RalphiusMaximus

SO we did. And look at who the opposition was!

Too hard this week. Aside from Hogan, Watts and TMac I think everyone won their position. How do you pick six?

Excuse me? Another random point. We scored 105 points in the second half. How cool is that?

Just for a point of reference. The last time we kicked over 150 was round 6 2004. How amazing is that? It's been mentioned, but how good is it that we kick our biggest score in over a decade with only one goal from our two key forwards? Massive spread. Hunt is showing what he can do. Now the next step is to hit targets better. Right now he's Sprint, Sprint, Sprint, Bomb and we need him to be more Sprint, Sprint, Steady, Hit target. What I really love in his game though is that he uses his pace to get to contests and defend. He's what we wanted Blease to be. So so happy with the young brigade. I include Viney in that number as he's only in his fourth season. The commentators were raving about the big bodied, powerful young mids we've put together and how this is the sort of midfield that wins you finals. When it clicks this team looks mighty. Wagner and Hunt just look like a champion HB pairing for the next decade or so. Wagner had a shocking clanger for a goal against early on, but his disposal and hardness are great. The pair just seem to fit and provide the rebound and attack we need. GAWN. He was so stuffed he couldn't walk out of the goalsquare for an opposition kick-in by the end, but he's a monster. Amazing game again. Could have had five goals too! There are just too many positives from this game to mention them all. It was just awesome to watch. Oh, this will be the third time this season we've won but not moved up on the ladder, while we have twice moved up after a loss. Sorry to say, but Scully would be the outside runner we need and probably rack up 40 touches a game with our inside ball-winners feeding him.

TO be fair, he is very tradeable. I'm pretty sure if we offered him up we'd have 17 deals on offer within an hour or so.

That is a thing of beauty. I'm really tempted to order one.

On the goalkicking front, Hogan has taken over the lead for our team and is now sixth overall on 16, while Watts has dropped to 11th overall with his tally of 14.

Hurley would be a great get. TMac wasn't solely to blame for the mess yesterday, our entire defensive unit was constantly caught out and shamed themselves with the number of uncontested possessions they conceded in the back 50.

Here's an odd little note from all of this. The last two weeks we have won and remained in the same spot on the ladder. This week we lost and went up one place to ninth.

If you start swinging the axe over a bad game then you'll wind up dropping 2/3 of the team. I know everyone is as furious as I am about the insipid performance, but realistically we'll make only a couple of changes. Salem should be out for at least next week. Bear in mind that it was VINEY who hit him. That's going to have a lasting impact I saw a couple of other people limping at various points as well, so it could well be that one of them fails to come up. Obvious players for consideration would be Oliver, M. Jones, ANB and Brayshaw, although I think he needs more games at Casey to get his act together. Maybe consider White as a HB with good disposal to replace Salem.

They out-worked us. It's that simple. Every contest they had more bodies around the ball, then when they got it out they ran harder and got more players free for the uncontested possession chains. Most of our side need to take a good hard look at themselves and ask if they showed up to play today. The Saints weren't any more skilled, they just worked a lot harder. Points of note to me: Interesting to see Gawn and Hickey break dead even today. Very little difference in any of their stats. Our entire defensive unit owe the fans an apology. The number of times their opponents snuck out the back and got uncontested ball in front of goal was shameful. Letting Membery kick 5? DIsgusting. Watts showed us today what he's like when he thinks he's having a bad day. In the past few weeks he's taken an early mark and kicked a goal, players got around him, and his confidence was up. Today he had a man tagging him from the start and decided early on that it wasn't his day. Lots of complaining to the umpires, head down, one-handed marking attempts... It's to his credit that he got his act together and scored a couple of goals, but he really could have done more. Petracca will be better as he gets his head around the pace of the game. You could see that he would think he was in space and suddenly had a tackler on him again. He started to get the speed as the game went on and showed us some of what he can do. Hopefully next week he's still in the side and shows us what he can do.

As far as I know, the concerns raised by the Psych tests were more along the lines of whether he could adapt to the professionalism required. Why do you think the club came down so hard on him for the slam dunk? He's a great guy, extroverted, energetic, but they worry that he doesn't really get how seriously he has to take the AFL and his training and preparation. It's something they mentioned in several of the articles this week, that he's drastically improved in this area and is showing a much more mature and professional attitude after his rehab.

I believe the club said that we have the Coventry end behind the goals. I'm not entirely sure which end that is.

Throwing has been poorly policed for ages. Scott West was a major culprit in his day. The Saints train their midfielders to shield the ball with their body and give a little one-handed flick up to a teammate as they are being tackled. If you actually read the definition of a handball you'll see that a lot of what players do today is illegal. How often do you see a player sling a big undehand throw and brush the ball across their knuckle as they release it? That's not a legal handball.

The AFL has already given us a recruiting zone in which to run an academy. It includes the territory of the Dandenong Stingrays and Casey. Dandenong in particular could be turned into a goldmine given the large Sudanese population out there. All the club needs to do is invest the time and money to develop the talented kids in the region and they can reap huge benefits.

Pretty sure I'll be able to say I was on the couch watching from home. If I can free myself up early enough I'll come in, but it doesn't seem likely.

The AFL keeps talking about equalisation. If they are serious about it then every club gets to host one Friday and one Saturday night game. They can give the extra ones to the sides they think will be bigger drawcards or rank the highest, but at the most basic level they have to give every club an even chance to make money off those timeslots. They also need to ensure that they don't do their usual trick of giving Melbourne a home game against GWS or Brisbane so that no away fans show up. It would require a little work to arrange the fixture, but they have the capacity to give prime timeslots to the local derby's for the interstate teams and to put the Melbourne-based clubs against each other to maximise crowds. This would make far more sense than what they've done for the last couple of years with the plethora of Carlton games on Friday nights.

Thrilled that he's going to e around for a while. I really love the partnership building in our forward line. There's a lot of chemistry in there and they are really starting to get their heads around how each other play. It's only going to get better.

They aren't. Adelaide, Sydney and Hawthorn are clearly better. Probably Geelong as well.

It's interesting to look at how the Doggies get their clearances and contested ball wins. It's not through having better or harder players. They just get lot of players to the ball. We saw over and over again that the Doggies would have two or three extra players at the contest and when they lost it gave North an easy outlet. I think we'll exploit that as well. With Gawn and guys like Viney and Tyson getting first hands, we should be able to suck them in too close and get the free ball on the outside. This game also reinforced the impression I had in round one that while they run hard and get plenty of ball, the Doggies are actually a really poor kicking side. Given the efficiency we're developing in attack, I think we'll see quite a few turnover goals against them in a few weeks.

Saints are 50-50 (probably worse than that given it's their home ground and we tend to let them get away) Suns will beat us even if they do have injuries. The doggies SHOULD beat us, but I have a sneaky feeling their first game at the 'G will show them up. Brisbane are a hard-running attacking outfit, but we should have them at the 'G. Port are falling apart. We have to hope they don't find the magic formula before we get to them. In essence, three from five and I'm pretty happy. Better than that and I'm ecstatic.

They seem to be being a bit more careful with our first year players this season. Roos mentioned the lessons learned last year when they kept Gus in the side for too long and burned him out. I suspect that they will keep resting them at intervals throughout the year.

Dawes is going to be playing as Casey's most expensive recruit if he ever gets back on the park. He has a lot to prove before he gets a senior spot again.

I'm loving the partnership forming between Garlett and Kent. They just keep giving each other goals. Garlett in particular gave away as many as he kicked. Watts had three score involvements to go with his three goals as well. So nice to see our forward line functioning so well.