RalphiusMaximus

Damn. As some will know, I always liked Deakyn. I love the way he moves, he has that floating run that looks completely effortless. Sadly, the rest of his game has never quite gotten to the point where he looked like getting a call-up, and there's only so long you can keep someone on the list based on their running ability alone. I hope he stays on at Casey.

I noticed he had a lot of clever touches in not much space. Possibly too willing to hand the ball off to better credentialled team-mates, but you often see that with guys just finding their feet. If he starts to back himself in a bit more he'll be more eye-catching.

Most of my sources seem to be saying he's fine. *My sources being this thread. 😜

So what can we say about that? The Umpires were as bad as I've ever seen. We always play terribly in the wet. The team don't seem to understand that you can't do the quick handballing when the ball is slippery and constantly overpossess. Port are playing a similar game to Collingwood and to some extent Geelong, which uses short angled passing and hard forward running to bypass our zone. We need to adjust how we play against this style. With all that, we only lost by a few points.

Go the Saints vs The Demons and watch the Religious Right bet the farm on the Saints.

What happened to White? Injury I assume? I couldn't see any news with a quick search, but he wasn't in the side. It's been bugging me for weeks. (not bugging me enough to take the time to do a proper search, obviously 😁 )

As far as I'm concerned this is just another umpiring mistake (among many). If the player on the ground pulls it under and fails to get it out, it's a free. Just because they are on top of another player when they do it doesn't change any of this. The same rule should still apply and the free be paid against the player who pulled the ball back in. The error is in the "interpretation" rather than the rule.

It's a sad fact of life that both Ticketek and Ticketmaster are a complete disgrace when it comes to anything resembling customer service or providing a quality customer experience.

Is there a replay available anywhere?

Smith is my smokey for this season. He looked a fair way off last I saw him, but I just love the way he moves. He has that smooth running style where he glides across the ground. I could see him carrying the ball out of HB.

We're an easy double-up game? Plus Collingwood?

Honestly, we've got a pretty good record against Brisbane. I'm calling it a win that we have them twice. There are teams we have a lot more trouble with that could have been doubled up for us. Overall I'm pretty happy with this. It's not super-easy, but we have a pretty good run to start the season and most of the sides that really trouble us we only play once. I think we should do pretty well out of this draw.

I'm ok with this pick. He looks like he has good hands, which is what the Weed always lacked. I'm not seeing him double-grabbing marks he should hold easily. He's agile and can work at ground level and he kicks straight. He looks to have all the tools to succeed. We also have plenty of time to build his body before he needs to be slotted into the senior side. Looks like a good pick.

I wouldn't be trusting any of the coalition in charge. First thing they'd do is sell off assets to make the books look better.

Moniz-Wakefield looks interesting. I've seen him do some very nice things the last few weeks. He needs to be more involved in games, which is not unusual for a young player, but there are flashes. He nearly kicked an Eddie Betts-like goal from the pocket today that would have been insane if he hadn't almost put it out on the full.

Honestly, the last few weeks our forward work has been more reminiscent of 2019-20 where we were looking great around the ground then just belting blind bombs into the forward 50 and hoping someone would make something happen. I suspect that may be a function of opposition pressure on the mids as much as anything, but it's causing our whole attack to break down. Without proper delivery, the forwards have stopped moving and are now sitting back waiting to see where the bomb is going to land. That gives the defence a chance to take the initiative. The good news is that the team turned that around really quickly in 2021 and we dominated, so hopefully with some minor tweaking they can get things sorted out and start scoring again.

Well, that was interesting. From where I sit it looked a lot like they did to us what we do to other sides. They choked our scoring and then they an us into the ground. They worked a lot harder defensively, put pressure on our disposals and got a lot of cheap turnovers out of it. Their defence worked as a unit and dominated our tall forwards. Their midfield depth looked better than ours as well. While Viney and Oliver held up, the rest of the midfield really struggled. Petracca was all but invisible (I hear he was sick?) On the good side of the ledger for us: The usual suspects did what they usually do. Gawn, Oliver, Viney and Brayshaw all get a pass. Jordon held his own I was thrilled for Toby Bedford to get a couple of nice goals (although one of them I'm fairly sure the runner told him off for not passing) Loved seeing Rivers vs Young on the wing contesting for a loose bouncing ball. Young is every bit the gun we thought he'd be, so for Rivers to attack the contest that hard and get the win was a great credit to him.

4.5 - Gawn 4.5 - Viney 4.5 - Oliver 4.5 - Brayshaw 2 - Pickett 1 - Jordon

Fremantle has more or less followed the same pattern we have in building their side. They have dominant mids and backs and an ok forward-line. Their tall backs absolutely destroyed our tall forwards today. Part of that was the pressure from the midfield, but they also did what our own defence often does to other sides. They worked together, tied up the forwards and created space for an intercept mark. With Brown really the only marking threat to worry about it was a simple matter for them to block him out of the contest and let a teammate take the mark.

Both are supremely fit. Eventually they just run the legs off anyone who tries to stop them.

Sparrow - Career best game.

6 - Gawn 5 - Oliver 4 - Gus 3 - Langdon 2 - Sparrow 1 - May

6 - Gus 5 - Oliver 4 - Weid 3 - Langdon 2 - Smith 1 - Harmes

Great little interview from Gus there in the rooms. 20 marks for a defensive winger is a hell of an effort.

It's strange watching a game like that. We kept trying to overhandle the ball as if it were a dry day with perfect conditions, fumbled, missed targets and turned it over, yet even when the bombers took the lead it never looked like we were in trouble. You always knew that they were able to shut that [censored] down and kick away when they needed to .