For mine, obviously 10 wins is a tick in the improvement box. Some good wins.  Hunt, Petracca, Oliver, OMac the standouts for future.

Max Gawn, excellent season.

Viney, great season.

Hogan , 40 goals.  Ho hum season.  Body language and kicking needs addressing.

overall a good year for this club. 

2017 - 12-14 games a pass, if no serious injuries to key players.

Final word - Need to win against Saints, Eagles.  drop games to bombers and sides well below us are totally unacceptable

As for Round 23 2016 - From a supporters viewpoint, it looked to me as if this group just wanted to go on the booze and hang up the boots.  Atrocious even for the last game putting aside insult to their coach. Leadership must improve for this team to get into the 8.  I have serious doubts if Jonesy is the man to take us into the new era as skipper.

 

 

 

 

  On 28/08/2016 at 06:50, Colin B. Flaubert said:

I think with leadership it is very much a case of 'work with what you have got.'

I think while Chunk is a great role model and the model of persistence, he may not be a natural leader. There are very few Nick Riewoldt's, Luke Hodge's or Cameron Ling's out there. It's impossible to ask Nate to live up to that example as well as being, if you want to look at it in the cold light of day, unfair. It's not his fault that the rocket surgeons running the club from 2009 on wards decide to sack every senior player the club had (and handle their sackings so badly that many of them have refused to come back).

The obvious successor is Jack Viney. He is the one they send out after disgraceful losses like the one yesterday and it's clear that he expects better as a man. That attitude is great but if we put him in as captain now then I wouldn't be surprised if he went through a Jack Grimes like decline. Jack has some areas to work on in his own game as it is.

We are on an interesting next leg of our journey. Roosy has tried his hardest to start the process of making the club about the players as a group and not about an individual (be it a coach, executive or high priced recruit). It will be interesting to see if the next generation such as Brayshaw, Petracca, Oliver and Viney carry out that mantra.

 

At the Crossroad right now...

  On 28/08/2016 at 06:36, Sir Why You Little said:

Sporadic means players pick and choose when to switch on

That is a lack of leadership...

I know what it means.  As I said above, it doesn't mean we've 'gone backwards'.  We've done some of the same things in previous years.

When we've lost, they haven't given us enough.  Can't argue with that.  However, in some of our important wins this year, and there have been a few of those, they have done a terrific job.

I won't argue that our leadership continues to need some work, but again, to suggest it has 'gone backwards' is wrong.

  On 28/08/2016 at 07:06, Sir Why You Little said:

At the Crossroad right now...

think you're right

new season, more games under the belt, trade/draft to go, new coach.........which way will it go? half-full, half-empty? 

  On 28/08/2016 at 06:58, Satyriconhome said:

I am afraid to say that most people wouldn't know what a great leader was even if they bit them on the arse

Do you think we have great leaders? What makes a great leader for you?

  On 28/08/2016 at 02:17, Colin B. Flaubert said:

Thank goodness I had my Amnesty meeting yesterday. I kept up with scores a bit on my mobile but when we got 52 down, I thought we would stem the bleeding a bit and end up losing by maybe 30 to 48. How wrong I was.

We need to look at the last two weeks separately to the rest of the year.

I said both last year as well as this year that the year need be judged by the result at the end of the season. Was this year an improvement? Without a doubt, yes. Three more wins. Percentage increased by 20. Finals still in the equation until the second last round. Wins against top four teams. Hell, even 9 goal plus losses were reduced  (6 last year versus 2 this year and both coming against the eventual top two teams).

Now let's look at yesterday...

Yesterday was a slap in the face to a bloke who has copped a LOT of the heat for the playing group and effectively insulated them from a lot of criticism. Only once did I ever see PR come out and actively pot the playing group (round 2, 2014) as I believe that was more out of outright shock than anything else.He and others have worked bloody hard on making the club relevant and that is how they repay him. No one thought it was going to be a cake walk but that? That's pretty hard to swallow.

Now that that is out of the way, we need to look at what lies ahead for 2017.

Not that I was happy when we lost to Carlton and were eliminated from finals calculations but I must say that I was looking forward to the reaction of the 'finals or bust' crowd who couldn't see that making the finals this year bought the potential of both reward and risk. Reward in that it gave a young group the chance to play with the absolute best at the time of year all footballers aspire to play in. Risk in that it may give us a false impression of how good we actually are. 

We needn't have worried about a finals berth giving us a false impression of where we are at as the competition gave us a big whack and let us know where we stand. It wasn't just the loss at Shellshocked Stadium. Don't forget the team that comprehensively out played us last week also got towelled up by a team who are currently missing 10 or so of their best players.

Our challenge for next year is three fold. 

1) We need to improve at a rate commensurate with or better than the rest of the competition.  Ever since I have followed the mighty Demons, there has always been this mindset that we will improve every following season but the rest of the competition will stand still and not improve at all. This mindset needs to go.  As far as I'm concerned, only 5 of the bottom 10 (Brisbane, Gold Coast, Freo, Essendon and Carlton) have no chance of making the finals. The other 5 will be pushing for the bottom of the 8 and will be looking at ways at getting that extra 1% that will get them past their opposition. We need to be aware of this. Essentially, we need to learn to respect all our opposition (not just the top 4).

2) If the club were to be reincarnated as a footballer, we would be Brent Crosswell.  There are times when we can come to play and pull out great wins but there are times when, put nicely, we appear uninterested. Let's not go over the specifics *coughessendonandcarltoncough* but we all know what I'm talking about.

3) While some might point at the GCS match as a 'close win', we need to learn to close out games where pressure is tight and the stakes high. I view the GCS game (in light of Bernie's clanger) as one where we basically stumbled over the line. Jack's clutch goal was great but what if Tommy Lynch had connected with that kick? 

The match against the Roos in Hobart, the loss to the Weagles in Perth, the first loss to the Dawks (and you could even make an argument for our loss against Adelaide as one where we just couldn't cope with the pressure cooker) are all prime examples of this. Cooler heads in 3 of these matches and I would have had no concerns about us being ready for finals. We definitely would deserve to be there (albeit still in 8th position).

Goody, the ball is now in your court. There is upside to this team but there are still areas we need to work on. The reality is that while we have done some things well this year, there are also a lot of things that we need to do a lot better.

 

 

Good post.

  On 28/08/2016 at 07:15, big_red_fire_engine said:

Do you think we have great leaders? What makes a great leader for you?

This will be good

  On 28/08/2016 at 07:10, Wiseblood said:

 

I won't argue that our leadership continues to need some work, but again, to suggest it has 'gone backwards' is wrong.

I disagree. I think the onfield leadership of this group has been a failure for 2016

Strong Leadership would never have allowed losses to Essendrug and Carlscum to happen

Why is this Club scared of Etihad for years. 

It is poor leadership. The Jumper we all love is not valued enough. 

Roosy did a great job, but will the club now stand tall on its own?

Yesterday's performance had 2013 written all over it

  On 28/08/2016 at 07:28, Sir Why You Little said:

I disagree. I think the leadership of this group has been a failure for 2016

Strong Leadership would never have allowed losses to Essendrug and Carlscum to happen

Why is this Club scared of Etihad for years. 

It is poor leadership. The Jumper we all love is not valued enough. 

Roosy did a great job, but will the club now stand tall on its own?

Yesterday's performance had 2013 written all over it

You've changed the goal posts.  You said it went backwards - how has it gone backwards in comparison to 2015, for example?  If it went backwards we wouldn't have won more games.  

  On 28/08/2016 at 07:29, Wiseblood said:

You've changed the goal posts.  You said it went backwards - how has it gone backwards in comparison to 2015, for example?  If it went backwards we wouldn't have won more games.  

I don't care where WYL said the goal posts were, there's no wriggling out of the simple fact that for 2016, our leadership group failed to stand up when it mattered. No team should be losing to Carlton (given what we had to play for), Essendon and Geelong by 100 points.

  On 28/08/2016 at 07:29, Wiseblood said:

You've changed the goal posts.  You said it went backwards - how has it gone backwards in comparison to 2015, for example?  If it went backwards we wouldn't have won more games.  

I haven't changed a thing. The results of unaccetable losses are there for all to see. Carlton, Essendon, Etihad Stadium...

those 3 elements all come down to Leadership. 

  On 28/08/2016 at 07:40, A F said:

I don't care where WYL said the goal posts were, there's no wriggling out of the simple fact that for 2016, our leadership group failed to stand up when it mattered. No team should be losing to Carlton (given what we had to play for), Essendon and Geelong by 100 points.

That's not what I'm arguing.  Let me spell it out:

WYL said our leadership team went backwards this year.  I'm arguing that, with improvements in the win column as one example, that he is wrong.  

At no point did I say our leadership group was perfect, nor have I argued against the fact that we've had some unacceptable losses this year.  Our leadership group still needs plenty of work and they need to learn how to turn the tide and influence games more.

WYL has yet to argue why this year is any different to previous years - we had more unacceptable losses last year and even more in 2014.  Let's not even talk about 2013.

And what did our leadership group do when we needed to beat Hawthorn?  What did they do when we were in a huge hole against Norf?  These are just two examples of when they did stand up. 

Again, I'm not arguing that they need to improve in many areas, but the simple fact is that the leadership team DID NOT GO BACKWARDS.

  On 28/08/2016 at 07:43, Sir Why You Little said:

I haven't changed a thing. The results of unaccetable losses are there for all to see. Carlton, Essendon, Etihad Stadium...

those 3 elements all come down to Leadership. 

No [censored], Sherlock.  Again, how have we gone backwards?  To go backwards we must have been worse than last year, when we still had those same losses.  

As I've said, if anything they just haven't progressed anywhere near enough this year, but backwards?  Nope.

  On 28/08/2016 at 07:49, Wiseblood said:

No [censored], Sherlock.  Again, how have we gone backwards?  To go backwards we must have been worse than last year, when we still had those same losses.  

As I've said, if anything they just haven't progressed anywhere near enough this year, but backwards?  Nope.

Haven't progressed, gone backwards...semantics Wise

Both of them = Not good enough

  On 28/08/2016 at 07:51, Sir Why You Little said:

Haven't progressed, gone backwards...semantics Wise

Both of them = Not good enough

Ah right, so now you're going with 'semantics'.  You'll do anything BUT give evidence to how we went backwards.

I'm done.  This is akin to banging your head up against a wall.  

Cheers.

It might be leadership but definitely the senior players as a group have let us down. The very fact that there are so many of them languishing at casey is evident of their contribution.

Let's face it we played the youngsters because the senior players will take us nowhere. Unfortunately a core group of six to ten senior players is hard to come by. Without that core group we will not go far.Even GWS which has by miles the best list as far as youngsters goes have their core group of senior players.

I do not like naming players but there are obviously 3-4 senior players at Casey (outside the obvious ones that will be cut such as Terlich and Grimes) who are deadweight on this club.

As to the senior players who regularly play at the AFL level how many would get regular games at a top twelve club.  I suspect three, maybe four at most.

  On 28/08/2016 at 07:18, Sir Why You Little said:

This will be good

Ability to discuss EPL results?

  On 28/08/2016 at 07:56, Wiseblood said:

Ah right, so now you're going with 'semantics'.  You'll do anything BUT give evidence to how we went backwards.

I'm done.  This is akin to banging your head up against a wall.  

Cheers.

Evidence is losing games to inferior lists by comfortable margins. 

Leadership or lack there of...

  On 28/08/2016 at 07:59, Diamond_Jim said:

It might be leadership but definitely the senior players as a group have let us down. The very fact that there are so many of them languishing at casey is evident of their contribution.

Let's face it we played the youngsters because the senior players will take us nowhere. Unfortunately a core group of six to ten senior players is hard to come by. Without that core group we will not go far.Even GWS which has by miles the best list as far as youngsters goes have their core group of senior players.

I do not like naming players but there are obviously 3-4 senior players at Casey (outside the obvious ones that will be cut such as Terlich and Grimes) who are deadweight on this club.

As to the senior players who regularly play at the AFL level how many would get regular games at a top twelve club.  I suspect three, maybe four at most.

Spot on Diamond. Said it beautifully

  On 28/08/2016 at 08:02, Sir Why You Little said:

Evidence is losing games to inferior lists by comfortable margins. 

Leadership or lack there of...

You'll have to admit that Wise snookered you.

While far from acceptable our leadership hasn't gone "backwards", which was your assertion.

Rathet than argue "semantics" you should just concede the point and say "yes, poor choice of words".

  On 28/08/2016 at 07:15, big_red_fire_engine said:

Do you think we have great leaders? What makes a great leader for you?

Great leaders are born        I dont regard any sporting leader as a great lead

You can make leaders though on the sporting field   Nick Riewoldt is probably the example that most people use as an example of an on field leader by his actions, Nathan Jones attempts to do the same   difference between the two, the players and coaches they were/are surrounded by whilst they develop/developed their leadership skills both on and off field, same with Joel Selwoid and Luke Hodge     Viney if and when he assumes leadership will have been 'tutored' properly

Only Melbourne can leave you feeling like complete shyte after what was a good season. 

It's too much to ask to get lasting enjoyment with this club. 

 

I look forward to next season, and anxiously await what f-ups will happen before it starts. 

  On 28/08/2016 at 06:58, Satyriconhome said:

I am afraid to say that most people wouldn't know what a great leader was even if they bit them on the arse

My arse is fine. But realistically, we have 1 leader, the Captain. We don't have others, because of the amount of youngsters we are playing and the fact that the possible leaders aren't getting a game. 

It is something that will take time to rectify.

  On 28/08/2016 at 08:12, CP5 said:

You'll have to admit that Wise snookered you.

While far from acceptable our leadership hasn't gone "backwards", which was your assertion.

Rathet than argue "semantics" you should just concede the point and say "yes, poor choice of words".

Tell me how our leadership hasn't gone backwards (failed) when we lose to Essendrug and later Carlton when a spot in the 8 is still up for grabs?

i am all ears

  On 28/08/2016 at 08:14, Redleg said:

My arse is fine. But realistically, we have 1 leader, the Captain. We don't have others, because of the amount of youngsters we are playing and the fact that the possible leaders aren't getting a game. 

It is something that will take time to rectify.

I agree but on here   it is hold breath and stamp foot   I WANT IT NOW