DemonDave

Mcstay is, ahem, Mcstaying at the Lions for another 2 years, signed a new deal less than a month ago.

First time we've ever won the week after hosting a Darwin game... I specifically watched at the ground who it was that was to be the 7th defender charging into the square at the first bounce and what impact they'd have. It was of course Nibbler, and sure enough he got the first disposal off. Notice that he then also works his way all the way down the ground to be poised to score our first metres from goal if they have allowed the advantage for Tommys free kick. Nibblers workrate is extremely impressive I'm glad he's translating that Casey form that i saw last year into the seniors.

The Sporting Globe has hosted the last two interstate games, Gold Coast and West Coast, and they've been enormous nights there, been to both. It's the next best thing to a social club, as you get to share the euphoria of a win, or the emotional roller coaster of a loss, with like mindeds. The beer selection there is awful (they did have David Neitzs' beer, Brewmanity Social Beast on for the first game but not the 2nd) but members do get 20% off drink prices so that helps parlay the indifferent range.

Every time I've been down to Kardinia Park the last 5 or 6 years the price for a ticket for travelling fans has been at least $50 for lousy seats in a forward pocket. I assume it will only be more extortianate now they have the new works to pay off. (not to mention all of the Government money they somehow also received...) AFL Crowds average attendances for 2017 are: Team Games Total Average Richmond Tigers 13 665,480 51,191 Collingwood Magpies 13 640,351 49,258 Essendon Bombers 13 622,174 47,860 Carlton Blues 13 539,638 41,511 Melbourne Demons 13 536,315 41,255 Hawthorn Hawks 13 487,703 37,516 Adelaide Crows 13 482,369 37,105 Geelong Cats 13 460,108 35,393 Western Bulldogs 13 459,540 35,349 West Coast Eagles 13 444,637 34,203 Sydney Swans 13 444,035 34,157 Fremantle Dockers 13 417,125 32,087 Port Adelaide Power 13 404,155 31,089 St Kilda Saints 13 394,870 30,375 North Melbourne Kangaroos 13 341,379 26,260 Brisbane Lions 13 262,378 20,183 GWS Giants 13 247,404 19,031 Gold Coast Suns 13 183,943 14,149 Looking at those numbers, there's no way Aints or Norf could justify their inflated gate prices. North only in front of the two franchises and the struggling Lions.

Hard to believe its the same player that I saw for the first time play VFL at Vic Park in 2015, back then he looked gangly, ungainly and I barely saw a hint of the blistering pace and ability to take the game on. It was early days then of course, after almost 2 full years of injury wilderness and most of us barely even knowing what he looked like let alone how he played, but he's been a superb win for our recruiting staff and their associated scouting networks... Just love to watch his ilk play, taking the game on and the crowd roaring in anticipation!

A ripping bloke to sit down and have a beer with and talk demons, this is a terribly shocking revelation. RIP Hibby, you'll be sadly missed.

You beat me to the punch here WJ, 3 of the more interesting footy/sport writers gone from the Age in the last 6 months! Add Peter Hanlon to that list sometime last year and Jesse Hogan with his cricket articles due to medical reasons... Wonder if they give Leaping Larry L's column the old heave ho as well, he's about the interesting writer left, albeit in an abbreviated humorous column rather than full blown journalism. At barely 40 pages most days, and an exorbitant cover charge daily, it's getting harder to justify it.

Mitch White is still only a rookie anyway, so that needs to be factored in when discussing in/outs

If, like me, you're over 30, the good news is you would qualify as a "senior" in this Counter-Strike tournament! https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/05/dreamhack-hosts-seniors-competition-for-counter-strike-players-over-30/ Let the good times roll!

Yep this is league wide, here's the whole table, Taylor Walker leads it and he's equal 2nd with Selwood, Gray and Fantasia: http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_player_rankings?year=2017&rt=LT&st=GA

His form this more has been at a consistently high level, all the more remarkable that he recovered from that hamstring injury in the JLT. Here's our leading goal assists stats for the year, for someone who asked: Rank Player Games Total 2 Christian Petracca 8 11 10 Clayton Oliver 8 8 58 Jeff Garlett 8 5 58 Nathan Jones 8 5 58 Mitchell Hannan 7 5 58 Alex Neal-Bullen 6 5

Not to mention the AFL listed Newton, Terlich, Michie et al. We were regularly racking up 500 disposals last year with all of these plodders who, while not upto it at AFL level, were dominant at VFL level, most of them consistenly getting over 30 possies a week. Add in the fact that last year we had Jake Spencer in the ruck dominating down there every week, Tim Smith consistently clunking marks next to Weideman, occasional cameos from Dawes and the likes of Salem, and the emergence of Joel Smith, and there's a huge void of experience and polish down at Casey this year compared to last. I'm not surprised by their drop off in form at all, remember last year was one of our best years injury wise in a long time

I dont understand the rationale of scheduling all these Casey games at night either. Not only is the lighting barely adequate for a training session, let alone a VFL game, so poor is the visibility over the other side of the ground. It's also significantly colder in the middle of winter at night than during the day, thus more dew and obviously less spectators. I've been a couple of times but doubt I will this year at night so poor is the viewing and the quality of play. Whose decision is it to schedule this many of our home games at night, the league because we are one of the few teams to have lights, or is it a Casey initiative to try and be a bit different? Thanks for the report though Melon22

What's offensive is convicted cheating neanderthals like Ricky Nixon's opinion on Daisy

He's averaging 14 possessions, 4 marks, 20 hitouts and 0.5 goals a game this year. Spencer in his one game has 13 possessions, 4 marks, 15 hitouts and 2 goals a game. If you think these differentials require us tagging him, then you've been sucked in by the Richmond hype train.

Half a BILLION hours wasted watching Sandlers latest Netflix exclusives, apparently! http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/17/15331674/netflix-adam-sandler-movies-half-a-billion-hours

Anyone else catch the end of afl 360 tonight? They had an eye opening interview with our assistant coach Craig Jennings, who in the pre-season after considerable urging went to our club doctor who found a melanoma in between his ear and temple. If he'd procrastinated and put off catching up with the doc any longer it would've spread, so luckily he'll pull through. He's very highy rated throughout the league's coaching circles and its the first time I've ever seen him interviewed. Good luck to him in his recuperation!

A few years ago I got kicked out of the MCG for allegedly swearing in their presence, had as many witnesses around me willing to tell the security guards otherwise, but no they dragged their supervisors down, and was promptly told by them that the employees heard me swear. So they've blatantly lied to their boss, ignored all the witnesses pleas, and kicked me out (We were already 10 goals down to West Coast so I didnt miss much). Needless to say the ineptitude of the Securecorp grunts and their supervisors was farcical, they had no logical thought patterns for assessing the situation, merely as someone has mentioned what they were told on their short mandatory course as preferred action to follow. An polite email the Securecorp early the next week, with a request for explanation of the situation was met with an automated response email, and then I unsurprisingly never heard back from then again. An more underskilled, unprofessional group of employees I've never seen

Except, you know, the top 6 highest rated shows last year were sport, and 9 out of the top 12. For those with Foxtel Satellite, rather than cable connections, there's also restrictions on which of the secondary channels the FTA networks transmit due to bandwidth restrictions, so until recently they couldnt get 7Mate, now they cant get 7Two as a tradeoff.

Disappointing day out for the team formerly known as the Scorpions today. This year was always going to see a vastly different looking Casey side, having lost the experience and nous of Dunn, Grimes, Terlich and Garland, as well as the ball winning abilities of Michie, Newton and Matt Jones. Most of this group of players were mainstays and consistent regular good players last year, and they've been replaced by Under 18 and local players essentially. Add in our current MFC injury list that's in double figures,and I was always a bit hesitant of our chances today. Nevertheless, a bright opening quarter where we dominated around the ground, offering great forward pressure to keep the ball down there, and a midfield having the run of play, despite not winning many ruck hitouts, and we probably should've been further than a goal in front, Williamstown made the most of their limited forward thrusts. At quarter time, where coach Plapp really only highlighted two players for sloppy play in Tom Baker and Bayley Fritsch, all seemed rosy. However, from the start of the 2nd quarter, and for the rest of the day, Willi proceeded to show more intensity than us around stoppages, aided by the dominance of Meese at the hitouts, to simply outclass us in general play and ran out deserved winners. Plenty to ponder for Casey, although next week's opponent North Ballarat are coming off a 190 point loss, and look even worse than some of the latter day Frankston sides. Here's my 2 cents on todays MFC listed players: 37 Dion Johnstone - I only noticed he was playing late in the 2nd quarter, went on to have zero influence on the game, extremely disappointing. 38 Tim Smith - Started up forward, wasnt a good day for tall forwards with the service they were getting, so moved onto the ball ten minutes into the 3rd term where he had a bit of impact as a bullocking onballer. 41 Mitch White - Played a pretty typical game for him, lots of intercept spoils, using his judgement to get to contests and take timely marks, but will really be missing the better players he had around him last year (as a comparison his compadres this year are the inexperienced Moncrieff and Hillard) 45 Dec Kielty - A quiet day, started in the ruck and didnt have much influence on the contest throughout. Was moved to be a permanent forward for the last term, but after having both legs worked on during that break, looked to tweak a left hammy early in the last. Came back on but not a great day. 48 Cory Maynard - First time I've seen him go, and was impressed with him, a very good size, started on the ball and not afraid to throw his weight around, but when he does do this tends to be a bit rash. Accumulated possessions at will, moved to good ground position, and has a good workrate. One to watch. 54 Jack Trengove - The best onballer for us, his workrate to get to contests and do the 1%ers was enormous. His disposal however, doesnt hurt teams that much, so while he accumulates, he doesn't cut teams to ribbons like say an Oliver can do. Will be thereabouts for selection based on this game though. 57 Jay Kennedy-Harris - Started brightly involved in lots of forward pressure acts, then went a bit quiet for the 2nd & 3rd qtrs before finding it a bit more in the last, had his arm pretty heavily bandaged from his broken arm, only an OK game from him. 64 Angus Brayshaw - Was one that I wanted to really step up today to be in the selection mix, but he didn't do it. Just didnt seem to have the intensity expected, and while he still got a bit of it, was easily shaded by Trengove. Someone who appears to be going through the motions rather than demanding a place. 65 Cam Pederson - Pedo was, after Hibberd, our most influential player on the ground. He made himself a target, worked tirelessly all over the ground to be involved and was very good. Ruckwork, like Kieltys, as only average against taller opposition. Would surely come in for Weideman though. 69 Ben Kennedy - A slow start, barely noticed him in the first term, was more than made up for with his final 3 qtrs, he worked his butt off, got in an under for hard balls, ran and lead countless times in good position that went unrewarded by teammates probably due to his size. Our 3rd or 4th best player in the end. 91 Michael Hibberd - Best on ground for us by a country mile, was a wall in defence today, and was constantly the focal point as teammates looked to him to use his long raking left foot to get us out of trouble in defence. Would've gained around 7-800 metres for us. I suspect that he may have been our 7th man in defence, along the lines of the way Melbourne play, at times, and he has the perfect skillset for this role. Probably the last time we see the #91 play for Casey this year. Special mention to Angus Scott with 4 goals whose skills looked as sharp as ever and Ed Morris who was a rock across the half back line and barely wasted a posession.

Maynard may be in trouble for that hit on carr of Willy in those last free seconds of that half, he was retaliating for a big crunching (but legal) bump the player did on BenKen. Trenners the first one in to fly the flag in the ensuing scrap. Williamstown clearly got a rocket at 1/4 time they lifted their intensity noticeably that quarter. Best for us without seeing stats would be Hibberd (a clear class above this level) , Trenners, Maynard, Morris and Pedo

I would've thought a goal advantage to the bouncy castle end from where I'm sitting on the boundary

Whoever the genius was at Williamstown who decided erecting a giant inflatable bouncy castle in that pocket, thereby blocking the view of the only scoreboard at the ground for most people on this wing should be hung drawn and quartered, diabolical planning! Good quarter against the breeze

Jimmy Munro named in the leadership group but picked in the twos? Also shocked to see Dyl Collis miss out on a spot, both had great second halfs to last year. Any idea if these two have missed chunks of the pre season, or merely out of form?

2 outta 3 aint bad! Haha. Seriously surprised that Brayshaw got dropped after 1 bad game, but I'm all for keeping our guys on their toes.