Melbourne finally makes the finals after rollercoaster four seasons of near-misses
They’ve had their fair share of finals near-misses, so it’s any wonder Melbourne was on tenterhooks as the AFL debated how to schedule the AFLW finals. Lily Mithen opens up on the “rollercoaster” the Demons have experienced.
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Lily Mithen must have refreshed her Twitter feed at least 1000 times as she waited on the future of her season this week.
The Demon midfielder said it was her “most unproductive day at work, ever” as AFL officials agonised on Wednesday over whether the AFL Women’s season would go ahead in the face of the coronavirus crisis.
“Our group chat was going off the chain, because everyone was like, ‘has anyone got any inside word? What’s happening? Are we playing?’,” Mithen said.
“When it got to Wednesday night, everyone was a bit like, ‘OK this is ridiculous, when are we going to know what’s happening?’.
“Gill started the press conference and we were like ‘everyone brace yourselves’. Then AFLW wasn’t entirely mentioned and we thought we had to wait for another day. We were like OK, that’s all right, I guess we’ve already waited 48 hours anyway. It’s no big deal. What’s another night? Then the miscommunication via social media that it was only top two then caused a bit of a stir.”
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The group chat resolved to get a good night’s sleep and prepare as if they were playing a final, and to learn the news on Thursday.
Then teammate and AFL Players’ Association board member Meg Downie chimed in.
“Meg knew,” Mithen revealed.
“She was like ‘I know what’s happening but I can’t tell anyone’.
“Meg is very diligent and of course she was never going to say anything. We were like, ‘Meg, please, tell us something – put our minds at ease!’.
“Obviously she was never going to leak anything. Finally the PA came through with the good news – the fact that we were in the finals and everyone was like, ‘OK, oh my goodness, lets just reset, and prepare as best for this final as we possibly can’.
“Which is what we’re doing and doing a good job of it.”
It wasn’t the Demons’ first ride on such a rollercoaster.
They’ve endured three near-misses of AFLW finals, with the result of another match even delivering the blow in season one. This year they sat third in Conference B, not knowing if that would qualify them if the competition was going to abandon the last two rounds and jump straight into finals.
On Saturday they take on the Giants for a spot in the preliminary final.
“It was up, it was down, it was in, it was out. It’s very much us at Melbourne,” the midfielder laughed.
“We’ve experienced things like this before, going back to year one when we thought we were in the finals and then another result went the wrong way and we were out.
“Out of anyone, I hope we were best well-equipped for something like this. I didn’t think that the experiences of the last few years would build us up to dealing with a result like this, but here we are playing finals.”
The effects of COVID-19 also had a significant impact on the Demons’ already injury-hit list this week, with Irish pair Niamh McEvoy and Sinead Goldrick opting to return to Ireland while they still could as border restrictions tightened.
The departure of the Dublin duo was “a bit of a hard pill to swallow”, Mithen admitted, given the team’s injury woes, but there was little choice.
The team’s maiden finals berth will also include the asset of late addition to the Demons’ list and premiership player at Adelaide, Sarah Perkins, who has featured since being added as a train-on player to combat the team’s depleted availability.
“She is one of the few that have played finals footy, so it’ll be good to draw on her in these times,” Mithen said.
“She’s been a great addition and we’re loving it. I’m yet to see one of her iconic goal celebrations, so hopefully we see one this weekend.”
This week has marked just another chapter in a turbulent season for Mithen, 22, who missed the first four rounds of the season after suffering an ankle syndesmosis injury in the club’s practice match, and admits she really struggled with watching on from the sidelines.
But she had one of the game’s top players as an ally in her time of need, with Geelong skipper Joel Selwood – a family friend and mentor from her time as a Geelong VFLW player – on hand to lend advice and an ear as she embarked on her recovery.
“A two game season wouldn’t have been that satisfying for me, but thankfully the girls got it done earlier in the season, so we’re still here playing finals and I’m running around with them,” she said.
“Everyone knows each other in Geelong.
“He’s always been a good mentor of mine and he did a similar injury and got back in record time to play in that first final last year. He saw me in a moon boot and reached out … he said ‘I know all about this, and I had an amazing recovery’.
“Every couple of days, he’d send me a text with the exercise that he was doing at a similar point, and it was just an amazing support through that time. Then I learned that the guy that rehabbed him at Geelong had moved to Melbourne and wrote up my program, so there were some really nice synergies. It was great to have a guy like him.”
The team has reset after its wild Wednesday night, Mithen said. A training session on Thursday night helped to right the ship, with today’s trip to Giants Stadium the culmination of a range of emotions.
“I think we’re all set, firing and ready to go,” Mithen said.
“We haven’t made it easy for ourselves to play finals, but not even the coronavirus can knock us down.”
Originally published as Melbourne finally makes the finals after rollercoaster four seasons of near-misses
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