LEAST RESISTANCE by KC from Casey

[Demonland 64,391]

The Casey Scorpions' horror story continued when it suffered a second consecutive loss of in excess of 80 points in front of a home crowd at Casey Fields on Saturday.

What made it even more embarrassing was that it was supposed to be a special day coinciding with the club's Pink Ribbon Day in aid of Breast Cancer awareness. Unfortunately, the game will be better known as the day on which the team meekly capitulated conceding more than half a century in points before it opened its account and, but for a few goals late in the game, it managed to avoid going into the record books with its lowest ever score.

Once the skipper lost the toss and the team was invited to kick into the teeth of a stiff gale and the opposition blasted its way to a lead of four goals in the first ten minutes, there was nothing more than the least resistance from this poor bedraggled group which boasted 12 AFL listed players in its ranks (admittedly a few are coming back from injury layoffs) against a group that contained strong match hardened bodies and players heavily committed to a cause.

"What is wrong at Casey?", many will ask and the answer is that the money is not there to build or retain a list of players to sustain you in a tough, high standard competition like the VFL where you are only as strong as your weakest link. When you're relying on eight or nine kids in their first or second seasons of senior grade football, some with a handful of games and some who can't even boast a VFL style pre season, you're in trouble to start with. If you don't have the back up in experienced hardened bodies from your AFL contingent, then you're in even worse strife.

The Scorpions simply couldn't defend properly against the tide in the opening quarter and when the Seagulls kicked the first goal of the second with coach Rohan Welsh's quarter time spray still deeply embedded in their minds, their confidence was shot to pieces.

A few tried and worked hard to defend their honour. Jay Kennedy-Harris picked up 31 touches and effected some great saving smothers and tackles and Luke Tapscott played his best game for the season. Sam Blease, who is a classy, attacking footballer and has spent the season honing his defensive skills battled hard against the odds and put in some very good efforts, particularly late in the game. But in the absence of injured Casey forward Tim Smith and with Jack Fitzpatrick required to ruck, there was no forward line so that when the players retired to the huddle at the final break, they had scored only a single forlorn goal for the entire day and that figure extended back another quarter if you count their 0 - 9 goal last term effort from a week back at Box Hill.

The thing was that last year they were relying on the likes of big Jake Spencer and at least another big man in the ruck, Jesse Hogan in a key forward post, James Sellar and Cam Pedersen in key positions, strong ball magnets in James Magner and Tom Couch in midfield assisted by VFL hard nuts in Matthews, Nicholls, Petropoulos and Gent. For one reason or another, they are not in the team and without them, the competitive spirit has been wasted away.

Perhaps Melbourne might be able to do better for itself if it goes the way of next week's opponent Richmond, which it meets at Punt Road next Saturday morning at 11.00am. In order to do that and better itself it will need to raise substantial funds for its own VFL licence as well as a squad of about 20 back up players of suitable standard and an infrastructure and staff to support the venture. Then, it will also need to walk away from the Casey/Gippsland area and a long term commitment to one of the fastest growing regions in the country.

The other alternative would be to invest some hard work and money to get Casey working as a going concern in the way Box Hill is working for Hawthorn but it's easier these days just to shrug one's shoulders and walk away.

2014 Peter Jackson VFL

Casey Scorpions 0.0.0 1.3.9 1.3.9 4.6.30

Williamstown 7.8.50 8.10.58 15.12.102 16.14.110

Goals

Casey Scorpions Blease 2 Best Page

Williamstown Conway 5 Anastasio 4 Davies 2 Fahey Hetherington Lambert Marcon Owen

Best

Casey Scorpions Kennedy-Harris Tapscott Clisby Georgiou Corry Blease

Williamstown Carr Meese Davies Masters Banner Owen

Statistics

* Sam Blease 2 goals 22 disposals 19 kicks 3 handballs 1 marks 6 tackles 99 Dream Team Points

* Mitch Clisby 19 disposals 13 kicks 6 handballs 4 marks 1 tackles 69 Dream Team Points

* Michael Evans 11 disposals 4 kicks 7 handballs 10 tackles 62 Dream Team Points

* Jack Fitzpatrick 9 disposals 7 kicks 2 handballs 4 marks 4 tackles 46 hit outs 97 Dream Team Points

* Alexis Georgiou 19 disposals 12 kicks 7 handballs 6 marks 6 tackles 93 Dream Team Points

* James Harmes 15 disposals 8 kicks 7 handballs 3 marks 6 tackles 73 Dream Team Points

* Jay Kennedy-Harris 1 point 33 disposals 20 kicks 13 handballs 5 marks 7 tackles 131 Dream Team Points

* Max King 5 disposals 5 kicks 1 mark 1 hit out 20 Dream Team Points

* Viv Michie 16 disposals 7 kicks 9 handballs 3 tackles 49 Dream Team Points

* James Strauss 13 disposals 10 kicks 3 handballs 4 marks 7 tackles 76 Dream Team Points

* Luke Tapscott 31 disposals 16 kicks 15 handballs 1 marks 5 tackles 100 Dream Team Points

* Jimmy Toumpas 1 point 14 disposals 11 kicks 3 handballs 1 marks 3 tackles 1 hit out 54 Dream Team Points

The Casey Development League team was way out of its depth against Williamstown.

2014 AFL Victoria Development League

Casey Scorpions 2.2.14 2.3.15 4.9.33 4.9.33

Williamstown 2.2.14 6.9.45 8.9.57 17.13.115

Goals

Casey Scorpions Anderson Drew Gawley Jackson

Williamstown Nixon 4 Flack 3 Gallucci Mead 2 Bese Bugeja Cashman Merlo Nastasi Walshe

Best

Casey Scorpions Drew Thomas Paredes Symons Lang Godfrey

Williamstown Bench Hayes Adams Walshe Nixon Gallucci

[Undeeterred 2,816]

Ouch.