sylvinator

I think it's a good punishment. It will hurt Moloney, but gives him the ability to work hard, but a role model unofficial leader, and i'm certain he'll be back in the leadership group by the end of the year

Watts is a long term prospect, who just turned 20 and has played 20 odd games. We absolutely must keep playing in the seniors. He'll click eventually. He's been playing a role and has done a few nice things, more benefit from having him at AFL level while we're still a developing team than from leaving him at VFL level. Plus he deserves a crack at GoldCoast, could get some serious confidence from that game

Very true. 2009 draft: Scully, Trengove, Gysberts, Tapscott. + Gawn and Fitzpatrick. Those top 4 guys will be critical to our 2013-2016 premiership teams

Some hysterical posting once again post-match. I feel like some people aren't even trying to think about the big picture. The big picture is that we will be contending for the top4 and premiership from 2013 onwards, NOT 2011. At the moment we pretty much have our best 22 on the park (minus Scully, McKenzie and arguably Petterd). We DON'T need to drop Morton, Jones, Watts, Davey and every other player. What we DO need, is to keep playing these guys, get them playing 30, then 50 and then 70 games playing together as a team. Learn how to play as a unit, develop and improve together. By 2013, Watts, Gysberts, Grimes, Trengove, Scully, Morton, Tapscott, Bennel and Jurrah will have more than 50 games- people forget they are still babies in terms of AFL experience. It is going to be a frustrating season this year for sure. For the first time in 4 years, we actually have high expectations. But we cant' lose sight of the big picture, and we have to persevere. One day it might all just click for guys like Trengove and Watts, and we'll wonder why we ever gave them such a hard time when they were teenagers, trying to develop and learn the game.

Good point. Our forwards have the toughest time of any forward line in the entire afl. Fewest inside 50 in the afl and often pretty terrible disposal going forward

haha go Juice. The guy's on fire!

We only have 4 players on the list not playing afl or vfl- Scully, Mckenzie, Cam Johnson (Rookie), Robbie Campbell (Rookie) In the long run, having virtually our whole list playing and our best 22 playing together each and every week will benefit us a lot in the long term

We're heading pretty close to our best 22 now. The only players in our best 22 who aren't in there atm are 1. Scully 2. Mckenzie 3. Petterd (yes i know he got dropped this week, but we all know he'll play 18+ games this season) As our youngsters are now starting to develop, our depth players are becoming clearer - Macdonald, Bate, Warnock, Spenser, Maric and Jetta are clearly players that are not considered best 22. They will play a few games this year for sure, but will get dropped when a top22 player comes back. Interestingly, while we used to have lots of highly rated first round picks waiting in the wings, most of them have started to establish themselves. We now have only 2 players- Blease and Gawn- who were very highly rated juniors who are yet to strut their stuff, and of coarse our first year players.

We have 4 tall forwards playing at Casey, and who'll be playing at Casey most of the year: Newton, Cook, Howe and Fitzpatrick. Anyone else disappointed that one of the 2 available key positions will be taken up by a gambling addicted alcoholic who is no chance of playing afl ever again?

Have you watched Leroy play recently. Very good player these days. Neville is our 22nd best player and will probably play at least 5-10 vfl games this season. MFC goggles on ?

I am a believer in Watts BIG TIME. But you can't seriously think hat Watts performances to date have anything close to Hurley. Have you seen the presence Hurley has in games. When he's near the ball he impacts on matches. His fierce attack on the ball and willingness the crunch contests at such a young age is great. Watts has not influences a match like Hurley has to date. No doubt the time will come where Watts will regularly influence matches. so far he has yet to influence even one game significantly.

I like Jetta, but at this point in time he is the worst out of Leroy and Lewis. Neville is younger than Leroy, i'm hoping Neville continues to develop in a similar vein, bc Leroy has become a good player

Nice article. I have faith that Watts will become a star. Watch him in the 5th season and he'll be ready to take the competition by storm. One thing I'm curious about... it is very clear from the article that Predergast had a very clear top 3 of Watts, Naitanui and Rich. He didn't seem to be considering at all any other players for number 1. Yet in my opinion, the best 2 from the draft so far are very clearly Stephen Hill (pick 3) and Michael Hurley (pick 7). It's not like nobody knew about these 2, they were upper echelon picks, in fact Hill was taken above Rich in the draft. Why wasn't Prendergast able to see the huge upside in Stephen Hill? Couldn't he see that Hurley would become a star? Either of those 2 players would have been worthy number 1 pick, yet it seems they weren't even seriously considered.

There is only one reason we haven't been big traders in recent years... it's because before 12 months ago we had - [censored] facilities - languishing on the bottom of the ladder with no prospect of finals - huge amounts of debt - can't offer big contracts - appeared to be an embarrassment of a club So why on earth would someone be enticed to come to us over say, Collingwood, Carlton or Hawthorn? I know I wouldn't as an AFL player (putting to one side my obsession with the demons). HOWEVER... I believe it could all be a blessing in disguise for 2 reasons. 1. Because of our inability to attract trade targets, we've been forced to take the path of rebuilding through the draft, and we haven't deviated from that plan. I honestly believe that the path we've chosen is a wise one, and one that could see us winning premierships in a few years. 2. But the main point... 2007-2010 was never the correct time to be trading in stars from opposition clubs, for the simple reason that we do not know what is going to be our glaring weakness in 2013-2015, when we are going for top 4 and a premiership. Collingwood are a perfect example- they build the foundation of their list through the draft. In 2005 they drafted Thomas and Pendlebury, 2006 they drafted Reid, Brown, Dawes and Wellingham and Maccafar and 2008 they drafted Sidebottom, Beams and Blair. They only became real premiership threats in 2010. In 2010 they recruited Darren Jolly and Luke Ball to fill 2 very specific needs. In 2011 they recruited Tarrant and Krakour, another 2 great trade targets filling specific needs. In my opinion, we shouldn't make a big trade-play until 2013, when we know which holes need filling in our list and because of our on-field success, we'll be better placed to attract the right players. Going for spuds like Hale in 2011 is not going to win us a premiership

I must say, i've watched Darling's first two games and I'm a little envious. I think he would slot in PERFECTLY at the demons and be ready to go straight away. He's also a different type of player to anything that we have, and his forward pressure is excellent which is something we're missing. Then again, I know I must be patient. We are going to be genuine finals threats only from 2012 onwards. We are probably only going to be premiership threats from 2014 onwards. By that time, Watts and Cook will have had time to grow into their bodies, and we'll be happy that we went the long term option. In the 2006 National draft. Collingwood drafted Ben Reid (pick 8), Nathan Brown (pick 10) and Chris Dawes (pick 28). Those 3 guys only really had their 'breakout' seasons in 2010. Basically it took them 3 full seasons (2007-9) of development before they were ready to hold Key Positions. In 2010 grand final, Brown played FB, Reid played CHB and Dawes played FF. It is also worth noting that our very own Frawley, drafted in 2006, took until 2010 to have his break out season. It is fair to say that unless you're dealing with a complete freak, you can only expect young KPPs to really take-hold of a Key Position in their 4th season of footy. Now a look at our 2 white hopes for Key Position Forwards. We took Watts in the 2008 draft and Cook in the 2010 draft. Considering Watts spent his first year in year 12, we can only realistically expect a huge break-out season from 2013, while Cook should break-out by 2014. If we make the grand-final in 2014, there is absolutely no reason why Watts and Cook can't be ready to play as important a role in the team as Brown, Reid or Dawes did for Collingwood. If you think about it, they should peak at exactly the right time the team will be peaking

What absolutely crap. Grimes is an amazing young player, who has to play in a defence under rediculous pressure. We had 43 inside 50s conceded in the last HALF alone! I feel sorry for our defenders and our forwards. Our forwards get no opportunities and our defence is constantly put under pressure from a midfield that can't stop conceding inside 50s There is only one reason for our shiteness. our midfield. Full stop.

God I hope Fev doesn't play for Casey. We've got Newton and Bate who'll play regularly for VFL this season. Then we've got Cook, Howe and Fitzpatrick who we're trying to develop. Every game Fev play means one less game in a key position for these players

It's good the Juice is playing well, because with the new ruck rule we won't be able to play Jamar or Spenser or Gawn in the same team. One of Juice and Martin will be in the team throughout the year, and if they can contribute around the ground that will be important. I'd love to see Wona and Gysberts play 15+ games this year to continue their developement. I'd like to see Blease get 8+ games to start his development. I wouldn't be against McDonald and Evans play 3-4 games this year to get a taste. Hopefully Howe if he can come on as well.

I was actually going to start a thread on this. I think Gold Coast's results this season will made us MORE likely to keep our young stars. Coming into this season the media and GC were hyping up the team, so much so that plenty were convinced they could make the top 8. They enticed the stars of the competition by saying they could be competitive basically from the get-go. Sure most people were realistic with their expectations, but imo GC will come dead last and cop 6-7 100+ pt thrashings. Watch the team completely fall apart in the second half of the season once 1-2 out of their 8 senior players goes down injured. Imo they won't even compete for the finals for at least 3-4 years. That changes the equation completely! Imo, the new equation is this: On the one hand= extra money On the other hand= living in a [censored] area of Sydney away from family & friends and the MCG, in a manufactured club with no history, no realistic opportunity of playing in finals for 3-4 years and huge pressure and expectation to basically drag the team over the line. And what's even better is that there will be 16 clubs licking their lips in 3-4 years time, waiting for the opportunity to throw BIG money at some of their young guns once the GoldCoast are back to equal salary cap. Pay back time. And trust me... very few Gold Coast players will have loyalty to a manufactured club comprised of players who all left their respective clubs purely for money.

Don't agree. I think StKilda performed excellently without Reiwoldt and were bolstered upon his return. But my argument is that Stkilda could cover his loss because all other core players played almost every game. My personal opinion is that one injury can be covered, but no team can cover 2, 3 or 4 of its stars going down. Stkilda's team is almost completely driven by a core group of 11 players- Reiwoldt, Milne, Schneider, Hayes, Montagna, Nick Dal Santo, Goddard, Gilbert, Gwilt and Fisher (and probably Kochitzke for structure). 10 of those players played 20+ games last season, most playing 24+ games. Only 1 of the 11 missed significant amount of footy, being Reiwoldt. I would argue that had StKilda lost 3-4 of their core group of 11, they would have been brought back to the pack in a big way.

To be fair, we really only have 6 players on our list not playing in the senior team or VFL this week. Only 3 of those players are in our best 22 (Scully, McKenzie and Morton). Morton will be back next week at some level, making only 2 injuries.

2 reasons this happened. 1. Rivers is a better player. He's also the 'general' of the backline and a real leader at the club. 2. Horses for courses. Hawks have 3 forwards- Frankln (198cm), Roughead (196cm) and Hale (200cm) Garland can take Franklin, Frawley Roughead... that leaves spot for 1 for either Rivers or Joel MacDonald. Simply put, Rivers is a better match up. MacDonald is 185cm, can't take Hale.

I noticed it to. But to me it was noticeable who wasn't playing... Bc all the biggest culprits of missed tackles weren't in the team. Bate and newton almost never stick tackles, while Morton and even Scully are poor tacklers mainly due to not having the required strength (or perhaps technique?). Strauss is another poor tackler. Does this show that bate and newton might struggle to get back in the senior team, particularly with our mid-sized forwards n Martin doing ok atm?

Lynch is his manager so his number 1 responsibility is NOT to give away if Scully has or hasn't signed with GWS. Let's assume Lynch knows Scully WILL DEFINITELY sign with GWS, and he was confronted with the statment 'which means he is going to GWS'. If it was me, I would 100% go on the front foot and be defensive and answer the question by saying 'nothing will be known till end of the year'. The fact he didn't have a defensive answer to that statement means he doesn't feel the need to.

He could very well be a star of the competition. You were probably one of those clowns who laughed at Goddard when he looked rediclously silly in his first 2 seasons. Or Sandilands, or looks so uncoordinated that most thought he'd be the worst player in the comp. Watts continues to improve each and every week, and only just turned 20. One thing I liked today was that he wasn't outmarked and always created a contest and at the very least brought the ball to ground. I still think he'll be a hell of a player in 2-3 years