Jump to content

Whispering_Jack

Administrators
  • Posts

    17,553
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    166

Everything posted by Whispering_Jack

  1. This debate has been going on for a long time now and it's all predicated on a theory that only makes sense if you look at it in general terms. In the real world there are numerous factors that influence outcomes in sporting contests and competitions - the vagaries of the draw, weather, injuries, a good or a bad umpiring decision, the strength of your football department, money and just plain luck. Imagine how different the 1990's might have been had Wayne Carey endured three knee reconstructions while, at the same time, the Ox (and a few others) had remained fit and healthy? There are too many unknowns to enable us to predict the future with great accuracy. It's true that we have to do the development time but we can also make things happen with the resources we have available ... and a bit of luck.
  2. Anyone know the record crowd for a game at Casey Fields?
  3. And if I'm not mistaken that's exactly what she was criticising Eddie McGuire for recently on Footy Classified. At least she's not the only person in the media who we can accuse of hypocricy.
  4. It would seem that the boys did indeed train at Gosch's Paddock today. Craig Lees of the MFC tweeted an hour ago as follows: From the look of things, there weren't too many spectators around on this Good Friday morning so today's training report reads as follows: The boys trained at Gosch's Paddock this morning. They trained the house down and are looking forward with great anticipation to Thursday night's game at Subiaco against the West Coast Eagles.
  5. Another good write-up on the VFL site - Scorpions Take The Sting Out Of The Roosters
  6. SUNDAY STROLL AS DEES HAVE FUN AGAINST THE SUNS by Scoop Junior An Aaron Davey contested mark in the goal square at the Eastern end of the Gabba pretty much summed up this game. It's not very often you'd see Davey out-body his opponent with ease and stroll in for an easy goal … well, unless you were playing the Gold Coast Suns. Hard to imagine Andrew Carrazzo or Clinton Jones being brushed aside so easily. That one moment encapsulated the difference between the teams. Gold Coast was out of its depth in the strength department (understandably so given the youth and inexperience in its side) and was no match physically for a Melbourne team that can hardly be labelled as one of the competition's most physically developed teams. This was known to all pre-match, and without the strong bodied and experienced Ablett and Brown, the difference in physicality between the sides was further increased. As a result, there was almost an air of inevitability about the result, with the major interest being in how Melbourne would respond after a poor performance against the Lions and how large the final margin would be. With this in mind, combined with the small crowd and the humid conditions, as I took my seat at the Gabba I felt as though I was attending a pre-season practice match rather than a home-and-away game. The tension and excitement in the atmosphere that is usually present just wasn't there this time. In the end, while a 15-goal victory was a great result, Melbourne supporters wouldn't have been too excited about the manner of the win. At certain stages of games this year, the Demons have looked all at sea from a defensive structure point of view (by this I mean "whole ground" defence rather than just the backline) and have been opened up and scored heavily against in patches. The first quarter against the Lions and the third against the Hawks are prime examples of this. And again this weekend there were certain periods of the game where Gold Coast too easily moved the ball from defence to attack and scored without enough pressure being applied and with what appeared to be some holes in Melbourne's defensive structure. The third quarter in particular was extremely poor, with the Suns managing to pile on four consecutive goals. If the young Suns can kick four in a row against us, what does that mean when we play sides that can actually compete physically at AFL level? Last year Melbourne generally became a far more difficult side to score against than it had been in 2008 and 2009 and this was a major reason for its improvement. At the moment, the Dees' "team defence" appears to be well down on last year and it is something they need to get right as they move onto more difficult assignments than the Suns and Lions. The other reason why Melbourne fans felt satisfied but not thrilled after Sunday's game is that you simply cannot draw any conclusions from the game, as the team did not play against genuine AFL opposition. I'm not having a go at the Suns as they performed okay given their incredibly young side and they will be a force in the years to come. But right at the moment they cannot maintain a consistent level of AFL intensity and pressure. They made numerous errors when in possession, missed tackles, gave away cheap easy goals and allowed the Demons far too much space at times. It was a real life example of men-against-the-boys with the Gold Coast players simply unable to compete physically for long enough. Anyway, that's probably enough for the negatives after a 90 point win! There were at least some positives. Guy McKenna said that if the game was stopped early in the last term the final margin would have only been 37 points. This is true. But if the game was stopped at half time the margin would have been 50 points. Or why not take it to the next level and say if the game was stopped after 5 minutes Gold Coast would've won. This just highlights the ridiculous spin by McKenna. While the 90-point margin was undoubtedly flattering for the Dees, over the course of the four quarters Melbourne was clearly superior and at least a 10-goal better side. Make no mistake, the second and fourth quarters were absolute domination by Melbourne (13 goals to 2 in this period) and Gold Coast was comprehensively outplayed for three quarters of the match. Another positive was that we at least showed some ruthlessness in burying the Suns in the final quarter. It would've been easy to accept a comfortable eight goal win and put the legs up. But the players kept running and spreading at the end and it was good to see them really putting a side away rather than taking the foot off the pedal as has been the case so often in the past. The midfield dominated for most of the day. Mark Jamar was again strong in the ruck and gave the midfielders first use for much of the day. Brent Moloney bounced back from a difficult week to take full control of the first half, picking up possessions at will, while Colin Sylvia carried on from Beamer's first half work with a prominent second half display. Rohan Bail continued his solid season with another impressive showing, while Jack Trengove played his best game for the year after a couple of quiet weeks in Rounds 2 and 3. There wasn't as much work for the backline this week, though Jack Grimes did provide some good rebound and was more effective with his disposal than he has been this season. Up forward, Liam Jurrah again showed glimpses of brilliance but despite threatening to kick a bag never really imposed himself on the contest. Jamie Bennell I thought was handy, his speed and spread important at times across half forward and Aussie was lively as well with two goals and some clever work inside 50. The most baffling call of the game in my opinion though was the decision to use Jack Watts as the substitute. I just cannot work it out. Here was a game where we were always going to rack up a high numbers of inside 50s and be up against a young, inexperienced defence. To me, that's the perfect game to let Watts run around inside 50 and try to get some confidence. Obviously the footy department saw it differently and chose instead to give him one quarter of footy. I just don't see how this helps his development. I would rather him play a full game at full forward for Casey than sit on the bench for three quarters at senior level. Bails spoke after the game in relation to Watts that he thought he could provide a spark up forward when subbed on. So the footy department thought we'd need a spark at three quarter time to beat the Suns? Somehow I don't think so. Perhaps it was more of a decision along the lines of "if you don't perform, you're not in the starting 21". While this may be understandable, the principle of only getting games on merit hasn't been applied throughout Watts' development so far. So why would it be starting now all of a sudden? It was a strange decision and I still can't quite understand it. So we go into the bye at 2-1-1 sitting seventh on the ladder. Looks pretty good on paper. But reality is a different thing and if Melbourne are to improve on last season they would want to start delivering a more consistent performance across four quarters. I still think Sydney was our best performance so far and we were probably only reasonable that day. The good news is that there is a large scope for improvement and hopefully that begins straight after the bye in a tough trip west to face a much-improved Eagles outfit. Melbourne 6.2.38 11.9.75 15.14.104 23.21.159 Gold Coast Suns 3.2.20 4.5.29 8.11.59 9.15.69 Goals Melbourne Jurrah Morton 3 Davey Dunn Green Jamar Trengove Wonaeamirri 2 Bail Bennell Jones Moloney Sylvia Gold Coast Suns Smith Swallow 2 Fraser Magin Matera Shaw Stanley Best Melbourne Moloney Trengove Sylvia Jamar Bail Grimes Gold Coast Suns Rischitelli Brennan Tape Bock Fraser Injuries Melbourne Nil Gold Coast Suns Coad (hamstring) Changes Melbourne Nil Gold Coast Suns Ablett (calf) replaced by Magin in the selected side Reports Melbourne Nil Gold Coast Suns Nil Umpires Keating Ryan Meredith Crowd 12,111 at Gabba
  7. Lucas Cook is not a low draft choice or a rookie. He was picked at # 12 so you expect a quality player. It's the later selections that turn out top players that really set up a recruiter's reputation.
  8. CASEY coach Brad Gotch runs through the Melbourne-listed players who played for the Scorpions in round three - Round three Casey player review My favourite is this one:
  9. Quite right ... apart from the opening post, the rest sounds as if it's straight out of the Jack Nicholson movie about cuckoos nests. No respect whatsoever for the hardworking Gold Coast Suns organisation.
  10. Local News - VFL:Casey Scorpions' Big Scalp
  11. I have it on good authority that your alleged "authority" is in this case no authority at all.
  12. I thought the same until I saw him play at Port Melbourne last week and his first half in that game was ordinary to say the least. Then, out of the blue, he started doing a few things that suggest he might be able to justify his top 20 drafting. He has always been a good clean kick but seemed hesitant as if overawed by just being out there on the ground. Suddenly, he showed he was prepared to run and back his judgement and he looked so much better. A week later and he's in the best players at Casey against the Roosters. Sometimes, it's a confidence thing but you write off a kid like that at your own peril.
  13. You would have to write Tom Scully out of history in that case but I hear what you're saying. IMO Trengove, Gysberts and Tapscott would make a fantastic trio to recruit in any one draft but when you add Scully, you end up sounding like Bruce McAveney. Then there's Big Max who was also in that draft. Deliciouuus! Also, it might be far too early but a few of the rookies we drafted at the end of 2010 are looking likely prospects.
  14. I think it's fair to say that one of the measures of good recruiting is what you can get out of your lower draft choices and your rookie selections. It's doubly important at the moment with the drafts affected by the generous concessions to the new franchise clubs. In that regard, we seem to have done well this year with the recruitment of Tom McDonald, Michael Evans, Kelvin Lawrence and Dan Nicholson. We haven't seen much yet of Troy Davis, Cameron Johnston (although he really impressed in pre season) and poor old Robbie Campbell. I think the four I've highlighted in bold are all good chances to have long careers if their early form at the club is any indication.
  15. Full Time: Melbourne 23.21.159 Gold Coast 9.15.69 And that's it. Off to the news, no song, no nothing. I hope 9 gets the rights next time. That looked from my vantage point as one of the least physical games you can get. However, it would have been energy sapping so it's a good thing we have a bye next weekend. And surely, we're in the 8!!!!
  16. 12,111 turned up to watch this!
  17. Karmichael on the Russian. Interesting. Dockers by 14 points in real time.
  18. The idiot who keeps ringing my mobile should give up now. Good goal Aussie and a nice tap from Jack Watts.
  19. Watts on ... first kick Who's on second. Boom, boom ...
  20. Struggling to win the quarter against this mob although hitting the post four times doesn't help! Good to see Aaron Davey in the goals but how did he miss the one on the siren. Three Quarter Time Melbourne 15.14.104 Gold Coast 8.11.59 Live score at Quarter Time in the other game (where a goal umpire's decision was overruled on the say so of a boundary umpire - I hate that!) Fremantle 5.6.36 North Melbourne 4.3.27 Goodbye Bunnings Warehouse and Creative Gourmet.
  21. If we try to play cute football like this in our next game we'll be ripped apart.
  22. Oh dear ... are we tiring or just losing interest?
  23. Half Time: Melbourne 11.9.75 Gold Coast 4.5.29 The skies look threatening and from the look of the players the effort is particularly tiring. Fitness is going to be important and the commentators are talking about activating the sub early. Timing could be interesting.
  24. Well, it's an ordinary game and we're on top. It looks like the players are slowing down in the humid conditions. It looks like Moloney had the right idea getting himself properly hydrated earlier in the week .
×
×
  • Create New...