SUNSHINE by KC from Casey

For a brief period of time in the early afternoon of yesterday, the Casey Demons occupied top place on the Smithy’s VFL table. This was only made possible by virtue of the fact that the team was the only one in this crazy competition to have played twice and it’s 1½ wins gave it an unassailable lead on the other 20 teams, some of who had yet to play a game.

That was also a time before the gloom descended on the MCG and before we realized that Melbourne had turned up to play against the Gold Coast Suns without a forward line. Strangely enough, they consigned Daniel Turner to a 50 kilometre trip down the South Gippsland Highway. Last August, Turner booted four goals in Melbourne’s 54 point win over the Suns but yesterday, he played a blinder at Casey Fields in his team’s thrilling two-point win over Gold Coast Suns VFL team. The game marked a 15 goal turnaround from their final round encounter of 2024.

Turner led the charge with five goals from 19 disposals and 14 marks and was cleverly used by coach Taylor Whitford who moved him down back late in each quarter to combat the Suns’ height advantage up forward.

Casey had the advantage of the breeze in the opening term and scored first with a goal to Noah Yze, courtesy of a 50m penalty, followed by Turner’s first. Tom Fullarton was an excellent back up for Turner in the forward line with three goals, two of them by quarter time. The Demons’ dominance continued into the second quarter with a string of goals which saw them go to a six goal lead when Fullarton slotted through his third as time on ticked by. The Suns pegged the lead back 21 points by the main break.

With injury impacting on team selection, Casey went into the game with only nine AFL listed players against an almost full-strength Suns. The imbalance was exacerbated by the apparent injury to ruckman Tom Campbell who played no further role in the game after half time. This enabled Will Verrall to step into the breach and he worked hard against the Suns’ tall timber for his 23 disposals around the ground, 11 hitouts and 10 clearances. 

While Gold Coast slowly reigned in the home side’s lead during the third term, Turner stepped up with a couple of timely goals. The 20 point lead at the final break was still not enough and Whitford gambled by going defensive early which was assisted again by the strong marking of Turner down back (who else?), capably assisted by Jed Adams (19 disposals and 10 marks) playing what was probably the best game of his career. When the final siren sounded, it was sunshine and a well earned two point victory.

Other AFL Demons to stand out were Bailey Laurie (30 disposals, nine tackles, six clearances and a goal) Taj Woewodin with 18 touches and Kynan Brown with a game-high 10 tackles.

The Casey Demons were well led by new skipper Deakyn Smith while Riley Bonner and Riley Baldi were prolific again with 30 and 28 touches respectively and Tyler Edwards had his moments.

Casey moves on next week to a real curtain raiser against the Cats at GMHBA Stadium on Friday afternoon. The return of a few players from injury and suspension would assist.

CASEY DEMONS 5.4.34 9.4.58 13.9.87 13.12.90

GOLD COAST SUNS VFL 2.2.14 5.7.37 10.7.67 13.10.88

GOALS

CASEY DEMONS Turner 5 Fullarton 3 Yze 2 Craven Edwards Laurie

GOLD COAST SUNS VFL Knobel 3 Jepson Tsitas 2 Elliott Enders Fyfe Himmelberg Johnston Rosas

BEST

CASEY DEMONS Turner Baldi Adams Bonner Brown Laurie

GOLD COAST SUNS Jepson Evans Moyle Graham Fiorini Davies