stinga

It's not the travel, casey or the snakes. Its the bloody fence. You are so far from the action without any elevation and looking through a cyclone mesh fence, it's so difficult to make out players and especially those half way up the ground. Half have tabbards on so you can't rely on numbers either.

I went on Monday with another supporter and saw pretty much the same things. But hard to do any full report as we both thought it was all designed to be a bit scrappy. Most time the ball was just hit out in someone's direction and as soon as a kick or handball it was stopped. Deakin Smith and Turner were the pick of the defenders. Van Rooyen looks the goods. Where Jackson would go up and try and reach over to get the ball because of his leap, Van Rooyen hits the pack. At one stage he hit a pack of four and side turned his body so his hip hit and knocked them all out of it. It meant he had to go one handed and didn't get it but noone else did. Another different drill we saw was 12 small defenders and and forwards having the ball thrown to 2 on 2 (3 groups one after the other). The idea was to hit or handball to the other forward who snapped at goal The only other thing was a coach was timing Dunstan doing continuous runs along the boundary to the goals of about 120M - 150M The coach would call out the start and as he approach the end would call out the countdown 16,17,18,19 so he knew what he had to do to get there in time.

With training due to start 7th December, has anyone seen any informal runs.

Could be anything but has to find a way to stay on the park

could he put into $ terms or in terms of his choosing what a premiership would mean relating to 1. our brand 2. Sponsorship 3.Membership 4.Business ventures and opportunities 5. Destination Status for recruiting 6. Joint partnerships with overseas sporting organizations 7. Post playing careers for players 8. Attracting Administrative, Medical or Football related staff

Hunt for Hibbo. Been first choice all year.in back half.

I hope hunt is fit. We'll run over Geelong in the last quarter (They always fade towards the end as the older players struggle). We need his run more than Hibbo's bulk.

agree

Not sure whether smith or hibbo for May. Hibbo tends to fumble and seemed to get in everyones way. Smith had a good first half but then went missing after hibbo took him out. Hibbo will struggle if he gets matched up on a quick opponent, but would have bulk for Danger.

definately not under the neck

If hunt can't make it I'd take Declasse. He's reasonably quick, doesn't fumble, reasonable kick, can be physical and can take a taller forward. Adelaide would be a good game to see if he can handle it. No future in playing same olds.

I don't understand why jackson hasn't been taught to use his body to jump into a pack to mark like a naughton for instance. He's got a huge leap but tries to jump up beside and reach over which means his palms are facing downwards and mostly drops everything.

No change. They'll probably fiddle at the edges, but nothing to come in that's going to improve the team to any great extent. I thought our players were a lot better than theirs during general play. Just have to kick straight and stop giving away stupid free kicks near goal. The umpires were terrible and we should have got more near our goals, but the ones we gave away were stupid.

Hunt was our best goal kicker per game last year off only a handful of games and he needs to stay down back. If he was the best it doesn't say much for any program weve got.

was rosman injured or just have a shocker

would have to be the tallest Casey side ever

3 things 1. If we hadn't dropped 3 simple marks that led to 3 goals for them 2. If we hadn't pulled the jumper for 3 goals for them 3.If just Fritsch (and there were many others) kicked straight we would have had 4 more goals. While they also made some mistakes, it would have turned it into a thrashing.

We can't beat St. Kilda kicking 10 goals. yet we have someone at VFL level who is kicking multiple goals. Our forward line would not be any worse if we take a punt on Daw. Fritsch is the only other consistent multiple goal scorer. TMac can go to the wing and still impact the scoreboard. Spargo and Jones both played well but spargo doesn't add to scoring unless inside 20 metres. One of them has to go, as Jxn and Picket are safe. Viney should help with the clearance problems. We need the same number of midfield players as St. Kilda also have an abundance. Harmes fumbled a bit, missed tackles and ran out of legs. I like him but he's the obvious one to miss out. You wouldn't touch the cohesion of the backline

Re midfield. On a player by player basis our midfielders had more of the ball than those from fremantle, yet we were smashed in the clearances. You can take that as a glass half full or empty. I see the possibility for massive improvement. Whilst both sides ran out of legs in the last quarter we were better off because we had more players who could go through there. Good endurance runners like Langdon, Picket(surprise), NB, Oliver and some others were very important. Re crowd. my own experience was to go with friends as a guest (but couldn't)as they are afl members. The website said guests would only be allowed on low number games, yet they refused guests for our game. I tried for 10 days to get a 3 game membership. I get to the last page of the process on line and it just freezes up and then times out. I requested a call back which didn't come. I thought no point trying for general admission if the AFL are not allowing guests. Others must have similar stories.

same as in Bulldogs game - very instrumental in scoring passages.

That's just about as good a side as you could select with the current injuries. Salem, Brayshaw, Jordan, Neale Bullen and Picket to go through the middle with Harmes, Langdon, Petracca, Oliver and Sparrow gives you 10 pretty good runners that could make all the difference in the last quarter. You could also add Spargo, Rivers and Hunt to that group. Not too many sides with 13 possible midfielders. I think Petty will be the emergency - Oscar showed the value of a tall there. If a runner goes down you can cover it, but not if we lose one of Tomlinson, TMac, May, Lever or Jxn. AVB is a bit unlucky as well as the other emergencies.

I've got a few wraps for him. Yes when we had a seconds midfield against the dogs we got smashed and he was number 2 or 3 in that. But it is what you would expect. If he becomes number 4,5 or even 6 it is a huge difference where his opposition is not so good. I watched the bulldogs from level one at Marvel and he was sometimes out of position at the centre bounce where the bulldogs took the ball from their defensive side to get the clearance. Then I went home and watched the first 2 quarters and last quarter (we were thrashed in the 3rd) where generally we were on par with the bulldogs. I noticed that jordan was instrumental in the chain leading to 3 goals, so he has smarts. We know our midfield and defence is pretty ok but struggle to kick enough goals to win games. If he can do that each week he will contribute

Oliver would beat Jordan every day. Petracca would beat sparrow every day. So its no wonder they were beaten by a talented midfield of Bulldogs that has about 10 players that go through there including the wings But if they are behind Oliver, Viney, Petracca, Langdon, Brayshaw, Harmes (and apparently Picket) they become numbers 8 and 9 instead of 3 and 4. I wouldn't be too hard on them until we see a few games with them all together. But I certainly don't see much optimism in our forward line. Apart from being small and slow, who apart from Fritsch could kick more than 3 goals consistently. The guy who had the highest average goals last year was Hunt, with 2, and he's playing half back.

It was a practice game and when many of your best players are out, you take the opportunity to see what the next level of potential will show. The trouble was we lost it at the selection table. When you rely on the CHF or F/F in Jxn to be the fill in ruck, so that you just have one tall forward -Tmac and a whole lot of lightweight four footers, there is just too much pressure on that next level to get any idea of what they will be like. Why they didn't pick 2 of Brown, Daw or petty to play half a game each beats me

anyone know when the VFL practice match is, where some of the guys from rehab are starting.