Nasher

When our defence was being torn apart, the answer from the box was to get Dunn out of there and throw Pedersen back. It's hard to know the full picture when you're not in the box, but being thrown out of defence and then the side tells me plenty.

I kind of understand the "btdt" attitude of those above, but he's been consistently in the Casey best all year, and apparently killed it this week playing on a HBF. Read the Plapp report, it was as glowing they come. And it just so happens, we have a HBF vacancy this weekend. The guy has well and truly earned another shot. How about getting on board and showing some support?

I've always thought that clangers is an interesting statistic. If you look at the top 3 clangerers(?) for some of the top teams, it's often their best players. Eg for North: Cunnington, Wells and Ziebell, for Geelong it's Duncan, Selwood and Dangerfield, for GWS it's Shiel, Griffen and Ward and so on. As you point out, for us it's Viney, Vince and Watts. You don't tend to think of these players as turnover merchants though. I suppose what it doesn't say is the impact of those turnovers - e.g. a Viney handball in traffic may go directly to an opponent, therefore be recorded as a clanger, but that player is then immediately tackled and a ball-up results. You'd think a McDonald clanger is usually more likely to be of high impact given where he plays and the manner in which he usually gets rid of the ball. That's a very hard statistic to analyse though.

New Balance are the only brand that make running shoes that fit my stupid square feet, so they're my preferred brand anyway. The partnership with the MFC and the awesome discount just seals the deal.

Of course, but "betters the side" is subjective and hard to measure. It would have to obviously better the side a lot in order to be worth the risk I think, but I doubt too many clubs are going to be lining up for a trade that involves giving us such a boost at their own expense.

McDonald has missed one game in three seasons, and the last time he played for Casey was in 2011(his first season) - I doubt he's going to suddenly be surplus to requirements at the end of this year. We've got one tall defender cooking at Casey in Oscar, but he isn't good enough yet and there's no certainty he ever will be - big brother Tom was a lot further advanced at the same age. He has his limitations, but I think the bottom line is he's our best tall defender. As DA pointed out, we wouldn't be able to bring in a better one, but I'd go one further - there's room for a better one and Tom in the side still; Dunn would be the defender that got pushed out. He'll be a 100 game player by the end of this season. I suppose I don't know what we would receive in this hypothetical trade, but it feels like a total waste of development if we gave up now. I'd be livid if we traded him for draft picks.

Or is it just because they are they 22 and 20 respectively? I reckon you only have to be 5% off the boil mentally to appear slow and lazy at AFL level, which renders you completely useless. I reckon it's just a function of inexperience, and the problem we have is that half our team is filled with players at this age and level of experience - if too many off them fall off the effort cliff at once, the results reflect accordingly. The question is, how do you address it? I doubt their lack of "putting in" is intentional (I definitely don't like the term "pick and choose"), just more a lack of recognising when the focus is off and lacking experience in breaking out of it. You could drop them, but in the case of Kent in particular, he's clearly best 22 - you risk hurting the team by doing this. I don't think dropping them is particularly productive, in the same sense that you wouldn't punish your kids for knocking over a glass of water - save the punishment type responses for the players who actively, consciously defy team rules. It needs to be responded to with education, and this is something that can happen while in the team still I think - until the player starts to become a real repeat offender then you're left with no choice. This is where Roos, Goodwin et al (should) earn their money IMO.

t_u, at risk of making a Satyriconhomesque "you all suck" post, this truly is the Demonland modus operandi. I've become quite convinced over the years that the majority of our posters can only remember the last thing they saw.

I may be stating the obvious, but there are 8 teams in the competition who have the same or worse win/loss record as us at the moment. If we reckon this loss to St Kilda was any worse than most of the losses that have occurred to any team this season, then I think we're getting carried away with the emotion/disappointment of losing a bit too much. The Essendon one I accept was definitely a bad one.

All teams lose sometimes. If he leaves because we don't play at our best from time to time, he's in for a very frustrating and unfulfilling career.

This thread amounts to "Good players who play well against us". Harvey and Riewoldt have 700 games between them, but nah, must just be Melbourne they play well against.

With Mitch King out for the season, promoting Michie is an option if we want it. I know it feels a bit "been there done that", but by all accounts he's been as good as all the other names in contention. We obviously kept him around for a reason, and he's in form and apparently playing in a role we are about to have a vacancy in (Salem's). I wouldn't rule it out.

12 scoring shots to 4.

About time! I've already shifted position on a couple of players this year - namely Matt Jones and Pedersen who I think are close to having earned a new contract. Dawes, Grimes and Terlich the most vulnerable at this early stage. I expect a low number of changes this year, relative to the past.

Out: Salem, Harmes, Hunt In: Trengove, MJones, Oliver The ins depend on the Casey outcome. ANB may play where I have Trenners or Jones, but Oliver is a must play now. I'm assuming Salem and Harmes will miss through injury. Can't see them dropping Kent. Sure, he was totally terrible, but it was on the back of some great form. We've seen that he can go cold and then hot again from week to week - needs several weeks of bad form to lose his place I reckon. Hopefully as he gains experience, he learns how to work his way in to a game when he's struggling, because right now the wheels just fall off completely.

Pathetic rabble after a loss, "finals not out of the question" after a win mate. You should know that by now.

Funny old competition. GC's % was 121.1% before this. Ours is still a very respectable 102%; and Hawthorn who are a game clear have a paltry % of 91.8%. It feels like we're the worst side on Earth during and immediately after a loss, but in reality we're well and truly amongst it among the middle grounders, with several of them looking like they may fall away - particularly GC. Our season is still very well positioned really. There are some clubs who are in real trouble now, and finally we're not bloody one of them.

Nah, they're being crushed. No bouncing back from this, confidence will be sapped. GC are ripe for the picking I reckon (aware this is the MFC we are talking about though of course)

And I've got to say, the Hawks getting flogged by GWS definitely took the edge off my grumps this afternoon.

Heh. It'd be ironic if we stayed in 10th after winning two weeks in a row, then finally move up a spot the week we lose.

Lazy is too harsh a word I think as it implies a degree of it being intentional. I don't think the players are thinking "nah, I can't be stuffed competing for the ball today", but yeah, for whatever reason, we were a gear below the Saints today.

The idea of a plan 'B' is fundamentally flawed, IMO. The players are drilled and drilled and drilled to get them to play a certain way ("plan 'A'") - there's not enough time in the day to learn a totally different second one. This is doubly true in the case of a very young side who have a hard enough time getting plan 'A' right. Plan 'B' is to tweak plan 'A' and educate on the fly until the players get it right. Hogan and Roos said nearly identical things in the post match pressers - "we were trying hard but couldn't play the way we wanted to play" (paraphrasing).

Ah, the old "we are slow" again. Name a team who didn't look "slow" when they played like crap. We aren't slow. We haven't looked remotely slow in the last three weeks. We just failed to work hard enough today.

The lads at Casey who have been struggling to get in should go in to tomorrow's game slobbering like hyenas. There are spots ripe for the picking.

Golden opportunity for ANB, Trenners, Matt Jones, Oliver and Brayshaw. Good luck lads, best two (at least) this week are in.