fr_ap

He's not adjusting to the speed - and that's okay....but he shouldn't stay in the team. Needs time at Casey, he was coming from a long way back compared to fellow draftees of his year. What I don't understand is why he's never been given a role as a mid at Casey. It'll be hard... he'll be gassed....but with his size and power (those asking for a trait - it's this), he just needs to be a mid long term. They thought he had huge scope to improve - hard for anyone to improve as a half forward that might see the ball 10 times if you're lucky in the world's worst forward line. Last night they asked him to play the sparrow role....Tom was given a long time to figure that out. It's not exactly a starring role anyway...one of our predicaments is Sparrow now isn't capable of being even a B grade mid. I actually think Kolt has more attributes than Sparrow and is capable of better clearance work - but he's very raw. I haven't given up on him and can occasionally see what the recruiters saw. He'll need time, practise, fitness, and more importantly plenty of exposure to the ball. We made this mistake with Sparrow who was deprived midfield time in order to be a tackling half forward....sticking to Oliver, Viney, Petracca in the midfield. It's run its race. I want to see us start to blood our next midfield, including Kolt and Langford in there. Honestly our 'big 3' helped win a flag but have a lot to answer for. Brayshaw came close to winning a Brownlow and we couldn't even fit him in there.

A big part of this is the messaging and narrative from the president, Goodwin and the FD, and the leadership group. They show up against better opponents and start slow against poorer ones because as the club has been saying, they still think they're a top 6 team. They view teams like carlton as below them and don't take the challenge as seriously. But when we need to travel to Brisbane or face down Sydney? No worries. Demon time. This is all reinforced by picking the same premiership players despite prolonged form slumps, not holding them to high standards, not going after any senior talent to add to the team (because we don't need it, right?) and so on. Through the last couple of successful years we have allowed arrogance to fester - entrecote, Langdon/Mays comments on Collingwood - I don't usually buy into this stuff being important - but in hindsight I think there has been a clear trend of the club holding onto the past and being in denial of what is now staring us in the face with two consecutive bottom 4 finishes. The penny won't drop until Goodwin moves on, Gawn retires, or the old guard actually get dropped. It happened recently with Lever - it should have happened with Clarry, Trac, May, Salem, and others at various times. The FD no doubt justify that 50% May output is still better than Jed Adams...which couldn't miss the point more. Adams isn't paid to be May, and it's not his role. it is May's role, and he's not been performing in it. Sends the wrong message to both May and Adams. Rinse and repeat for the likes of Laurie in place of a Trac, Clarry or Viney. It's all broken and [censored] about - and it's a clear outcome of poor leadership and a bad FD.

The sad part is this can and will get a lot worse over the next couple of years. For years now we have gambled our future on the present. That present is not delivering and is about to become the past when Gawn declines, one of Trac or Clarry exit, Tom Mac/Melk retire, Viney retires, Salem retires. May has already declined and at this point shouldnt be getting games (statistically the worst performed KPD in the league this year). The game has gone past Lever. That so many of this cohort are still playing every week and need to play well for us to win is very concerning. Other than Bowey, Kozzie, Turner of course and perhaps Langford and maybe McVee, there are major question marks over all our young players. Big gap in the middle of the list from 80-120 games experience, and pretty much zero senior acquisitions from other clubs that have improved the team, which is really pathetic. I think Tim Lamb, Alan Richardson and to a lesser extent Jason Taylor (the longer you stay in that job, your hit rate will revert to the mean....we are seeing it) have done a bang average job for about 5 years now. Adelaide have taken a step this year by adding pearling, ANB, cumming to a side that had some good old and young pieces. It can be done but you need an active FD. Lo Our flag team was built on an active FD with Mahoney and Todd Viney being aggressive at the trade table, and Goodwin, McCartney, Rawlings, Roos actually developing young players properly. I can distinctly recall watching McCartney work with Harmes, who had a lot of flaws but was just given time to develop properly. ANB too. I miss when we were a connected, high standard FD who gave games on merit, consistency and application rather than reputation or potential. Kolt shouldn't be playing, it's very clear he can't find the speed. You could call Laurie a bust - but we'll never know. He hasn't been given a proper run at it in his position. He's played as a half fwd at AFL level, which accentuates his flaws and does nothing to show his strengths. Make no mistake - we have a bad FD who are not driving standards properly, coaching properly, teaching properly or making long term decisions. A good one got us a flag.

Needs to play at Casey for about a year until he's consistently in their better players. It took quite a while with ANB.

Me too. Worst day at the footy I've had.

Hallelujah Standards at the club slipped after 21. I called it then and it continues to slide.

The comparisons to Neal Bullen are interesting. People forget we made ANB learn at Casey for the best part of 3 or 4 years until he was absolutely banging the door down and we were all screaming for him to be selected. You don't need to do this with all kids - some are more ready than others, but we simply don't have the integrity at selection or long term thinking to do this anymore. I miss how the club was run in those days when you had faith they were making calls with the long term in mind. The flipside is Laurie, who is arguably showing more at VFL level than ANB ever did and still can't be selected in his natural position. We've given the guy zero chance to succeed relative to the opportunities we've afforded the Kolt so far. You could argue we have a need for forwards with presence, but right now I think we have a clear need for smaller mids with smarts too.

It's Richo that needs to go.

He's basically rivers

Kentfield looks quite good...

Whatever you think of the deal as an armchair expert, there is not a dees fan in this world who would be happy to see Kozzie play for anyone else. So focus on that - this keeps him in the red & blue, OUR star, OUR gamebreaker that every other club and AFL fan (yes, even those criticising the deal to make themselves feel better) would love to cheer for. The dollars, the 2nd and 3rd order implications on other players - none are clear right now and all are someone else's responsibility. All we have to do is enjoy when the kid flips games for us as he's doing more and more. It's brilliant news that I never expected given how things have gone the last few seasons.

Spot on mate

Post of the year

We should be thinking about him as Salo's heir apparent. Of all the players on our list he arguably has the most scope to play that quarterback role from a kicking POV and he's naturally offensively minded like Salem is too. Salem had to work on his defensive stuff over a period of years and I'd expect that to be similar with Ollie. Salem is playing well again, which lets Sestan develop in the VFL. Happy for that to continue for both players sakes, but Christian does have a chequered injury history so Ollie may not need to wait too long to get a look.

It's the hair. Never should have cut it

AJ had 5 or 6 direct goal assists today caused entirely by chaos. Same impact as good as 4-5 lace out target hit ups. His skill level will need to improve long term - that can come as he gets comfortable with the level and the speed. As a big man effectively playing 2nd ruck, his ability to compete and defend is far far more important than being able to kick straight

This is actually totally incorrect. Their pressure was over 220 for the entire first half - that is something very rarely done. They totally came to play. They were a bit impotent up forward without amartey, but Heeney and Warner both fired at different times and they still played dangerous footy through the corridor. Of all the things going well (and there are a lot ATM), I am absolutely thrilled with the full ground defensive application and intent. We are fighting for every inch, desperate on defence, all the time at any spot on the ground. Goody always said that would unlock our attack - certainly did today. It does result in messy shots - but the weight of numbers usually eventually tells. I will say we had a very kind umpiring performance - but it's not really important. It was probably a 3-4 goal favourable umpiring performance (really), but we missed at least 3-4 absolute gimmes you'd kick 8 times out of 10 anyway.

JVR still has currency. Huge trade candidate imo

Though he missed the goal, loved how he stepped up to that moment instead of chipping it to the top of the square. Good instincts and leadership

His goal was everything Jefferson is not...jeffo would have been loping at 1/8th pace back at the original contest. AJs clearly not overly skilled (his shot on the run was genuinely hilarious) but will give his all again and again for the team. It's an indictment on Jeffo that we had to go pick a mature age bullocking psycho out of the hardest working team in the VFL. What is it they say about hard work beating talent?

I agree. I liked the draft selection as he's a naturally offensive mid with an eye for goal. He hasn't done himself too many favours with the opportunity he has had, but I feel he's never been given the 5 game stretch that Henderson, Kolt and many others have enjoyed to see what they've got

Needs a trade Bill. Has some AFL level attributes and hasn't been given a fair go to see if he can develop any others. That the likes of Henderson were plucked from the VFL and played within 2 weeks was totally unfair. Guy is amongst the hardest trainers at the club and consistently Casey's best player. Not saying he's A grade or even B or C....but we don't really know do we?

It's all been said in here, a tale as old as time for us going forward. The game plan/coaching generated plenty of shots at goal from kickable positions. The coaches did their job. Including the forward coach (yes, that's right). The reason no one leads and we can't buy a goal is not coaching - its that outside of Koz and Fritsch who is mentally cooked, we have no natural forwards. Spargo is close & was ok today - but he doesn't impact the scoreboard enough. He's just not that player. Melk has great forward craft and we miss him when he's not there. He also makes other forwards better (a clear trait of a natural forward). I have held concerns on JVR for a long time, well before his dip in form - actually BECAUSE he's such an accurate set shot. It's papered over a lot of cracks as he's only needed 1 or 2 shots a game to look like he's done his job. He struggles to create separation, has hard hands and lacks lateral agility. He's easy for an AFL KPD to defend as he can only kick goals one way - a mark or a free kick. He doesn't generate any other looks because he just doesn't know how. If he kicked set shots at a league average rate, I think the concerns around him would have come to the fore more quickly

I can understand there are some who don't see it with Kolt, but I think the coaches will be ok with where he's at. The best way to describe him is that for a 10 gamer he's actually doing the hard things quite well. He knows when to lead, takes front position to win frees, doesn't often get outmarked even against very senior players and knows it's his job to bring energy and pressure and culture. It's the easy things that are letting him down - I think those will come. The danger is that he's a classic utility that never finds a position. He shows flashes of being a good forward, and there have been moments as a contest mid too (one notable one in his first ever pre season match against Carlton). He's made of the right stuff though - will go a long way to giving him the best chance.

Langford makes some mistakes, but a few of them were in service of the game plan hitting up the corridor / 3 qtr kick - I'd rather see him make this mistake at this stage. He had a couple of very important defensive involvements when he was almost last man, and I watched him work up the ground to get involved in the play afterwards. Has quite a tank. He's not the prettiest player - Lindsay is an easier watch, but takes fewer risks. When Harvey he is involved we look a better team imo and he has an air of unpredictability to him.