Dees_In_October

MARK OF THE YEAR: VOTE FOR TAYLA Tayla's Round 1 mark is one of the finalists for MOTY! She's up against a couple of Tigers, so could be a chance if they split the vote. Finalist voting closes 10am Monday 17th of November (AEST).

Saturday November 151.05pmIkon Park

I figured it must have been something like this because Edo seems to love being at the Demons and you'd think would be well positioned in terms of progressing up the team's pay hierarchy, plus she's firing on-field and such a key player now. Hopefully she's having a quiet day and feeling better!

6 Hore 5 Gillard 4 Hanks 3 McNamara 2 Wotherspoon 1 O'Hehir (can I give a vote mostly based on a tackle I really liked? Well, I guess I am!)

We'd have to be seriously considering Beasley, particularly if one or both of Goldrick and Chaplin don't get up in time (though sounds promising).

The forgotten one! Will be interesting to see what happens there. Two plus years without playing Aussie Rules and will be 29 by the start of next season...

I agree and actually accuracy has been a problem since pretty much day dot. It's just that for many years we got away with it through sheer weight of i50s.

This is it for me. It went about as expected (from my point of view, actually better!) given where I see the team currently. Too reliant on a few players at the top (Kate, a huge game). The "bottom 6", despite having some really encouraging shining moments (that O'Hehir tackle, Wotherspoon's increasing impact, Mahony's first goal, pressure from Rigoni), a lot couldn't sustain for the whole game. Meanwhile, too many others with more experience went missing or let themselves down in big moments - Paxman, Lampard, McNamara, Bannan, Harris, to name a few. Still, it's not often you get to measure against the same opposition in such quick succession. And if you look at the team we had two weeks and ago compared to this week, and the team they had, Brisbane stacked on plenty more experience, while we lost heaps (that's the technical phrasing). And yet, a similar result. Of course, injury becomes a worn-out excuse, and great teams can play through the loss of a few. We're just not there yet. Where we are this year (a roughly 5-6 ranked team on a proper ladder), is where I thought we'd get to last year, if not for the injury plague then. The finals experience is really valuable for those 6 players of ours in their first final. Despite all that, the result and the path it leads us on in this campaign is disappointing. Our players need to be more ruthless, better able to own the big moments and bounce back from adversity (umpire lottery included). On the plus side, the continued push into the last quarter was a good sign, I thought, and if there'd been more players with enough left, especially to tighten up down back, who knows. The deficiencies aren't going to go away overnight, but we can hope for a lift from several players and another step forward for the young brigade. Time to fire up now and give it a red hot crack!

Avg. games experience of teams as selected (Round 11 comparison): Melb: 49.9 (46.1) Bris: 67.0 (59.3) Brisbane have 1 player aged 23 and under, the Dees have 10. Ins and outs compared with R11: Melb: IN - Gall, D.Taylor, OUT - Chaplin, Ebert Bris: IN - Hampson, Koenen OUT - Boltz, Wright First finals game: Melb: Gall, Mahony, O'Hehir, Rigoni, S.Taylor, Wotherspoon Bris: Davison, Dooley Things look a little dire on paper. But we throw all of that out the window at the first ball-up! Go Dees!

Snuck in with 6 wins, one of which was against the top 8. Though I guess we can hardly talk in that regard!

Catching up on this thread. That was a rollercoaster! 😥 Based on @Harvey Wallbanger intel, I did suspect we were probably playing selection games even naming her in the first place, sadly.

I think it's another example of something that plagues the marketing of AFLW in general. The AFL and clubs (especially Victorian ones) are used to a very enthusiastic and almost captive market that's willing to put up with a lot. Like, I'm sure we can all list many things that annoy us about the management of the men's league, from umpiring to fixturing and so on. The difference is that, the support is so established, that fans are willing to ignore quite significant issues because they're so wedded to their team/the league, so many will turn up to even poorly planned events. For AFLW, they're in the very early days comparatively of building a fanbase, and yet they often do things that would work in the men's, seemingly without thinking about how they might not translate. I won't hold my breath on the AFL admin getting it together, but hopefully the club at least learns from what hasn't worked with events like this. I would say that there have been some successes in this regard, particularly the match-day experience at Casey (facilities, "activations" - helicopter aside) has gone up another level this season, once you're actually there.

Yeah, I can understand they want to build a vibe around finals. But it seems like a strange choice to put resources (mostly aimed at kids?) into a weekday training during term time. That is, if the aim is fan engagement. And if you want numbers for that, it requires more lead-time than a few days, which obviously can't be done for a finals event unless finals are locked in early. If it's to reward those who always turn up, well that's nice and deserved, but I suspect they don't need the bells and whistles! What would make sense to me for the kind of "family day" open training that's meant to build members and engagement, is to have it on a weekday mid-season during the school holidays, ideally close to a few home games. It's very possible that I missed such an event earlier in the season.

Squad announced: afl.com.au/aflwAFLW AA SQUAD: Roos dominate, star goalkickers miss, youn...After an unbeaten home and away season, the Kangaroos dominate the AFLW All-Australian squad of 42 playersSquad members by club6 - North Melbourne 4 - Brisbane 3 - Carlton, Fremantle, Geelong, Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Sydney 2 - Adelaide, Greater Western Sydney, Hawthorn, St Kilda 1 - Collingwood, Essendon, Gold Coast, Richmond, West Coast, Western Bulldogs Melbourne DemonsMaeve Chaplin Tyla Hanks Kate Hore

And just named in the AA squad.

This is especially annoying when they've advertised the pre-final training in emails and made a push for people to come along.

It'd be a tough call. Who'd you bring in? (Sincere question, not having a go!)

It's true re: the negativity. I know for myself, at some point I became a much harsher marker - it's partly trying to compensate for the soft fixture and partly because I do have high hopes for what this team can achieve in the next few years. But it's a good reminder to keep celebrating the good stuff! I've drifted from "refusing to think about it" mode into "what can we get for her" mode, which is a sure sign that I'm in deep denial about how much this would upset me haha. It's a really pointless defense mechanism 😆

Ticketing info: The member pre-sale period for Week 1 of the 2025 NAB AFLW Finals Series is on Monday 3 November 12pm. General public tickets will go on sale at 2pm.

So good. And lots of 100s coming up with Mick's 100th the game after and some 100 game milestones hopefully in the next few years. Actually, if anyone's looking to handcraft a sign, "100" has some good upcoming re-use value!

And she isn't as quick as she was. Or perhaps, players in general have become quicker. A bit of both probably. She also used to be able to capitalise against the weaker teams' lesser defenders in marking contests. Less able now. To be fair, she is somehow only still 23, so plenty of opportunity to reinvent herself or be used differently. I do wonder how the coaches see her role.

Happy 100th MFC AFLW game! Go Dees!

It's stuff like this that makes me excited for what she could be. I felt she lacked a little aggression and confidence coming at the ball last night, but she generally makes smart decisions like this when she has it and I'm always surprised by some of her neat field kicking. Weather forecast looks a little dicey so we might get Casey conditions regardless 🤣 If Banno hasn't learnt to tackle yet I doubt she ever will haha. It was definitely easier to let slide previously because of her other attributes and X-factor. I was surprised to see that statistically (not the be all and end all, of course), she's about on par with last season. The difference is fewer marks and goals (12 compared to 8 total) but more goal assists. But agree, you never know when she'll light it up and historically has been a player that loves finals.

6 Hanks 5 Zanker 4 Harris 3 Heath 2 Hore 1 Gillard

To borrow the words of others, this sums it up for me! I felt that our players' marking ability pretty much deserted them, which cost us down the line. I also thought we were really shaky with ball in hand - and struggled to GET it in hand - at times. And there were some diabolical turnovers by foot. Prespakis is a jet (and the umpires love her). I'm glad our final match-up was against a real midfield though. The weaknesses are obvious and honestly probably difficult to rectify at this point... But if you'd told me we'd finish top 2 at the start of this season, even with the easy fixture factored in, I'd have been happy with that (especially considering, yes it's no excuse, but injuries). If we'd played every team, I think we'd be placed around 5th-8th. Though I think we'd have worked into a longer season... From here it's about winning. Doesn't have to be pretty. One of the positives was that we were on the right side of scoring accuracy for once, thanks particularly to Zank's 4.0. At halftime there were some players who really needed to lift. Hanksy was one and responded in a big way. She'll need some friends in the next few weeks. Relatedly, was it a mirage or was that Purcell I saw getting up to a light jog across the field back to the coaches box at one point? If true, a long way to go, of course, but good to see for 2026! I also loved Gillard's goal. All the Dees fans were positioned behind her and very aware that the handpass from Fitzy was on, so there was a great buildup. And a big cheer off for her soon after. We've had Rigoni, Chaplin and Gillard break through in the last three weeks, so who's next (just to distract us from that other goalkicking milestone 😅)? For those playing at home, the listed Dees without a goal are: Colvin, Dethridge, Ebert, Hose, Mahony, O'Hehir, D.Taylor, S.Taylor...I think that's it.