sylvinator

Maric deserves and needs a few games in the senior team. He will never develop if he is always in and out of the team. He has talent, let him show it for 4-5 weeks at least In Frawley Out: Rivers or Macdonald

Casey games also help us get an idea of the depth in our squad. I'd rate our depth reasonably good, but not outstanding. Bate and Wonaeamirri could all easily slip into our senior side at stages this year. Gybserts, Blease, Strauss, Gawn and our first year draftees and rookies will continue to develop mostly in the vfl but will get a few games. Plus we have Frawley, Morton, Scully and Morton who are definite starting 18 players who will come into the team by round 5 hopefully. We also have guys like Spenser, Warnock and Newton in case we're getting really desperate. In terms of quality players ready to play afl this season, our list probably only goes to 28 or 29.

Anyone who genuinely thinks that Bruce or Cheney (or Simon Buckley for that matter) would solve our issues of suspect disposal coming out of defence, they have ZERO clue. While Bruce is a good player and Cheney an honest trier, neither had good disposal. Also, longer term (even medium terms) there is no doubt that neither Bruce nor Cheney would be in the team by 2013. What will improve our issue of disposal out of defence will be getting games into Tapscott, Strauss, Bennel, Blease, Bail and even Gysberts. These teenagers are our long term future and have genuine talent. The only way to get games into these guys is by sifting out the dead wood, as harsh as that sounds. Personally, I have been happy with our list management the last 3 years.

I don't know whether Tapscott will be a star... however I do know one thing. Tapscott has had a VERY injury interrupted pre-season. He didn't play NAB cup and only played 1.5 vfl games. He didn't play any games last year due to injury so has no exposed form... and yet... he has been rushed in to the team and picked for round 1, the first opportunity the club has had to put him in the seniors. He has been picked ahead of regulars like Bate and has leapfrogged Strauss, Blease and Gysberts. It is plainly obvious that the match committee rate him very highly, to chuck him in the seniors at the first real opportunity, despite a very limited preparation. This reminds me of exactly how the match committee treated Garland in his 2nd season. I remember he'd just come off an 8-week injury leading up to round 1 and had only played one (pretty crappy) game in his first season... and yet the match committee played him, and kept playing him every opportunity they got. Why? Because the match committee, which deals with the players day in day out, can see when a player has something special and is going to be a really good afl player. The coach clearly rate young Tapscott!

http://media.heraldsun.com.au/audio/Fevagain.mp3 Anyone interested should listen to the interview linked above. The guy is in complete denial, hasn't changed even a little bit and is going to be a cancer of Casey Football club, and therefore indirectly on our footy club. I mean he honestly thinks he has a severe and debilitating gambling addition that is only limited to horses, but that he can play pokies and online poker and poker because 'he has it under control'. He honestly sounds dumbfounded why people say he makes bad decisions... i mean since going to rehab he's only played poker, played pokies, and gone off to the US for a week-long 'holiday', done an interview on the TFS... all leading him to be sacked by 2 afl clubs and his own management. This guy is going to keep making bad decisions and Casey are naive and arrogant if they think they have any kind of control of Fev. It pisses me off that our great club has to put up with that crap against our wishes because of Casey Scorpians. Next season we should withdraw all our funding, let the Scorpians rot and die, and then take over their VFL licence and remain in the Casey community.

We've got a bye in round 4. All these players except Davis and Campbell will be available for round 5. Considering the irrelevance of Campbell and Davis to our 2011 aspirations, it's pretty good that our longest term injury is only going to be out for 3 matches!

I'd have Montagna between 15-30

Moloney in the top 50 players= complete joke. He wouldn't be in the top 10 players at Melbourne.

I prefer to base success on number of wins, since we're not premiership chances this year and ladder position therefore doesn't matter as much imo. If we got 8.5 wins last season, I would think 10 wins would be a pass mark. We have to continue to trend upwards. 10 wins will get us 10th-12th (9th even in some years), 11-12 wins could get us finals

So if he isn't a superstar by the ripe old age of 21 years old, you'd leave him to the scrap heap would you. Rediculous. And if anyone wants to watch a game of the messiah Hurley playing from last year, just look at the round 21 Essendon v Brisbane game, where Jonothan Brown tore him a new [censored] one, 25 possessions, 16 marks and kicked 4 goals 6 points. AND Brown was completely injured playing with a torn groin muscle AND Hurley played on his the entire game. Hurley is so far away from being a consistently good player it isn't funny, which is fine because he's a 3rd year player. I wouldn't expect a key position player to be considered a superstar until at least 23-24 years old.

No one was more happy than Juice when the new interchange rule was announced. With the new rule it is unviable to play Jamar and Spenser at Spenser's current stage of development. No longer can the second lumbering ruckman be the 22nd man, to give 5 minutes of relief a quater for the number 1 ruck. Juice Newton is one of very few players on our list capable of playing the 'Leigh Brown' back up ruck role. Jeez Newton sucks though, really makes you understsand why the club was so keen on David Hale last year

Probably a pretty fair result for Melbourne tbh. We need to get another 6-7 players in that top 50 before we start looking towards top 4 and 1-2 players in the top 10

Hawks have taken on 2 demons who would be in our bottom 4-5 players at the club last year. PJ and Cheney. Sure they didn't spend much on them, but strange nonetheless

This is where I am not so quick to judge Watts harshly as you are. Hurley was over 90kg when he debuted in his first season. He is now nudging 100kg. Watts (4cm taller), was less than 80kg when he debuted and he recently said that he's hoping to play around 88kg this season. a 196cm key forward should be playing at least at 95+kg. And not just playing weight. Hurley was much further physically developed when he debuted. He had muscle definition, was thick through the core. Watts looked like a little school kid when he debuted. It is plainly obvious that Hurley came into the afl pretty much ready made. Watts was ALWAYS going to need at least 2-3 seasons to catch up in development. In my humble opinion, in 3-4 years time Watts will be a much more damaging and a better player than Hurley (who i rate highly)

I wouldn't be making any moves regarding the coach unless we're bottom 4 as at round 15-16. Even though I really like Bailey, I can't see him surviving if we go backwards from 12th this season

Hurley had been generally inconsistent. He's shown some flashes of brilliance, but has overall been unable to regularly influence games on any kind of level. And that's exactly what's expected of a 3rd year KPP. People who are putting Hurley on some kind of pedastle, like he's been able to regularly dominate or influence games, do not watch enough footy. What he has shown, is that he is a very classy player, capable of awesome individual efforts, and will be a 10-year great player for the bombers. Considering Watts is 12 months younger and did VCE in his first season, it's not really a fair comparison... but for what it's worth, I still believe the same thing about Hurley than I do of Watts... he'll be a 10-year great player for the demons.

Agreed. It's not great to have rookies and first year long term prospects injured... BUT... really only 3 players from our best 22 isn't catastrophic. And all 3 should be back by round 5 after our bye and maximum will 3-4 rounds

would prefer he didn't play for Casey. BUT... the only tall forwards we have on our list are really raw and developing= Cook, Howe, Fiztpatrick Those 3 guys could learn a lot of tricks from Fev. I just hope he stops being a d*ck and makes a decision to stop drinking alochol ffs

Hard to disagree with you. This year will be a balance of development and all out attack to win. We absolutely need to continue to pump games into the youngsters who won't be fully comfortable at senior level until they hit 40-50 afl games. But I do think we should expect improvement. If last year was 8.5 wins, i'm expecting atleast 10 or 11 wins this season.

To me Wona is like Jetta but with 10x better disposal

You have Warnock twice Compared to your team: IN: Garland, Bartram, Dunn OUT: Warnock, Warnock, Gysberts

Green, Davey, Jurrah, Trengove, Grimes, Garland, McKenzie, Bartram, Frawley, Morton and Wona= 11 player arguably in our best 22. - Add Green, Davey, Trengove, McKenzie and Morton + a match fit Scully and Gysberts and our midfield is stronger. - Add Garland, Grimes, Bartram and Frawley and our defence is stronger Yes, it would be better if we were winning pre-season games, but really it is so totally, utterly and completely unimportant in the context of a 24 week season, people should put it in perspective. All teams should be aiming to peak in the latter half of the season. No team should be peaking in the early rounds. We will win 10-12 games this year!

As long as we don't get any injuries, I couldn't care less about this praccy match. Green, Davey, Jurrah, Trengove, Grimes, Garland and McKenzie will all definitely be in the round 1 team. Add Frawley, Morton and Wona who'll join them in round 2-3, that's arguably 10 of our best 18! I'm not at the match, but sounds like there's plenty of positives to take out of the match: - Tapscott had a successful debut - Jetta and Maric continue to show they'll be improvers this year. Watts slowly but surely improving by the week - Another invaluable taste of senior footy for some first year players- Cook, Howe, Nicholson, Tom McDonald, Evans - Petterd, Scully, Gysberts got some match fitness - Dunn, Sylvia and Jamar all appear to be in good form and ready for big years ahead to build on last season's efforts.

Played for Scorpians today according to Cale Morton "Hi Dustin, Big Max is a good mate of mine, so I really want him to do well. His knee is OK. He played in a practice match a few weeks ago. And after a two-week rest, he is resuming today for the Scorpions."

This link has all players and when they come out of contract: http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=767361 Only relevant players for GWS are those who go out of contract this year or next year. This year: Jake Fitzpatrick Max Gawn Brad Green (Upgraded to Veterans List) Jordan Gysberts Addam Maric Stefan Martin Cale Morton Tom Scully Colin Sylvia Austin Wonaeamirri + the rookies Obviously we want to keep our whole list together... BUT. The only REALLY important ones (in terms of our long term premierships aspirations) are Scully and Sylvia. Would suck big-time to lose Gysberts and Morton and others, but wouldn't seriously derail our progress and we'd get compensation. Contracted to End of 2012 Rohan Bail Clint Bartram Matthew Bate Jamie Bennell Sam Blease Lucas Cook Troy Davis Lynden Dunn Colin Garland Jeremy Howe Mark Jamar Neville Jetta Nathan Jones Liam Jurrah Tom McDonald Jordan McKenzie (Upgraded to Senior List) Brent Moloney Ricky Petterd Jared Rivers Jake Spencer (Upgraded to senior list) James Strauss Luke Tapscott Jack Trengove REALLY important signatures are Garland, Jamar, Jurrah and Trengove. Once again, would suck to lose anyone else, but only those 4 would really set us back from winning a premiership. If we can sign those 6 players (Scully, Sylvia, Garland, Jamar, Jurrah and Trengove), and obviously re-sign 95% of the others as well, we should consider ourselves relatively unscathed. We have to accept that like all teams, we might lose a player to GWS. As long as we get compensation and its not one of those 6 guys, i'll be relatively content. Obviously we don't want to lose anyone, but we have to be realistic about who is really really important going forward.