titan_uranus

I can't believe people calling for Blease to come in - one decent VFL performance in 8 weeks is not the kind of form we are going to reward, we should all have seen that by now. On McKenzie, both sides of the argument have merit. On the one hand, it's very hard to deny that he's a player with obvious deficiencies. He is as lacking offensively as any player I've ever seen. On the other hand, though, that is no barrier to him improving. If he can develop his offensive game at Casey, then there will always be room in any AFL side for someone who can add that to his hardness, tackling, work ethic and potential leadership. I personally don't think it will happen, but if it does then good on him. If you still think like this, then you don't get it. This is the Bailey/Neeld attitude that got us nowhere. We are no longer going to give games to players who aren't earning it at the VFL. Byrnes has the advantage of being the incumbent. No one at Casey is playing well enough to push him out. Now, it turns out I think he should be dropped, but not because I want to give someone else who isn't good enough or deserving his spot. I think we need to tweak our structure and I want Georgiou back in, with Dunn to play forward. I can't achieve that without Byrnes making room for Dunn. But if that doesn't happen, then Byrnes probably holds his spot until Kent is ready, or Blease repeats the effort another two or three times, or Strauss actually does something, or McKenzie or Evans improve on their glaring deficiencies, or Tapscott gets fitter and maintains form. Until then, it's Byrnes.

Dunn is a better mark and kick, indeed. Georgiou is a better defender, and much better at playing the second tall.

I don't care how tall Dunn and Georgiou are, Georgiou has shown this year he is a much better key defender than Dunn is.

Agreed, though in the 'three things' I'd have said something about our defence playing its worst game for the year. If our backline had played like it did in Adelaide we'd have won for sure. They scored too easily going inside 50 and we weren't able to generate any rebound.

There was one last night where a Bulldog just thrust his foot almost into one of our players' face. That rule almost never gets paid anymore.

I find Tyson knows how to get on his left and doesn't get hampered by it much. Viney, on the other hand, needs to get some confidence in his right foot, he's much worse than Tyson at using it or getting on to his left.

Strauss has done nothing to deserve a call up, whilst Blease has had one game where he touched the ball an acceptable number of times. Neither is anywhere near close to playing AFL. Clisby, however, is, and if we are going to make changes (especially if Terlich isn't right for this week) I'd look to him.

Dunn on Riewoldt = we lose. As a defender, Dunn has to be a flanker or a third tall at best. Better yet, he should play forward.

Agree, he gets far too much criticism on here. He does need to work on his kicking and at times gets out-bodied, but he has the balls, as well as the speed and endurance, to take the game on and hurt opposition forwards on the rebound. He also does the 1%s perfectly.

I'm not having a go at you, I'm just saying that if Roos did decide to experiment a bit with Grimes, I don't think that was a good decision from him.

This may be the case, but in a game in which we were the better side, things like that arguably cost us the win. Moreover, it came on the back of one of Grimes' best games as the loose defender. Why run this experiment now? Do it against Hawthorn or Geelong where it won't cost us a win.

Someone explain to me how this is a free kick for a block, but this is a free kick for in the back. Probably because Crameri took a dive.

Good pick up. That vision also shows you how far Jones ran to get that shot - he was in that pack where the free was taken, and when Howe got loose, he noticed his chance and bolted into the middle. Huge running, so he would have been tired. The kicked smacked of exhaustion, he hardly was able to extend his leg through it and it didn't make it to the goal line even if it had have been straight. Man, watching that was hard though.

Me too. Woke up this morning filthy that we aren't winners. I hope the players feel the same and pour that anger into smashing the Tigers (going to be hard with them having the bye though). Agreed. We're a key defender short. Need Georgiou back, and Dunn probably to go forward. Agreed. I thought Grimes quelled Griffin's offensive game completely, which was a positive for us. However, it came at the huge cost of not having Grimes in the backline. That's a net loss for us. Roos needs to have learnt from last night that Grimes must play HBF, nowhere else. Find others to do the shut down roles (as you said, Bail could have been used in that role). 'Couple'? After the bye we have Port Adelaide.

Oh dear. Not only are you advocating for dropping one of our hardest working and improving players, you're replacing him with the total opposite. Blease has a lot of work to do before he gets back in the side. He would do well to learn from how Bail approaches his footy. I agree with the sentiment, but I think we need to tweak the line up a tad, which requires a shuffle. I'd like to see Dunn played forward, not back, and I think to do this we should replace him with Georgiou in defence (i.e. McDonald is the first defender, Georgiou the second, Garland the third). Move Dunn forward, which means dropping Byrnes. Might be harsh, but I think we're a better side with Dunn forward and Georgiou playing the second tall (Crameri/Williams are not menacing but we couldn't stop them).

Not after one game. The reports aside that he was soft and burnt players and gave up three goals, one game of 30 possessions is not enough to get a call up.

Whilst we had a lot more free kicks, theirs were softer and led to so many shots on goal. Theirs were far more influential in the game. Having said that, we didn't lose because of the umpiring, we lost because of ourselves.

Griffen's points come mainly from his 15 tackles. He did some good defensive work but usually he destroys teams offensively. Tonight we managed to quell his offensive influence. I think Grimes probably won the dual overall, but we missed him in defence, and I would rather see Griffen play a bit better and Grimes play across half-back. I wouldn't play Grimes as a tagger again. Byrnes has to go, and I wasn't impressed with Terlich before he got injured either (Jones deserves weeks for that btw). But Blease is not the answer. One good game for Casey all year is not enough.

I didn't see it. I thought he played a typical first game back. Loose at times, looked a little lost at times with the step up from VFL to AFL. Obviously best 22 and we need him in the side, but I wouldn't say he was good tonight.

Agreed. Well done on quelling Griffin's offensive capabilities, but it arguably made us worse off, given we couldn't stop them inside 50.

I think we're losing out at the moment with Dunn in defence - I'd rather him forward. I'd bring Georgiou back as the true second tall, switch Dunn forward, and drop Byrnes who is giving us nothing at all.

6 - Tyson 5 - Cross 4 - Jamar 3 - M Jones 2 - Vince 1 - Grimes

This is pretty much spot on. Our defence deserves plaudits for the year so far, but this was a very poor effort against the league's worst (or maybe second-worst after us) forward line. We showed what we can do last week, but the rebound we created against Adelaide was nowhere to be seen tonight,

No way. That's not the situation the rule is there for. Cross didn't slide into him, he couldn't even see Williams. He made a legitimate contest at the ball. Meanwhile that spud wouldn't even bend over to contest, just kneed him in the head. Disgraceful free kick.

I'm so angry. I guess that's a good thing, given we've not been in games for most of of the last 7 years, but we were clearly the better side tonight. It's no one's fault that we lost tonight except ours, we lost this game much more than the Dogs won it. I am so rapt with Tyson, he is getting better each week. I can't remember the last time a young Melbourne midfielder looked so composed at clearances. Those two M Jones misses were shockers, but so was Frawley's miss from the set shot. Any of those going through would have kept the momentum with us. Umpiring was pretty poor again, it wasn't totally against us like last week but so many free kicks gave them goals - the sliding tackle paid against Cross was utterly abhorrent, the shepharding paid against Frawley was equally bad, and the push paid against Dunn was worst of all, and each one of those directly led to a Bulldogs goal. All in the last 35 minutes of the game. Whilst Grimes beat Griffin, which was handy, we missed him badly down back. I'm not sure I agree with taking him out of the backline after his effort last week. Feels like we cut off our nose to spite our face. Worst game our backline has played all year. The West Coast game was bad because of no midfield pressure, but I haven't seen our defenders make mistakes like they did tonight all year. Howe has to learn to kill contests, Dunn was outpositioned too often, I thought Garland was nowhere near as good as he can be (to be expected, but he wasn't great tonight), and McDonald got towelled by two hacks. All in all, very disappointed, as disappointed as I've been in years, but the future is clear and bright. No, it doesn't. Whilst Byrnes isn't giving us anything, Blease is the last player I'd bring in.