Dante

BenKen played a few good games and then he dropped off a bit, he was subsequently dropped and it appears, played a blinder in the two's, good enough by all accounts, to be elevated up to the firsts again. It will be interesting to see if Roos does play him in the firsts this week because of two things, Roos has insisted that players perform consistently in the two's before they get elevated and has being dropped given him a kick up the ass after getting too comfortable in the senior side. If he was getting comfortable Roos may leave him at Casey for a few more weeks so he doesn't do that again, all the players must realise they need to perform at their best every week not just when they feel threatened.

Stats only tell you a small part of the story, the rest is actually watching the game and seeing what a player does with the ball when he disposes of it and why he stuffs up when, seemingly, under no pressure. Kicking the ball to a contest when there are other options, is not a clanger stat but it is a mistake none the less. I don't base my criticism on what others say or think, I base me criticism on what I see and I see most games in Melbourne live and the rest on TV. Don't get me wrong, I like Tom and have a high regard for him as a player, but I'd like to see him eliminate the obvious mistakes from his game and if he did he could be one of the best in the competition. I'd also like to see him play down forward where his mistakes wouldn't cost us goals against. I was at the game on Saturday and behind me was a former champion Melbourne CHB, he spent quite a lot of the time saying, "Tommy" and it wasn't when he'd done something special it was when he'd made a mistake, he wasn't openly critical but you could tell by the tone of his voice that her was disappointed. There are many things that don't show up in the stats columns, either for or against a player and if there was a wrong option column, Tommy would feature heavily. I like Jack Grimes, but I know he makes bad decisions at times and I know that he will, at least once a game, kick the ball out on the full when he is under no pressure. I know that Tommy will fall over in a contest at least once a match and that will usually result in the opposition marking unopposed and goaling, I know that he gets out-bodied by the forwards quite regularly, but that doesn't show up as a stat either. I know he will regularly kick the ball out to a contest and it will bounce back quite often and result in a goal against us. If Tommy wants the big bucks and wants to be one of the best, he needs to work on his faults.

Do you get to many games? If you do I'm sure that you've seen him try to take on his opponent and get caught, with the resultant free usually resulting in a goal. I'm sure that if you speak to anyone that's watched a few games they will agree with that. It has happened enough times to be noticeable.

If we dropped every player when they had a bad day we'd make 4 or 5 changes a week, that's unsustainable. Jeffy is a confidence player and a few words from the coach might be more beneficial than a spell at Casey.

My problem is that he doesn't seem strong enough to hold even the second or third defender out. Tom has a lot of good attributes, he can take a great intercept mark, he can come from behind and spoil well, he's fast enough and get's the ball a bit, unfortunately when he gets the ball you wonder what he's going to do with it, when he takes off for a run he quite often gets caught because he doesn't have the strength to break tackles. I love players that take the game on but you have to know your limitations and after getting caught with the ball so many times, you'd think that Tommy would realise that that's one of his.

Tom's a pretty big guy and is obviously as fit as anyone on the list, but his core strength seems to be poor. I've seen him lose position, get pushed out of the way and fall over in the contest, too many times for it to be just bad luck and its not always by gorilla forwards, he gets out bodied by much smaller players If Tom wants the big bucks he needs to play like a big defender not some medium back who gets caught out against the bigger forwards.

It's all relative isn't it, was Hogan in the top ten, Wagner, Harmes, Garlett, Frost, Oscar or Hunt? How did you rate your old mate Dawes and Kent, Vanders didn't exactly set the World on fire. Do you think Trenners was better than all of them, probably, was he as good as Billy or Nev, maybe, as I said it's all relative.

More likely they head off to the Gold Coast for some Ice.

Actually I think we usually have a bigger percentage of members turn up than they do, they have more supporters there, but when you consider they have nearly twice the membership we have, our turnout is pretty good.

Bernie skates on the edge and he's been close on a few occasions this year, but that isn't a bad thing, never a backward step.

There were a number of players that played in that game that were average OD and in my opinion Jack wasn't one of them, he did a good job, in his first game for two years and will get better. I recall his first year and at that time I thought we had a good one on our hands and if he can find that form again, we will. Get behind him OD, you never know he may surprise you.

Hopefully Grimes will get a look in during the second half of the season, at least to see if he has any chance of a new contract, we owe him that much.

Rioli and Breust aren't on our list so they won't be available for us next week. I thought that Harmes was a bit off yesterday and the previous week and perhaps needs a bit of time at Casey to reboot. I'm a fan of Harmes but he looks like he needs to understand that his position in the side depends on how he plays.

VFL: @CaseyScorpions full time statistics: Disposals: Kennedy 30, Newton 27, White 24, Grimes 24, Neal-Bullen 23

Jack will need a few games to get used to the pace of the game and our game plan, remember when he last played we didn't have one. He was a bit slow to react today but that's to be expected, I would imagine he was a bit nervous. He will be ok and will get better.

That's one area that needs looking at and the other is throwing the ball instead of hand balling it, the doggies have mastered it but now other clubs are following suit. Watching the game today and then a couple of quarters of other games when I got home, it is becoming an epidemic, players don't even seem interested in concealing it, they just throw it and know they'll get away with it. it appears that you only get called for it if your opponent has you pinned and you've only got one arm free.

Jack was instrumental in our first two goals today and kicked a couple, but he loses any impact when he plays ruck and if we continue to play Dawes instead of Pedo, we lose in two areas. Dawes cannot mark and won't play ruck, Pedo can mark and seems to be ok with playing ruck. Dawes had little effect on the game today and another marking target up front would have been invaluable. I've tried to refrain from criticising Dawes but his inability to take even the most simple mark today was the final straw for me.

Once we lose control of the ball we lose the game, we simply don't have the players to retrieve it.

Can we stick a tackle, we look insipid, where's the "hard at the ball" side we are supposed to be.

i think OMac shows a bit of promise and given time he will slot in ok. He's got a way to go, but he'll get there.

The best way to stop this is for the coaches to tell their players they will be dropped if they continue to do this, they have control over the players and their actions. The umpires have a split second to evaluate what happened and will always err on the side of caution.

Hawthorn, their supporters, their former smart arz players, now in the media and their smug supporters who, in the main, have never had to put up with bad times. I have a friend who talks of bad times where they didn't win a flag for about 5 years. Add a zero to the end of that and you've got the plight of the Melbourne supporter.

I thought this thread was a joke but it appears you are serious, is that the case? I'm not sure why North keeps him on the list but I wouldn't expect it to last too much longer, I wouldn't trade the boot studder for him and we don't even have one of them any more.

So was mine.

Jordie was having a shot at goal. Actually it would be interesting to see how his straight line speed compares with some of the other midfielders we have, I don't think it helps if you have good speed but can't get to where the ball is. There have been plenty of times I've seen Melbourne players tailing off behind their opponents.