casey scorp

I've read all that too! All based on MFC statements over the past couple of months. Have you seen any reported statements by the Council yet?

Playing second fiddle to Collingwood regarding access to an oval, and playing second fiddle to the rectangular sports in a facility tailor-made for them. Poor cousins with those arrangements. The opportunity should be grabbed at Casey Fields now. While the Casey Council might be quite partial to working co-operatively with MFC at the moment, it might have very different interests to Australian football in a few years time when reality hits for MFC at the rectangular stadium.

You mean Oakleigh - that's somewhere between the two? I acknowledge all that, but MFC will be a second rate tenant scorned by the "true" (in their view) tenants being the sports that the stadium was actually built for. The scorn won't be too subtle, and I can only wonder what phychological effect that it will eventually have on players and admin feeling that they are not welcome in their own "home". Absolutely spot on. No-one says MFC should be seen as exclusively Casey. St Kilda does not see itself as exclusively Frankston, and I doubt even over time they will be seen as that. St Kilda moved to Moorabbin in 1965, and didn't see support from other areas dry up as a result. If MFC moved to Casey, it would still need to maintain (and in fact pursue further) support across Melbourne. It has to do this wherever it locates, but locating in Casey creates the opportunity to develop a region as MFC's own and importantly to tap into a major new and additional support base. Just having a go (and enjoying the interaction).

I don't think a move to Casey Fields means MFC necessarily dumping the Zebras. But who knows? The same thoughts are probably going through Saint's fans minds about the future of the St Kilda/Casey Scorpions alignment following St Kilda's move to Frankston announced last year.

I think it might make a difference if it is marketed to the right targets - young kids at school and new arrivals to the area are two categories when quick inroads could be made. But it will take a smart and concerted effort by the club. It's going to be a rectangular stadium, dominated by soccer and rugby interests, with training up the road at Gosch's Paddock. Do you think MFC will feel like it's home or will MFC feel like a fish out of water? Maybe your suggestion of wholly moving out to Casey Fields is the answer.

Looking forward to the NAB Challenge match in 2009 at Casey Fields (assuming the Dees aren't in the Grand Final of the NAB Cup that evening). If MFC moves out to Casey Fields for the next pre-season as Chris Connolly has said, it will be the closest thing to a home match for years. Hoping for a big crowd of MFC supporters embracing the new environment. Getting ahead of myself just a little!

There's rail to Cranbourne, and connecting bus to Cranbourne East (where Casey Fields is).

You think you're about 20-25 minutes from Casey Fields? Didn't you go to Casey Fields for the match against NMFC? It would be a good move if the MFC can tap into the massive potential membership of new communities being established. Yes, most adults have their allegiance alreday, but their kids can be influenced by what happpens at school. There are over 22,000 kids in Casey aged less than 5, and they are can all be exposed to MFC through school over the next 5 years. They go home , they pester their families for MFC gear, and want to be taken to matches. Just watch the Casey Fields crowds grow for the NAB matches if MFC comes out to Casey and is playing. I'm in Narre Warren South, and I'm less than 10 minutes from Casey Fields. Depending on where you are in Narre Warren you might be as far away as 15 minutes at the most.

I wouldn't have worried about not following the club, but I would worry about $500. If it had been $150-$200 I'd have gone.

The video was great - I don’t barrack for MFC, but I might go to the Dinner. How much are tickets (I can’t find it on the website)?

You're wrong. The demographics are young families with impressionable kids. Get into the schools with community programs, and MFC would have the inside running on picking up thousands of extra members. It has to be seen as part of a long term plan though - there's no sustainable quick fixes (just watch NMFC's memberships drop in future years). Quite correct, but do it soon before MFC is trapped in a rectangular stadium!

Righto, give him 11 weeks for 110%. I'll let you into a secret - it's all getting a bit technical with boxing experts weighing in, but I just want his case delayed until after his hand heals so that the [censored] serves time when it matters - not when it's concurrent with an injury.

Fair enough - give him 9 weeks then for 90%, or 10 weeks for 100%. I just want him to be assessed after his right hand has healed.

The hit on Staker was with Hall's left. His right probably would have been even more deadly. I think the Tribunal should assess the relative impacts of the force of Barry Hall's left and right punches, and then make an assessment. A full on right should be worth 10 weeks (like Jim O'Dea). If the power of his left is 80% of his right, then he should get 8 weeks. Obviously such an assessment cannot be undertaken until Barry's right wrist has healed. This has been estimated to be about 6 weeks. The Tribunal needs to convene this week, but then adjourn for 6 weeks until poor Barry's wrist heals. Then it will be able to undertake the assessment, and suspend him accordingly. He is of course eligible to play in the meantime.

Hall will have the book thrown at him by the AFL. Despite all of the cynical but justified comments about the AFL love-child team, the fact that it's early in the season and Sydney is already travelling well without Hall being on fire will mean that the AFL can express concern about violence in football and come down hard on Hall. Just compare the extent to which the AFL went to have Hall cleared when he belted Matt Maguire of St Kilda in the 2005 preliminary final. With Sydney in the GF the following week, and Hall an integral part of the team, all sorts of gymnastics were executed with the rules to ensure that Hall was able to play. This time the AFL will be ensuring that they are seen to act (thus also proving to those of us who doubted them in 2005 that the stunning acquittal was legitimate and there was no favouritism shown to Hall at that time).

Wasn't there training at Wesley or Trinity?

I haven’t tried to hide that I’m from Casey, but it’s taken a while for the penny to drop. I’ve also said in an earlier post I’m not a MFC supporter, but I’d welcome MFC to Casey (as would many people in the growth corridor). You may feel that you can arrogantly just suck the juice out of a poor cousin, but let me assure you it won’t work. It won’t work because you won’t get into Cranbourne without making a commitment to hang around. It also won’t work because you’ll be turning your back on possibly thousands of members who could be brought up as MFC supporters (there’s lots of impressionable kids in the growth area), and you’ll wither on the vine in an inner city location with a CEO telling you to stick with the elites – a recipe for a slow but certain death.

I don't disagree with what you say there - but it's the welcome, the atmosphere, the fit (spiritually - not physically). It just doesn't have the right feel, and an oval sport tenant will always feel, and be, a second-class tenant in a rectangular world.

Thanks, that clarifies it....I think the person who told me just heard the "after a year we're back to the RS" (rectangular stadium, or whatever else you think it might stand for) and didn't hear the bit about it being related to the footy dept admin.

The focus should maybe be on Casey as a fulltime base for admin & training rather than just as a summer training base. Why on earth would an AFL club want to be headquartered in a soccer stadium? The whole feel of the place will be wrong, the Demons will eventually feel like intruders and the rectangular sports tenants will resent their presence. It just won't create the right sort of positive vibes that a club needs as it strives for success.

I didn't hear it, but someone this afternoon told me that he said that the Casey summer training facilities would be for only one year, and then it would be full time in at the rectangular stadium. Anyone else hear it for a confirming opinion either way?

Street Talk in Cranbourne. Billy went looking for a snob in Cranbourne to match the eliteness of the club advocated by Paul McNamee.

Where MFC can have a year round training base if it grasps the opportunity!

Richmond Cricket Club?

And, just maybe, fortune has instead smiled on MFC in the form of the delay instead of being caught up in an ill-fitting Rectangular Stadium where MFC would just be a filler tenant.