After watching the VFL I've decided to reward some VFL players

B: McVee, May, Turner

HB: Brayshaw, Lever, Rivers

C: Hunter, Oliver, Langdon

HF: Petracca, Schache, Neal-Bullen

F: Fritsch, Brown, Chandler

FOLL: Gawn, Viney, Pickett

IC: Hibberd, Harmes, Grundy, Petty

SUB: Laurie

EMERG: Bowey

 

Casey

B: D.Smith, Tomlinson, Freeman

HB: Bowey, Adams, Howes

C: Woewodin, Dunstan, Shepherd

HF: Moniz-Wakefield, van Rooyen, Melksham

F: Sestan, Jefferson, Grey

FOLL: Bell, Jordon, Sparrow

IC: Steele, Buntine, Sheridan, Valentine, Cross

EMERG: Edwards, Neocleous, Gregory, Baldi

 

Bowey to play a half in the VFL.

 

Super disappointing loss to Essendon. 

They had a plan and executed very well. Brought serious heat and intent and we were hit hard from the start and never recovered. Way too many good players down on form and our backline looked like a bottom 4's with how easily Essendon were able to score. 

I just hope there was something going on with May because the game from him was unbelievably bad. 

It's a long season etc but I'm getting a bit over our forwardline set-up. T Mac is so wildly inconsistent, it's hard to fathom. I'd just keep running with Brown, Van Rooyen and Fritsch until Max comes back. 

Maybe give a small forward from the VFL a run for this game to bring some energy and excitement. Laurie for Spargo. 

No doubt we'll respond hard as we inevitably do after a performance like that. We should easily account for the Tiges given their outs. 

I'm more interested in when we come up against North and Hawthorn over the next few weeks. We seem to have this arrogance/complacency against up and coming sides who spring us. Almost as if we just don't have the same motivation levels when coming up against those kinds of sides and the unfortunate thing about it is that Essendon have executed the perfect blueprint on how to play us. And they had some serious outs. 

We need to lose the arrogance, it kills us. Every game is hard these days and I think our players lack maturity in that regard. Trac and Clarry want to play in the big games, Gus regularly looks like he's having a casual kick in the park with how he treats his possessions. 

It's not good enough. 

Next month of footy is important for us to stamp our brand and be ruthless. They talked about that all summer. Show it. 

On 4/16/2023 at 5:33 PM, Redlagged said:

Not sure that we're as talented as people assume. Take out Gawn Oliver and Petracca - great players - and we're nothing special. And clearly lack reliable forward firepower, apart from Fritsch. Can't see where its going to come from.

Mate if you take out 3 players who are in the top 10 (possibly top 5) of the whole competition from any side they'll look like "nothing special" too. That's the reason why we are talented, because we have players the calibre of Petracca, Oliver and Gawn.

7 hours ago, Orion said:

Why?  If the doctors say he's right to go, he plays

Just my inclination on the cautious side with a second game against North 5 days later. we will need to rotate some players between the two games. with his recovery from the knee, I can see Max as one that might be good to slot into the north game after the workout against the Tigers.

I can see your point though.

10 hours ago, layzie said:

Not really, if you go by half the people here it's just what we need after one loss. 

We got battered around at the back with next to no aerial help, many people including yourself have said how important he is for the structure so if they did bring him back for 2 games within 6 days, I'd  find just a little hard to believe the explanation is a simple as a doctor sign off.

So if Gawn plays the next two weeks, you will interpret that as proof the club is panicking?

9 hours ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

 

Are these the same experts who signed off on players who weren’t 100% last year? 

I don’t read everything that comes out of the club, so I obviously missed where the club admitted that.  Or are you confusing an actual fact with a Demonland “fact”.

1 minute ago, Vipercrunch said:

I don’t read everything that comes out of the club, so I obviously missed where the club admitted that.  Or are you confusing an actual fact with a Demonland “fact”.

It's actual fact. 

It's been well documented now that we had at least 7-8 players goes into the finals series completely under injury cloud.

I mean, we legit played Petracca with a broken leg...

11 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

It's actual fact. 

It's been well documented now that we had at least 7-8 players goes into the finals series completely under injury cloud.

I mean, we legit played Petracca with a broken leg...

Playing someone who is sore is very different to playing someone early who is at significant risk of doing further damage to an already existing injury, which is what this discussion re Gawn is about.

17 minutes ago, Vipercrunch said:

So if Gawn plays the next two weeks, you will interpret that as proof the club is panicking?

We'll withdraw the word 'panic' and replace it with knee-jerk reactive moves at selection.

I don't think it would be beyond the realms of possibility considering we did it last year. Both Max and Jackson were underdone in the Geelong game for instance, we did what we could to get guys back in early. 

7 minutes ago, Vipercrunch said:

Playing someone who is sore is very different to playing someone early who is at significant risk of doing further damage to an already existing injury, which is what this discussion re Gawn is about.

Oh is it now? Thanks for defining the discussion we are having - you’d be fun at parties.

We played half the team last year at various stages through injury that I mused at the time and has since been confirmed through the drip-drip of interviews and players saying they were struggling.

We didn’t need to play them all, sore as they were, and we don’t need to risk Gawn now.

We can defer to the experts that we employ but even they have pulled the pin on Lever and May this year for things, I would argue, they would have played through last year.

Brown for TMac who is not consistent 

Schache for Melksham (sub) because we want two "rucks"

Jordon for Sparrow

Laurie for Spargo

Lever for Tomlinson 

Really 4 changes. Jordon and Melksham are swapping in the 23.

That gives us Gawn, Hibberd, Sparrow, Harmes, Spargo and TMac,  if necessary, fresh for North off the 5 day break.

I haven't been able to get down to watch a Casey game yet.

For Casey Track watchers: How has Turner been performing?

I am really keen to have Turner or Schache really make their case as the third tall down back.

I am one of the Petty forward heads. I just think he gives us more physicality and is better when the ball hits the deck. Would like to see him spend more time there to settle a bit and form some chemistry with the other forwards

21 hours ago, layzie said:

Can we please not bring Max back for this game as a knee jerk reaction to what happened on Saturday?

Don't take any risks with this, yes I'm not a doctor but I have a feeling I'm definitely right on this one. Long season, get him cherry ripe. I don't like how quick the panic button gets hit when we lose. 

I'm sure the club won't risk him if he's not ready. 

Just now, leave it to deever said:

I'm sure the club won't risk him if he's not ready. 

The 'I'm definitely right' part is tongue in cheek obviously! I'm sure they won't either.

Fully expect us to bounce back and beat the tiges convincingly. I'm not buying into the post-loss Demonland hysteria just yet. Dons are playing pretty good footy and missing BB, Gawn and Lever was a huge issue structurally. 

I hope Tmac gets dropped, he's a downhill skier of the highest order and well past his best. I'd be looking at dropping Spargo too. 

Stay the course Dee's, its a long season and frankly I'd love to peak in the second half of the season rather than the first.  

5 minutes ago, Smokey said:

Fully expect us to bounce back and beat the tiges convincingly. I'm not buying into the post-loss Demonland hysteria just yet. Dons are playing pretty good footy and missing BB, Gawn and Lever was a huge issue structurally. 

 

It's like a Demonland utopia that in one day has become a Demonland fruitopia. 

14 minutes ago, Smokey said:

Fully expect us to bounce back and beat the tiges convincingly. I'm not buying into the post-loss Demonland hysteria just yet. Dons are playing pretty good footy and missing BB, Gawn and Lever was a huge issue structurally. 

I hope Tmac gets dropped, he's a downhill skier of the highest order and well past his best. I'd be looking at dropping Spargo too. 

Stay the course Dee's, its a long season and frankly I'd love to peak in the second half of the season rather than the first.  

Agree Smokey. The first half of the season we should be a work in progress. The second half is where we put it all together.

11 hours ago, 640MD said:

All it means is this week, indeed every week.  It’s important to turn up and win the four points.  Last week  no one turned up, 

missing a tall up front and another down back was not an ideal start.  Selection of emergencies not done well, imho.

Even if Brown and Lever had played, we would not have won. The effort wasn't there and many of the team were just "flat". If Brown and Lever had played, and we had lost, there would be posters complaining that we were too tall given the wet conditions and that we had lost the match at selection.

58 minutes ago, rpfc said:

Oh is it now? Thanks for defining the discussion we are having - you’d be fun at parties.

We played half the team last year at various stages through injury that I mused at the time and has since been confirmed through the drip-drip of interviews and players saying they were struggling.

We didn’t need to play them all, sore as they were, and we don’t need to risk Gawn now.

We can defer to the experts that we employ but even they have pulled the pin on Lever and May this year for things, I would argue, they would have played through last year.

The club, with all the information they were privvy to,  made judgement calls that the sore and struggling players they selected were better options late in the season than the possibly fully fit players from Casey.  It takes extraordinary arrogance to conclude those judgement calls were 100% incorrect.

1 hour ago, dazzledavey36 said:

It's actual fact. 

It's been well documented now that we had at least 7-8 players goes into the finals series completely under injury cloud.

I mean, we legit played Petracca with a broken leg...

Only one though.

3 minutes ago, TRIGON said:

Only one though.

*Insert Monty Python skit here*

1 hour ago, Vipercrunch said:

So if Gawn plays the next two weeks, you will interpret that as proof the club is panicking?

Almost!! PLAY Shackey Attacky in Second ruck roll with forward and back time!

Always have to laugh at the keyboard medicos who know better than the club's doctors and fitness staff.

was sparrow concussed in the end? if so that's he and spargo as definite outs

54 minutes ago, Vipercrunch said:

The club, with all the information they were privvy to,  made judgement calls that the sore and struggling players they selected were better options late in the season than the possibly fully fit players from Casey.  It takes extraordinary arrogance to conclude those judgement calls were 100% incorrect.

Welcome to fandom.

The proof of the ‘players injured players’ pudding is in the eating and it was a bad mouth feel watching us unable to compete in last thirds of games from early on in the season and then unable to compete for the finals third of the season itself. All the while our untried VFL team nearly went unbeaten the whole year.

They screwed it up, I and a few others saw it happen, and we get to point it out where and when we want.

It’s the law.

Edited April 18, 20232 yr by rpfc
Fixing metaphor