DemonDave

From the games ive seen Hulett has the size but not quite the smarts yet. Weeds has the smarts but not yet the body size.

Another great result! Scorps march on at the top of the ladder. None of the experts had us pegged to be this balanced a side in this comp Each week we have a rotation of midfielders racking up good numbers, forwards sharing the goalscoring load and defenders marshalling with experience. We can now afford to take our time with key position prospects such as O Mac, Weideman and Hulett, giving them a good block of games to develop their craft and gain confidence in using their bodies against bigger opponents. The loss of our skipper Panozza hasnt been as badly felt as I thought it would be.

Fantastic function last night, some great speeches by Barry Bourke, Steven Smith, Richard Colless, Sam Kekovich and Tim Lane a good host. Was a pleasure to be able to mingle with some of the greats of the 64 Flag, as well as the Very Reverend Neale Daniher, 90s players and a host of other luminaries.

Has a back injury. Rotten timing as he was playing really good footy

Jordan Moncrieff was showing a bit in the 1's last year as well, can't crack that squad this year due to our availability of talls..

On the cusp of his Life Membership! Congrats big Spencil...

This would be similar to what Roos tried to orchestrate at Sydney to get Dustin Martin wouldnt it? I seem to recall Sydney desperately trying to trade their way up the draft order to snare him. Similar kind of players..

News out of the Northern Blues is McGuinness has three cracked vertebrae from his collision with Weeds. So thats not good for him wish him a speedy recovery.

Look at that, from the Full back line to the Half Forward line only 4 players that played Saturday night. And only 13 of the 22 the same. For a game not too long ago, Round 20 last year, that's a significant difference! Like the Saints game a fortnight ago, from the first stages of this game we looked far too slow, I think being at the G this week will be a big leveller.

Demons win by 73pts Scorps win by 107pts Scorps Dev win by 92pts Aggregate winning total 272 points for the weekend. When has this ever happened for us?

The way I read it Dappa is that we had one spot to upgrade, which was Wagner, then we've got two guys out for the year in King and Melksham, who can also be replaced? Very confusing when they frequently change rules on the fly.

The question has to be asked, when the AFL inevitably take over the stadium sometime in the next few years, and it ceases to be a venue that watches every dollar by hiring less gate/catering/ticketing staff, will things improve any without a private sector bottom line to protect? Will the AFL bring an end to the 'minimum number of scheduled games at the ground per year' ruling that forces each Vic club to play a home game there? Will they reduce the price of parking under the stadium? WIll the reduce the size of the Medallion Club and the like so more fans can actually go and afford to sit on level 2?

Crowd was 27,000 which is half reasonable.

Be interesting to see how Hulett goes without Weideman who has been the main focal point so far. Tim Smith tends to wander further up the ground a bit more, so may be instructed to stay closer to home to help Hulett out.

Chris Dawes is only 27. The way some people are saying he'd be better in a coaching role you'd think he's well past 30! Like most I agree that Dawes' best is better than what Pedo or Frost have to offer. Frost is miles off being a consistent AFL player IMHO. I assume given the natural attrition during the year I expect him to see more games this year once fully fit

It didnt help Rocket Rod Keogh that they gave him #31 also!

Here's the official Champion Data graph of this, it's a really fascinating snapshot, that I only just discovered last week: It's great seeing our offence really click the last few weeks, now just got to get a bit stingier down the other end....

ANB also missed most of the preseason also, so it'd be a shame if he misses a week of footy completely as well. The whole having to carry over at least one emergency denying them match practice is not good, Stretch goes from almost hero in Hobart, to not playing football at all the next week due to being the standby. And now he's not even in the seniors or the selected Casey team mysteriously..

As much as I loathe him immensely, David King brought up an interesting scatter plot graph that Champion Data use to determine how close to premiership standard teams are. It's based on scoring 100 points a game and conceding around 86. This was from Round 21 last year I think, and as you can see by the legend 14 of last 15 premiers have met these criteria. Last year we were not scoring enough, nor defending well enough. Now the updated graph for this year after 4 rounds has us much closer to somewhere near we need to be: Both our points for and points conceded totals have improved a lot, and we compare favourable to some good teams such as the Hawks (who have obviously underperformed by their standards so far this year). For the first time in a number of years, like a lot on here, I can genuinely see progress onfield on a more consistent basis, and now statisically that's backing up our reason for cautious optimism.

I would rate ANB as a more dangerous goalkicker than Brayshaw. He's got 6 in 11 games vs Angus 7 in 23. Neal Bullen's workrate in the Geelong game last year, as witnessed with one goal where he was involved in the start of a chain in the half back line and worked his way up the ground to be on the end of it for a goal shows his ability to cover territory well, and be in the right place for opportunistic goals. I think Brayshaw is best served being a provider rather than a beneficiary, such as the two long raking kicks he did over the top to Garlett in fast breaks for goals in the one game last year. He's had quite a slow start to the season while playing predominantly forward, necessitated due to his fitness levels, and hasn't had much of the footy. If you're picking them purely as a midfielder, then of course Brayshaw is picked over ANB, but I'd rather see Brayshaw play half back than half forward if he's not on the ball.

Got concussed in a marking collision, not too much in it and it didnt look like too heavy a concussion from where we sat. He'd be tested during the week you'd think...

They need to work on their identification of the Casey players though! The last goal was kicked by Rutherford, they had Munros name up there. Same with Wilson kicking a goal earlier they labelled him Hutchins, who's about a foot taller

Newton scored a goal that I saw, so not sure if these stats have been lifted from official stats. And yes, he was on limited game time as was Max King, who was also playing his first competitive match for the season. Thus Kielty took most of the ruckwork when he wasnt in the rooms getting patched up from 2 separate knocks in first and second quarters. So to lose Oscar Mac very early, and have two players playing their first hitout at any level for the year means our last quarter demolition is all the more credible. That's 21 goals in our two 4th quarters this year, fitness levels are evidently good. Garland after a slowish start was fantastic, he was running out of defence with confidence we havent seen from him for a while, and he also took several telling marks from long bombs in. After a slow first quarter and a bit, Trengove really got into the thick of the action, he's still a tremendous tackler, and very good in close. Speaking of in-close, Neal-Bullen is too good for this level. His awareness by hand in the packs is first class, as is his ability if the situation arises to quickly get boot to ball to clear it. If only Tyson had his smarts Dom would be a Brownlow contender. Terlich was easily BOG. I know it's not the thing people want to hear, but he was seriously in everything all day. Made 1 maybe 2 errors all day, so his ball use and awareness of teammates positioning has definitely picked up. White is a more skilled version of him, but finds it harder to find the pill with the regularity that Terlich does. Michie was our best midfielder for the whole 4 quarters, continually racked up stats, but needs to kick the ball longer, some of his short kicks were found wanting. Grimes was outstanding on the opposite wing to Trengove. he found plenty of the ball, and used his smarts to get forward and create and score goals. Petracca was very good, first time I've seen him in the flesh. His workrate is first class, he dropped back across half back a couple of times when we were kicking against the breeze to intercept and create scoring chains. His sheer size is frightening, he monstered a couple of Collingwood players with tackles, and his sheer presence coming at them forced turnovers also. As mentioned in another thread, his field kicking is still a work in progress, he tried to be too precise with flat,fast passes that missed targets on at least 4 or 5 occasions but he's clearly still a class above this level. Weeds was decent, a few of good leads were ignored or the ball kicked too high for him, workrate and fierceness at the contest well founded. Got most of his goals later in the contest, you can see there's a really good key position forward in him, just needs some more time in the gym. A couple of late season games a la Oscar Mac would be a good appetiser I think. Hulett only flashed in and out of the game, he's still a long way off but is a good size and led to the pockets well for his two goals. Not sure what role they have him pencilled in for long term but clearly he'll have this whole year to find his niche at Casey. First time I've also seen Joel Smith in the flesh, he seems to have pretty good footy smarts and doesnt mind a dash out of defence also. Went for a couple of leaps that had me having flashbacks to #29 in his prime, alas he got nowhere near the footy. Look forward to seeing his gradual improvement this year. Of the Casey players was very impressed with Pattison as a small backman, Rutherford continues to improve and impress, and you can see why Kielty is on the radar of recruiters, he's undersize for the role he's playing but really attacks the contest well. Munro is also a very good VFL onballer/half forward.

I love the way if Watts kicks a goal Hogan is the first one over to him and vice versa, they've developed a great affinity down there this year.

I still thought Petracca missed a lot of targets by foot yesterday, he tries to kick most of his field passes flat, low and fast. He would've gone at maybe 60% by foot, so still has to work on that. Given the form of the senior team yesterday, and with Vince and Garlett to come back, I can't see him getting the call up for the Tigers game as you rarely make 3 changes to a winning combination.