Dees_In_October

Third Place Speedy winger Eliza McNamara capped off her stellar season with a third-place finish, ending the count with 88 votes. This is her highest career finish since first arriving at the Dees in 2020. The gut-running winger has seen a steady rise to her career since first arriving at the Dees in 2020. Continuing to add more to her game with each season, this year saw her develop her strength at the contest, while further excelling in her endurance and skill. She averaged 22 disposals and five intercepts. She thrived in her new role as part of the leadership group, driving standards and growing her leadership skills at just 23 years old.

Stinear Honoured with Life Membership MELBOURNE Football Club’s inaugural AFLW coach Mick Stinear has added to the rich history of the club, receiving life membership at the Daisy Pearce Trophy on Sunday evening. melbournefc.com.auStinear honoured with Life MembershipMelbourne’s inaugural AFLW coach has been honoured with Melbourne Football Club Life Membership

Demon Spirit Award | Megan Fitzsimon The Demon Spirit Award is given to the player that demonstrates the club’s values both on and off the field and no one epitomised this more in 2025 than Megan Fitzsimon. This is the second consecutive year that Fitzsimon has taken out the award, a clear example of the kind of impact the 23-year-old has on the club. While she has consistently shown her value as a teammate off the field, this year in particular saw her reach new levels to her on-field Demon Spirit. Taking on more midfield minutes, Fitzsimon embraced this new challenge, hitting career-high numbers on the stats sheet while remaining as her cool, calm and collected self. She averaged 17 disposals, six tackles, four score involvements and tallied a total of five goals.

Best Young Player | Maggie Mahony Mahony arrived at the Dees just 12 months ago and has quickly made an impact in the red and blue, named as this year’s Best Young Player. Making her debut during Round 1, the gritty small forward has gone from strength-to-strength with every opportunity at the top level. Playing an important role inside 50, Mahony has become valued across the season internally for her never-give-up attitude. Her talents truly hit the main stage during finals, where her hard work culminated in standout displays across November.

Coaches' Award | Tahlia Gillard It was a tough start to the season for Gillard who was sidelined for the first five matches due to a knee injury. However, once the tall defender had her opportunity to make a mark on-field, she embraced it wholeheartedly, earning her the 2025 Coaches’ Award. Returning to her best footy in no-time, Gillard was a pillar of strength in Melbourne’s backline. Across her 10 matches for the year, she averaged a career-high seven intercepts and 13 disposals, out-marking many of the league’s best forwards. Despite her height, standing at 190cm tall, she became known for her rundown tackles this season, her most notable tackle coming in the dying minutes of her side’s semi-final win over Adelaide. It was a moment that will be forever etched in the minds of many Dees fans.

As per the title! I'm sure @Ghostwriter will bring us news from the night of nights and the general vibe of the group. A fairly eventful off-season so far! https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/1939742/2025-daisy-pearce-trophy-all-the-winners

I don't like this. Also it annoys me that it went down on a Sunday when I actually had stuff to do rather than during the working week! Not cool. In my grand tradition of distancing myself from players I love that leave us: Guess which now-former player leads the team in all-time Free Kicks Against? 😆 Will ignore all other stats. I will say I am slightly impressed that she managed to keep this from @Ghostwriter as we all know Eden doesn't have the best poker face! I'd convinced myself that she was going to go to Geelong and all her "Don't believe the media stuff" was about the location not the reality of the trade! All good though, Ghosty. Enjoy tonight and bring back the goss! But seriously, I hope we have something up our sleeve to trade up a bit further. Because that deal ain't it.

Just got an email asking me to vote for guernsey to be worn by the team in Gather Round 2026. Which would you choose? (including if you don't want to give your contact details to vote officially!) Will be interesting to see if the most popular option for Demonlanders reflects the wider vote. [The official vote close 11.59pm Wednesday 10 December]

Saw this on the trade blog: "Essendon holds a strong interest in Gold Coast's Claudia Whitfort as well, with the midfielder still weighing up her options as Carlton and Melbourne also chase her signature." Whitfort (171cm, 26 yrs) played a few games for us back in 2018-2019 then went to the Suns via St Kilda. Has established herself as a solid midfielder though has has a few injury interrupted seasons of late. All-Australian and GC B&F in 2023.

In last year's draft were a lot of those 160cm type midfielders going around, but we really need that height to go along with strength over the ball. Also like this from Chloe Bown's Rookie Me profile: "...and unlike many other peers, can use both sides of her body. It is easy to think the right-footer is actually left-footed considering the natural look when she has to swing onto her opposite side." So impressive. This is the silver lining, even though it has been frustrating to see our players out-muscled at times. Puts us in good stead. Agree, for talls only really Gillard, S.Taylor and Lampard, and the latter didn't have the greatest end to the season, albeit coming back from injury.

Don't know where to post this, but as good a place as any for some good news! Good to see the team get together for Liv's first run in 97 days: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FRkM0uy98To

Had some really bad luck with injuries over the journey and just bad timing. But I'll always remember she was best on for us in the 2022A Grand Final and how much of a loss she was going into the premiership season. Seems like she's been a great person around the club as well.

Not trade related at such, but this is a little bit of progress for the comp, especially fringe players. Essentially 3 weeks of VFLW H&A overlap (and 3 more for finalists) for non-selected players to compete in. This season the overlap was only during VFLW finals. We haven't had a heap of players languishing in the scrimmages but hopefully next season we'll have a fit list, so these opportunities for non-selected players to play proper games will be beneficial early in the season. The League is also set to trial double-headers featuring VFLW and AFLW sides in next season's fixture as a result of the change. afl.com.au/aflwFringe players get a boost as reserves season shiftedAFLW players will have greater opportunity to push for selection in the reserves next year

Would hate to see EMac go. I want her to get that Demons premiership after missing out in 2022. Fingers crossed!

Happy to see Ebert get another year. We've definitely done well with turning injury replacement players into regulars over the years! Really tough for Denby though. I thought she made the most of her opportunities. That de-listing puts us at 29 players plus 2 "inactive".

Made this just to look at the list age profile as it would be at Round 1 2026 and current contract status Thanks to @red and blue forever for the contract info! Based on vibes, question marks over Zanker (big question marks!), Johnson (apparently going west), A.Mackin (hasn't played since 6 games in 2023), a few potential retirees, Ebert and D.Taylor unless we elevate them (probably depends on other moves; better the depth you know, etc.). Should be locking down Mahony if we haven't already. O'Hehir. Has Rigoni shown enough? Hopefully not too many surprises with others looking to move. Had the focus on the the draft last time. Maybe there are some quality wantaways we can get? We've lost a drawcard in Mick, but still plenty to recommend us, I would think!

Dees leaderboard: Hanks 18 Hore 11 Harris 8 Zanker 6 Chaplin 3 McNamara 2 Paxman 2 Pearce 2 Heath 1 Pisano 1

Final leaderboard: Riddell 23 G.Prespakis 20 Hanks 18 Roberts 17 Gardiner 15 Garner 15 Bowers 13 Nanscawen 13 M.Scholz 12 Congrats to Riddell, honestly could have polled higher. Biggest congrats to Tyla, who did some hard yards this year! Funnily enough, she's a better player with Liv in there too but would get fewer votes as a result - and wouldn't mind a bit I'm sure.

T.Hanks!

The AA team. I see you back there, Tyla! 🤣 Also credit to whichever player is the first to wear a black (navy?) outfit with green trim, presumptuously, to match the AA jacket.

Hosking with Mark of the Year, well deserved.

Plot twist: Zanker to Geelong (Kidding...well we'll see I guess!)

Ahh we saw it coming, but it's still sad. We owe so much to Mick for everything's he's done to set up our program in the early years. The foundation he has helped laid is incredible. And it certainly hasn't been without sacrifice on his part, yet he has been humble all the way while driving our players to succeed despite the tumult often involved in the fledgling league. The constant message from every player he has coached is that he is so invested in them as players and people. It's for the good of the sport that he continues to develop and takes his talents elsewhere. Much like Daisy, he is a true leader in the sense that leadership is not about a cult of personality, but through raising up those around him, and as such, much like Daisy did, I believe he has left the club in good hands. Our first premiership coach, I'm always and forever grateful to him!

This is only the second time in my history of watching football that I've condoned this. The other was Jack Viney's request to Goodwin to "come off the line" at the start of the 2021 GF, and that was pure desperation and a bit of left-over 2000 GF trauma on my part. Generally, I think such distractions rarely end well, but in both these cases, I just didn't care 😆 Yep. I think people in NSW and Qld (generally speaking) view Aussie Rules as the "weaker" option and are therefore more willing to allow their girls to play it, especially all the girls who want to play rugby. For both codes, you often hear from girls that what they like most (aside from the camaraderie of playing with a big group of friends) is the chance to tackle and test themselves physically. Hopefully the AFL are aware of the inroads they're making from an unexpected demographic.

I've been wondering about this for... 10 seasons at this point. I truly don't understand why this doesn't exist. Even just an "add-on" of a W game for every M membership option. Or the three-game membership is that, plus an option to "add-on" a W game. Considering that currently W memberships give access to all Victorian Melbourne games (including away games, and Home games not at Casey), I wouldn't think this is a stretch. Yes, it's not like our team has been cellar dwellers and we finally got it together this season. We dominated for years (admittedly without quite getting the ultimate result due to ~ factors ~ e.g., the "state" teams). Relative to the league we've always been one of the better teams to watch. I've very rarely seen W players representing us drop their heads or treat the jumper with anything other than respect and passion. And just on the annoyance with the turnout on Saturday, I will say that all I ever hear as an excuse for not coming to watch Dees W (aside from the ones that will just never be interested) is that people don't want to go to Casey. So I think that's why people are disappointed.