{"id":71671,"date":"2025-08-16T02:26:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T02:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/71671\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T02:26:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T02:26:12","slug":"it-starts-now-the-must-watch-aflw-documentary-with-edge-afl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/71671\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIt starts now\u201d: The must-watch AFLW documentary with \u201cedge\u201d – AFL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Melbourne Demons<\/a> captain Kate Hore<\/a> is only 30 years old, but such has been the breakneck evolution of the AFLW that she sounds like her career began in a bygone era.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy process of how I ended up at Melbourne was obviously completely different to the AFLW draft process nowadays,\u201d says Hore. \u201cThere was no draft night. There was a meeting with your list manager behind a tree at the peanut farm.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is more old-timey than it sounds. The \u201cpeanut farm\u201d is Peanut Farm Reserve, a St Kilda-based training track where Hore has practised time trials.<\/p>\n

And the list manager? That’s Todd Patterson, who is to the new documentary Forged In Red & Blue what Billy Beane was to Moneyball.<\/p>\n

Throughout the 20-minute runtime, Patterson is seen as a list manager who is \u201cscary\u201d, progressive, and as likely to pose needling questions over a dinner table as he is to fly the length of the country to play mini golf with you, which he does with the Demons’ star recruit, Molly O’Hehir.<\/p>\n

Patterson is also Tassie-bound, leaving the Demons in May to head up recruiting and list management at the Tasmania Devils<\/a>‘ AFLW expansion franchise, which will surely be the most talked-about start-up in Australian women’s sports.<\/p>\n

This makes Forged In Red & Blue particularly illuminating, not only serving as a preview to season 10 of AFLW, but as a time capsule-like document that shows a bridge between eras in the AFLW.<\/p>\n

On one end, there is Hore. On the other, O’Hehir. In exclusive pre-draft footage, Patterson identifies O’Hehir as \u201c[expletive] competitive and she plays with an edge\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we miss [that edge], I think we need more of an edge,\u201d Patterson says, scrolling through highlights with the draft selection panel. \u201cLike, at times she’s borderline nasty\u2026 there’s a little bit of magic about her as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n

With 2022 premiership star Lily Mithen<\/a> being traded to the Gold Coast, which is also detailed in Forged In Red & Blue, Patterson and the Demons were able to draft O’Hehir with the third overall pick in the 2024 AFLW draft.<\/p>\n

It signals a new era of Demons football, as the club marches on without Patterson pulling the recruiting strings, looking for its second AFLW<\/a> premiership.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the next chapter of the Demon’s spirit,\u201d says AFLW player Saraid Taylor, <\/a>reading aloud, at the club’s preseason camp. \u201cAnd it starts now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forged In Red & Blue is now available to watch here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne Demons captain Kate Hore is only 30 years old, but such has been the breakneck evolution of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-71671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}