to forget for our team? FIRST QUARTER After losing the toss, the Dees kicked against the wind, and the Dogs had the best of possession early. However, Melbourne’s ball movement soon showed its superiority, coupled with a focused desire to go through the corridor. Hard running (and loose checking on the Dogs’ part) allowed Hore to set up Sherriff for the first goal of the season, five minutes in. At this point I was distracted by how easily you could hear the coaches on the boundary through the effects mic. Not ideal! Caris then had her first go at a centre bounce. The 190cm 19-year-old showed good first-up presence, with a great follow-up handball to get the clearance. A nice mark to Harris 40-odd out from a pinpoint Hanks pass saw our biggest recruit yet get her hands on the ball early. She made a good fist of it against the wind with that trademark kicking style and luckily a strong mark to Gay on the goal line led to the Dees’ second major. Another diving mark to Harris soon followed, but her poor kick forward halted the attack. An excellent short kicking build-up, including my favourite rookie West on debut, ended up with a mark to Zanker, courtesy of some smart and selfless bodywork by Daisy. Zanks kicked truly, which she was clearly happy about, given some past demons in front of the sticks. It was an impressive start, with Melbourne running at 74% disposal efficiency for the quarter, three goals straight, and the Dogs yet to register a major. SECOND QUARTER A strong defensive mark by L.Pearce stemmed repeated Dog attacks to start the quarter, but the pressure built again due to her poor disposal. Again, I found myself wondering, “Where’s Paxy?” and my question was answered in an unfortunate way as she fell to a heavy tackle and seemed very sore. The Bulldogs’ first goal of the game, to Huntington, soon followed. L.Pearce then pulled up sore as well, and suddenly players were dropping all over the shop, including a cruel ACL to the talented Huntington—sincerely, you hate to see it. Any momentum the Dogs were building in the quarter dissipated after that as a noticeable hush fell over the crowd. Once the Dees managed to get it forward, good positioning by Harris chopped off the Dogs’ exit attempt, locking the ball in for the Dees and resulting in Daisy taking a classy kick around the corner—alas, straight into the woodwork. The wait for another opportunity was fleeting, with Harris again denying the Dogs’ exit and getting the ball forward quickly, resulting in a typically opportunistic goal from Hore off a Daisy spoil. Kate Hore: always in the right place at the right time. By late in the quarter, the inside 50s were 10-2 in the Melbourne’s favour, but they couldn’t put it on the board, with six behinds sullying the scorecard. Still, it was a familiar red-and-blue sight to see Bulldogs players looking up from half back with nowhere to go, due to disciplined defensive running. With the clock winding down to half time, Dees debutant Ali Brown took a big hit, resulting in a concussion test. An awesome chase-down of Blackburn by Sherriff, with credit also to the players upfield who left Blackburn devoid of easy options, meant Melbourne finished the quarter off strongly. THIRD QUARTER Early shaky disposals from Tarrant and Birch on the last line were a sign of things to come in this quarter, with the Dees struggling to get the ball out of the danger zone. The Bulldogs pressed with a repeat inside 50 creating a set shot goal to Toogood—in this case, she clearly was. The precision kicking of the first half deserted us, causing multiple turnovers, and it seemed the Dogs had finally caught onto the plan and were anticipating the short kicks and corridor play. An injury scare for Mithen prompted great concern in my living room, and a classy finish by Blackburn meant the alarm bells were starting to ring, with the margin cut to nine points midway through the third. At that stage, inside 50s for the quarter were seven to nil in the Dogs’ favour. The damage on the scoreboard would have been greater if not for Birch’s excellent reading of the play and strong marking. Another notable individual effort came from Zanker, who came up trumps in a two-on-two in the centre square and then darted away along the wing, taking two bounces and delivering perfectly to Daisy on the lead in some super stylish play. However, there was a rare lapse from Daisy as she failed to capitalise. With three minutes to go, the Dees scrambled the ball forward. Eventually, a kick by Daisy off the ground directly into a Bulldogs player’s face ricocheted fortuitously to Harris’s advantage. She was clean below the knees and executed a banana, her first goal back in red and blue coming at a crucial time. Late in the quarter, Sherriff added another tenacious effort to her earlier run-down tackle, with a desperate lunge into the goalpost to prevent Lochland from converting. Despite the Dogs’ improved efforts, the Dees steadied to take a 16-point advantage into the last. FOURTH QUARTER I felt as confident as I ever am that we’d be able to run out the game, especially with our injury concerns fading while those of the Dogs just seemed to mount. Still, 16 points isn’t quite “break out the cheeseboard” territory. Sherriff started where she left off with another brave effort, this time going back courageously with the flight for a great mark that saw three players crunched around her. Then, a clumsy tackle by Gay gifted Toogood another set shot, probably not appreciated by her opponent in Tarrant, who had her hands full all day. Toogood’s shot fell short, and Birch made another solid contest to win a free. Zanker continued putting in the hard yards, always on her toes around the ball, getting better as the game wore on — a bit of a pattern for her. A big collision in forward 50 saw two Dogs felled and the Dees capitalised with another neat kick from Hanks finding Scott. Frustratingly, the inaccuracy continued as she failed to convert. All in all, the last quarter was a bit of a grind, with just one point scored until Hore sealed the deal with a snap with a minute remaining. Not exactly scintillating stuff, but a solid enough effort. A strong start, and the ability to respond when the Dogs challenged in the third, won it for the Dees. STATS & STAND-OUTS Zanker led the way for the Dees with 21 disposals (17 contested possessions), followed by Birch (18), Hanks (17, notably at 88% efficiency), Lampard (16 including 5 rebound 50s) and Mithen (also 16). Lampard, Mithen and Hanks were all prominent in metres gained. Surely Paxman’s quietest game with just 8 disposals, though she missed a chunk of game time and after not playing the praccy match, she’ll be (cliché alert) better for the run—barring any lasting effects from that heavy knock. The shining light in tackles, no surprise, was Hanks with 10. Meanwhile, Caris’s 2 disposals belied her ruck impact and follow-up work. An encouraging debut especially when L.Pearce was put out of the game for several minutes in the second. Edmonds topped the hit outs for the Dogs with 14, followed by Caris and L.Pearce with 13 and 11, respectively. Meanwhile, interestingly, the talls led the clearances, with L.Pearce and Zanker having 4 apiece. There was an even spread of markers with Zanker, Scott, Hore, Birch and Hanks all with 4. Harris took 3, drew some defensive focus, crashed some packs, shored up the structure down the line and kicked a goal. Though she faded a bit and by no means dominated, it’s a big tick from me. A young player that caught my eye was 19-year-old Fitzsimon in her third game, her first since early in 2021. It was a solid return game from her, with 12 disposals and some great defensive acts — she’ll be looking for some more opportunities this season. In terms of team stats, Melbourne’s 244 disposals to 189 and 117 uncontested possessions to 83 signalled their control of possession and excellent spread and positioning for much of the game. Their 46% efficiency inside 50 is an area for improvement, and scoring accuracy was again an issue, but 8 marks to 4 helped set up good opportunities. Melbourne’s forward pressure was highlighted by 13 to 7 tackles inside 50, while the Dees also had the better of the intercept possessions (aided by 9 each from Birch and Zanker, plus 8 from L.Pearce), and clearances. Daisy failed to hit the scoreboard, but 8 score involvements speak to her influence in attack, while Zanker, Hanks and Hore chipped in 6 score involvements each. MELBOURNE 3.0.18 4.6.30 5.8.38 6.10.46 WESTERN BULLDOGS 0.1.1 1.1.7 3.4.22 3.4.22 GOALS MELBOURNE Hore 2 Gay Harris Sherriff Zanker WESTERN BULLDOGS Blackburn Huntington Toogood BEST MELBOURNE Birch Zanker Hanks Sherriff Hore WESTERN BULLDOGS Blackburn Bennetts Fitzgerald Lamb Lochland INJURIES MELBOURNE Nil WESTERN BULLDOGS Cranston (lower leg) Huntington (knee) Snell (ribs) REPORTS MELBOURNE Nil WESTERN BULLDOGS Nil CROWD 2,571 at VU Whitten Oval * An asterisk of sorts on this game, albeit one that will likely repeat throughout the season. The Bulldogs apparently had only 24 or so players available for this game due to injuries and COVID protocols, with their backline impacted particularly. NEXT ROUND A reinvigorated Richmond at Punt Road Oval, Friday night. THE LAST WORD Not quite as good as last time our club met the Bulldogs, but that’s a pretty big ask, I guess! And we did get to take the Hampson-Hardeman Cup back to its rightful home.

I closed the last thread because people were getting too political. I’ll allow the discussion here to continue as long as we keep it general and not get political/name calling. Bans without warning for those that abuse.

Western Bulldogs v Melbourne at VU Whitten Oval, 7pm AEDT WESTERN BULLDOGS B: E.Brown 9 I.Huntington 4 HB: E.Bennetts 11 N.Ferres 16 A.Guest 19 C: I.Grant 3 E.Blackburn - C 2 I.Pritchard 20 HF: B.Gutknecht 18 R.Cranston 30 B.Lochland 1 F: N.Morris-Dalton 25 B.Toogood 8 Foll: C.Moody 13 J.Fitzgerald 23 K.Lamb 27 I/C: S.Hartwig 15 E.Georgostathis 17 A.Edmonds 33 E.Snell 26 A.Ling 29 Emerg: G.Lagioia 12 A.Strahan 35 MELBOURNE B: B.Tarrant 20 L.Birch 9 HB: S.Lampard 8 M.Fitzsimon 24 S.Heath 30 C: A.Bannan 16 M.Gay 3 C.Sherriff 18 HF: L.Mithen 14 K.Hore 10 J.Parry 19 F: T.Harris 7 D.Pearce - C 6 Foll: L.Pearce 15 K.Paxman 4 T.Hanks 5 I/C: A.Brown 28 M.Caris 21 E.West 11 E.Zanker 29 S.Scott 12 Emerg: G.Campbell 1 K.Petrevski 31

Great to see the footy back … and we’re kicking off the AFLW season with a big game against traditional rivals - the Western Bulldogs. On Gameday, we’ll kick off on the main board and then migrate the thread to the AFLW board at the end of the round. Please support our AFLW team in their quest for the flag.

From the AFLW Record - Round 1

There have been many musing on Demonland and in the media in general about the background, circumstances and even omens which led to the MFC mens side winning its first Premiership in 57 years. There is no doubt that the ever-present factors of luck and injury have to align at the right times, but all the other building blocks have to be present firstly, before even a tilt at the Flag can be made. And it may take some years to put these pieces together. Success through recruiting and trading is something which has to be achieved over a number of years, because a club simply cannot propel itself up the ladder on the back of a single draft-trade period. Talent and experience has been proven necessary to be present, since it is the best team with the best combination of players that will win the ultimate prize. Enough of the background to the success formula, so where does the AFLW Melbourne side sit in its quest for a Premiership? Already the commentators are recognising the fundamental talent that has been accumulated at Melbourne, combined with the current pool of experience built up over those many years. In this Melbourne Age article, Sara Burt nominates Melbourne as her pick for the Premiership: AFLW season preview: Footy is back, in early January The arguments and examples she uses are an almost perfect blueprint copy of what the Mens side had in place prior to season 2021. Ben Brown was recruited to fill the hole at full forward for the AFL Men and Tayla Harris returns to the side in the same role in the AFLW. When Daisy Pearce had to be moved forward last season to bolster the scoring opportunities, it just left a gap further down the field. Tayla will provide both a marking target and a solid goal scoring talent in front of goals. Then enter Liv Purcell from Geelong who despite an ACL injury in 2021, had won that clubs B&F playing in the middle in the prior year. We may not see her for a couple of games due to that injury, but she will slot straight into the middle. The recruiting staff had also identified the changing nature of the Women’s game some seasons ago. The players are now much more powerful and more skilled and have greater fitness levels than when the competition first started. Karen Paxman needed help around her, and so we find Tyla Hanks, Eliza McNamara, Eliza West and Purcell now surrounding her. In the ruck the men had the best in the competition, and so has the Women’s side with Lauren Pearce. The side sorely missed her presence when injured in the early games of last season, and had to call on Cunningham and Eden Zanker to fill in. Not a great situation, and was almost a parallel of when the mens side had to use TMac and Weidemann to do similar in the past. But it was just “robbing Peter to pay Paul”. So Lauren and the team needed backup, and this year we have recruited Tahlia Gillard at 189cm and Georgia Campbell at 183cm as just that. Gillard was the tallest recruit in the draft, while it is worth noting that Pearce ( the best ruck) stands at 183cm. Anyone see the comparison with the mens side drafting of Luke Jackson? The other plus is that Zanker, with her extraordinary athletic abilities, is now released to do damage throughout the whole ground this coming season. The experience level of the team is also unquestioned today. Lauren Pearce, Karen Paxman, Kate Hore and Tyla Hanks all made the All Australian squad last year. The men could only manage 3 in 2020, and naturally for both the Mens and Womens sides, there were glaring omissions, but you must have a core group of those experienced talented players to “hold the fort” when the going gets tough during the season. Luck and injury? Who knows about those … Certainly the fitness levels of the Mens side was the standard in 2021, courtesy of Darren Burgess. It is not too much of a stretch to suggest his legacy would also extend to the Women’s side, in terms of what is needed to get success. When we look back with that perfect 20/20 hindsight it is obvious what the Mens side had put together at season opener. The signs are that similarly the Womens side has done the same and with this group, this is the Premiership chance that has to be taken, before the talent and competition is further diluted with incoming sides in 2023. First Demons game: 2022 NAB AFLW COMPETITION Round 1 • Western Bulldogs v Melbourne Saturday 8 January 2022 • 7:00 PM (GMT+11) Victoria University, Whitten Oval

The moderators are looking into it.

The fixture has been changed due to WA border restrictions. Rounds 2, 3 and 8 have also been changed but let’s do one round at a time.

The moment Bayley Fritsch slotted through his fifth goal after accepting a pass from Charlie Spargo early in the final quarter of the Grand Final, the result was a given. The Demons were six goals in front and the Bulldogs were spent; the drought was over. The game itself managed to roll on with goals coming seemingly on endless rotation and when it was stopped by the final siren (the mercy rule doesn’t apply in the AFL), the scoreboard had Melbourne in front by 74 points. The sun rose on the following morning with the day’s newspaper highlighting the new “immortals”. If not before, we understood then that it wasn’t all a dream and that Norm Smith’s curse finally was dead and buried. The Demons had won a premiership with a group that dominated through the winning of its own ball in the midfield. They were the best at it with a group filled with contested beasts led by Christian Petracca (ironically, the winner of the medal named after the man whose curse had just recently ended), Clayton Oliver, Jack Viney and more. They received silver service from their ruckmen, skipper Max Gawn and a young man who came of age in the sizzling last half of the third term, Luke Jackson. It’s all well and good to claim supremacy in the midfield but foundations for premierships are built on much more than that. If Melbourne had the best ball winners through the midfield, it also had a clinical defence led by impenetrable intercepting key defenders Jake Lever and Steven May aided by Adam Tomlinson early in the season and when he was injured by Harrison Petty and flanked by the elite kicking skills of Christian Salem and Trent Rivers and later Jake Bowey who, in effect, took the place of the unlucky Jayden Hunt. Up forward, the Demons had to make do with only one dominant key forward at a time, firstly Tom McDonald and more lately, Ben Brown but with Fritsch the constant, a strong mark and nimble of foot on the way to a 59-goal season. Their involvement in the forward line with medium to small forwards Kysaiah Pickett, Charlie Spargo and running machine Alex Neal-Bullen strangling opposition defences time and again with their immense forward pressure, the critical component of the club’s on-field success and not more so than in the finals and spectacularly, in the ultimate game of the season. By the time the breakthrough came and Fritsch kicked his rapid fire two goals on end at the 16 minute 34 second and 17:49 marks of the third to bring Melbourne right back in the game the Bulldogs were running on the spot, the Demons in twos and threes and covering more ground than the early settlers. Their superior fitness, the legacy of a long hard preseason and a sustained program put into place by departing fitness guru Darren Burgess, culminated in a 45-minute blitz that was never before seen in the ultimate game of a season. The Immortals B: M. Hibberd 14 S. May 1 J. Lever 8 HB: T. Rivers 24 H. Petty 35 C. Salem 3 C: A. Brayshaw 10 C. Petracca 5 E. Langdon 15 HF: A. Neal-Bullen 30 T. McDonald 25 T. Sparrow 32 F: C. Spargo 9 B. Brown 50 B. Fritsch 31 Foll: M. Gawn 11 C. Oliver 13 J. Viney 7 I/C: J. Bowey 17 J. Harmes 4 L. Jackson 6 K. Pickett 36 Sub: J. Jordon 23 Emerg: K. Chandler 37 J. Hunt 29 J. Melksham 18 There was more … The scene was set in preseason with the list coming up in reasonably good health and opening the scratch match period positively with a narrow win over the Tigers at Casey Fields in late February. This was followed up with a loss to the Bulldogs with a below strength lineup at Marvel Stadium in the AAMI Community Series match but there was no need to panic (although some did). It was, after all, a practice match. Head Coach, Simon Goodwin had been building his team for a number of seasons. They nearly made it in 2018, slipped and fell in 2019 and by virtue of a plague that blunted their edge in fitness, they were ½ a game away from another assault last year. On every line Goodwin had great or at the very least highly competent skilled players but he was after something more. More hard work, greater fitness and a cohesive, selfless unit. There were many examples throughout the year, the most frequently cited being the move of Angus Brayshaw out of his natural position in the the centre to a new role on the wing. Together with Ed Langdon, they were the club’s ying and yang wingmen, important link players who plied their trade to devastating effect along the outside fringe areas of the field. Everyone had a role to play. In times of pandemic and caps on football club expenditure, Melbourne did well to augment its existing coaching support structure for Goodwin, already headed by General Manager of AFL Football Performance Alan Richardson, Backline and Forward coaches Troy Chaplin and Greg Stafford with former premiership coach Mark Williams as Head of Development and Adem Yze, the Midfield coach. Both were revelations. The Demons took the first steps into the 2021 season proper with a solid win over the visiting Dockers in Round 1 after leading all day and continued on their winning way against St Kilda and GWS. While not particularly convincingly, they took the points over an undermanned Geelong and finally shook off Hawthorn in a brilliant last term. Suddenly, they were sitting on a 5 - 0 winning streak (7 - 0 if you counted the last two games of 2020) but they still lacked credibility in the eyes of the football world. Along came a Saturday night contest at the home of football in front of a large crowd against the reigning premiers. After a slow start in drizzly conditions, they took hold of the reins and pressurised and suffocated the Tigers to a standstill. That night also marked Nathan Jones' 300th match and the battle-hardened veteran was able to hold his head high. The evening belonged to the midfield duo of Petracca and Oliver that had supplanted their former skipper in the midfield but the club faithful honoured the man who had led them through the wilderness to a point where they were ready to make the great leap forward into premiership contention. Sadly, the Demons’ captain of 2014–2019 and winner of three Keith 'Bluey' Truscott Medals would only play two more games - this was his swansong. Also on his way out was long serving small defender in Neville Jetta who was to also finish up at the end of the season with 159 great games under his belt. The Melbourne train rolled on and on with another three wins before a surprise 1-point loss to the lowly Crows in Adelaide in controversial circumstances. They responded in the best possible way with consecutive wins over top four contenders in the Western Bulldogs and the Brisbane Lions. Both were emphatic victories that saw the Demons firmly installed as mid season flag favourites. The pandemic robbed the club of a big home ground cash bonanza when its Queens Birthday Blockbuster against Collingwood was shifted to the SCG. It was Nathan Buckley’s last hurrah as Magpie coach. His team was switched on and brought a pressure game with them but the Demons failed to respond in kind to go into the bye round with their tails between their legs. The mid part of the season was to be the club’s low point of the year. They beat a rising Essendon and another top four contender in Port Adelaide away from home but lost games to GWS and the Western Bulldogs and drew against Hawthorn. The defeat at the hands of the Dogs was disappointing and cost Melbourne top spot as winter came to an end but it wasn’t the end of the world. In actual fact, the reversal against the new ladder leaders became the catalyst for a dominant seven match period that covered all of August and September and culminated with the triumph in the year’s Big Dance. With Victoria in lockdown and the Delta strain surging, the AFL switched games here and there to successfully keep the season alive. Melbourne criss-crossed the country and beat Gold Coast, West Coast, Adelaide and Geelong at various venues and under various weather conditions including lightning, thunder and rain. The win at Corio Bay over the Cats saw a famous comeback from 44 points down to a winning goal after the siren from Max Gawn which secured top spot and the McClelland Trophy. They were on their way to becoming immmortals. The Brisbane Lions fell in the Qualifying Final after some early resistance from Charlie Cameron but the Demons were well in control by half time and coasted to a win that looked a lot easier than the eventual 31 point margin. There was no resistance a fortnight later when an aging Geelong was unceremoniously dumped from the finals by 83 points after managing a single final half goal in the face of a Demon tsunami. Max Gawn’s third quarter was sublime and unforgettable. The Western Bulldogs were similarly ruthless on the following evening when they demolished a bedraggled Port Adelaide by 71 points. The Grand Final promised to be a clash of Titans but we know now that this promise lasted until that point in the premiership quarter when the Demons went “bang, bang, bang!” The club made a big bang at AFL All-Australian team selection with five players gaining selection and Max Gawn was named as skipper after earning his fifth All-Australian jacket as the No.1 ruck. He was joined in the 22-man squad by teammates Steven May, Jake Lever, Clayton Oliver and Christian Petracca. In addition, Bailey Fritsch and Christian Salem would have been unlucky to miss out. Emerging ruckman Luke Jackson won the AFL Rising Star Award. Simon Goodwin topped of the premiership year with the AFL Coaches Association Coach of the Year award. Clayton Oliver received accolades from the AFL Coaches Association as its AFL Champion Player. He also finished third in the Brownlow Medal with in excess of 30 votes, an outstanding achievement given the quality of players competing against him for votes each week and capped it off with his third Keith “Bluey” Truscott Memorial Trophy for the club’s best and fairest player. In addition to bidding farewell to two of the club’s champion veterans in Nathan Jones and Neville Jetta, we saw the departures of Aaron Bradtke, Kye Declase, Marty Hore, Jay Lockhart (all delisted) and Aaron vandenBerg (retired). Their places will be taken in 2022 by Luke Dunstan (St Kilda), Jacob Van Rooyen (Claremont, WA), Blake Howes (Sandringham Dragons), Taj Woewodin (East Fremantle, WA) and rookies Judd McVee (East Fremantle, WA) and Andy Moniz-Wakefield (Northern Territory). The expanded VFL competition was doomed by the plague but the Casey Demons started the season in outstanding fashion and were sitting on a 6 - 0 record at the end of June. They kicked themselves out of a win at Casey against the more accurate Giants on a night when Ben Brown was rested for almost the whole game in preparation for a promotion back to the AFL leaving them one player short in a tight finish. They won their next game comfortably but the dice were loaded when they lost to Footscray with half their VFL team leaders flying aimlessly between Tullamarine and the Queensland border. Toby Bedford was runner up the best and fairest and best Melbourne player. Jake Bowey cut his teeth at Casey with 8 excellent games before he made his AFL debut. That 1 point loss to the Giants (in which he had 27 touches) was his only losing game for the year. Veteran Jimmy Munro won his second Gardner Clarke Medal for Best and Fairest. The Melbourne AFLW team under coach Mick Stinear had a solid season and made it to the finals where they beat Fremantle comfortably but reverted to type with poor kicking for goal in their 1.9.15 to 5.3.33 Preliminary Final loss against Adelaide. Earlier, they had a perfect 3 - 0 start to the season before another putrid effort in front of goals against the Bulldogs. Their finals chances were in jeopardy but they regrouped to score some big victories in the tougher half of the draw. At times, they looked premiership material. Two midfielders at opposite ends of their careers in Karen Paxman and Tyla Hanks tied in first place for the Best and Fairest Award. Hanks also won the NAB AFLW Rising Star Award while Paxman was named in the All Australian side for the fifth time in as many seasons – one of only two players to hold that honour – while also placing fifth in the league’s Best and Fairest Award. Paxman was also the Demons’ vice-captain and was skipper in the finals series in the absence of the injured Daisy Pearce. The team was well served by contributions from Eden Zanker, Lily Mithen and Maddi Gay. The club had a number of retirements and other departures at the end of this season but has recruited well for the 2022 season which is due to start in early January. The departures include Niamh McEvoy, Shae Sloane, Tegan Cunningham and Meg Downie (all retired), Chantel Emonson (traded to Geelong) and Mietta Kendall (delisted). The recruits are Tayla Harris (Carlton) and Olivia Purcell (Geelong), draftees Georgia Campbell, Tahlia Gillard and Alison Brown and Eliza West, a rookie from the Casey Demons VFLW team. Stinear has been reappointed as senior coach. The Casey Demons also made the finals in that competition’s uncompleted season. During the season Kate Roffey succeeded Glen Bartlett to take the club presidency and become the first female president in the club’s 163 years long history. She was in the right place at the right time and saw in a premiership and with it a financial windfall from merchandise sales on top of the sale of the Bentleigh Club freehold. A great result for CEO Gary Pert after his last assignment at the Magpies. Roffey’s Her big moment came ten weeks after the event when 35,000 fans came to the MCG to watch the replay and to celebrate their heroes. What of next year? The vagaries of the pandemic with its sheer chaos and its changes in complexion as a result of the emergence of new strains make it difficult to predict the future of the game but otherwise things look rosy. The Demons have a deep list having re-signed a number of its stars to longer contracts during the season and also holding on to many players beyond the 23 grand finalists who might easily have moved elsewhere for greater opportunity - all of that indicates strength and stability and puts them in a handy space in the new era for the Melbourne Football Club.

Thanks for the info.

This further clogs up an already overwhelmed system that should be concentrating on symptomatic people and Tier 1 exposures.

I'd be interested to know what the turn around time for your results from the private test are if you don't mind sharing.

I didn't know that was an option. I might have considered paying for peace of mind as I've been stressed about not getting the results back. Having said that I have 3 kids so the cost would have been huge.

Also Happy Birthday to our Premiership Coach.

Had to get another test (on Christmas day of all days) to travel interstate and received the result 27 hours later. Not bad considering the time of year. My test the other day took 50 hours. Both Negative.