DeeSpencer

Was fine at training yesterday. Whatever the plan is for round 1 besides Hogan (I think it might be just Frost, but Gawn and Pedo would have to be in the mix) they've obviously decided on it already. It's a long year, no point playing guys in practice matches if they don't need them it's just risking injury. Gawn and Pedo out there today probably would've resulted in a Casey win and given both a shot at securing a spot in the team for round 1 but at the same time I get the need to freshen guys up before round 1 and 5 months of largely consecutive games.

That's an ugly last quarter. I'd like to read that we pulled Vince and others at half or 3/4 time, but I doubt we did. I'd expect as a standalone club that Willy would beat Casey without MFC players. But from reports it was at least Fitzy, King, Vanders, Vince, Riley, Michie, JKH, Brayshaw, Kent out there. 9 is about a full compliment of AFL listed you can expect in a VFL alignment. Ok no recognised key forward or ruck (King is a bit of neither) but you'd want to match it with them for 4 quarter.

EFA.

JKH and Vandenberg might just be getting a hit out to confirm their spots even if one of them is the sub they'd be hard to leave out. Vince and Riley are first up. Disappointed the Kent hasn't shown you more and Michie's probably the real disappointment, he's fit, played in the preseason for MFC and should be tearing it up. He does do a lot of good work in close though which can be hard to see. I get that funny feeling Paul Roos wont pick Brayshaw for round 1, but at this rate unless we beat Gold Coast he'll be straight in for round 2!

#trustinGus

Good stuff. They are the 4 I want to here about as I want them in round 1! And any update on Brayshaw would be great.

Because whilst the head says loss the heart says it's still possible. And the song plays, the players run through the banner, there's Jones, Lumumba, Tyson, Hogan, Salem etc and you get this belief they can do it. Then Matt Jones fumbles, Grimes turns it over and the despair sets in. One of the reasons we have to be more attacking this year is so the crowd gets involved. You can feel the despair of an MCG crowd when we get a couple of goals in a row kicked against us. Even if the margins are the same or bigger if we are scoring more regularly it gets the crowd involved. You won't breach a 3/4 time 4 goal deficit when you've only kicked 4 all game. It's more likely if you've kicked 10 of your own.

For a VFL practise match presuming no other major events on at the fields there's ample parking either in the main lot next to the stadium (between the tennis courts and main oval on google maps) or if needed the lot next to that for the athletics track. If coming along the Monash I have found it easier to stay on the freeway and go down Clyde Road to get to Casey fields instead of potentially getting stuck in Cranbourne. Although there's been some development along Clyde road so it's not as nifty as it once was. Also you then miss your chance at taking a sideswipe at Saty on his scooter. Any report would be appreciated

Starting teams from the grand final and the Port prelim team. Brackets are young/inexperienced players I'm not going to look up ages, games, years on a list. Hawks - Mitchell, Hodge, Burgoyne, Lewis, Smith, (Hill, Shiels, Langford) Sydney - Kennedy, Parker, Jack, Hannebery, McVeigh, McGlynn, Jetta, (Cunningham, Lloyd) sub Bird Port - Boak, Gray, Ebert, Cornes, Hartlett, White (Wines, Polec) sub Moore 8 seems a good starting number. Knowing that you can mix a half back or anywhere from 1-3 forwards through the mix is important as well but they are more bit part roles. To answer a question of how many 'kids' as in first 2 seasons players can run through the midfields of best teams I think the answer is either none or 1. If they have the bodies and talent you can get 1 in. After that you're looking for guys who have done 3 or 4 preseasons and whether they've played 7 games or 70 doesn't matter so much. As for Melbourne: N Jones, Vince, Lumumba, Cross are the experience. Tyson, Viney the establishing young players who now have preseasons and a number of games under their belts. They aren't at the peak of their powers but they shouldn't feel they can't match it. Newton heads the cue to stake his claim as a legitimate regular player. He doesn't have games but he has the preseasons. If he can lock down a spot and make it 7 then we might be getting closer. Ideally we'd have 2 more experienced quality players. 1 gun speedy wingman and a half forward type. Give me Brad Hill and Robbie Grey and seriously we'd have midfield rotations to mix it with a lot of sides. We don't have those players. If developed properly over the course of the next 24 months Crossy can retire, Brayshaw can step in to the mix to replace him, Petracca the forward who rotates and Stretch on a wing. Until then it's Matt Jones or Toumpas (who if he fulfilled his talents would be a great complement to the side) as a winger. Maybe vandenBerg as the half forward. The Watts experiment seems to be canned. Dean Kent should get some midfield time as should JKH or Garlett on a wing but they are more the 5 minutes every now and then types than half a quarter. Riley and Michie are a bit out of favour because they seem more suited to back ups to the core ball winning mids, they don't have the speed, fitness or skills (although Michie can be neat) to complement the starting guys. I like them both and think they should have a chance, but they aren't going to give us pace and run.

Just caught up on this. Derm was full of trash as usual. Ralphy finding reality hard. Of course you have to give up something to get someone, that's how it works. You improve by being on the winning side of those deals. I think that was the point David King was trying to make. The Salem/Tyson trade, Frawley for Brayshaw, Clark for Lumumba (considering an injured Clark), Ben Newton for nothing, Garlett for next to nothing are deals that we should come on the right side of. Jason Dunstall probably made the best point about the glaring gap in our list that is line breaking. If our best players stay fit we better be able to match it at the contest and I'm hoping the backline holds up and the forwards can get open if/when given a chance. Genuine line breakers are a huge weakness that Lumumba can only help so much. Vince is one who can run the lines as well. Anyway, the other line breakers are Garlett, Kent and JKH from half forward who need to get up the field. Watts as well if he can ever consistently find the speed he must have somewhere in there! Without confidence and creativity we will struggle. If we find it we have enough talent and experience to compete and win. The challenge for Roosy is to step away from his standard plan of composure and defending and embrace a desire to be absolutely fired up. We can be as composed as we like when sharing the ball and not panic, but we need to be absolutely pumped for the contest. Time for the MFC players to throw caution to the wind for a while and play like demons!

The mail I was getting on twitter was he was rested from the second half of training and won't play VFL OR round 1. If he was playing round 1 without playing VFL he would've trained fully today like every other player. If he's playing VFL then it's to make up for missed time in the NAB challenge (he played less than a half v Freo and less than a quarter v WB). In short I think he's a better chance to play round 1 by playing at Casey. I hope he plays (and plays well) tomorrow.

Nah you can't go in to a game naming someone who is expected to come off. He has to start as the sub knowing the earliest he gets on is 1/4 time and then he can play 75% of the last 3 quarters if needed but preferably he just plays most of the last quarter. I don't see it happening really. He can be fully managed at Casey for a good percentage of a VFL game and be right for round 2 instead of just giving us 25 minutes as the sub. The difference between Howe and someone like Matt Jones/Bail/Toumpas/Vandenberg for 1 quarter really shouldn't be so much as to change a game.

Just was going to say he's not quite he who shall not be named of the Port variety (rhymes with Dolly Fines) but ANB has put some serious work in to the quads as well as core since the lay off. He'll likely have to run a fair bit of it off getting back to fitness but right now he's looking like some 2nd or even 3rd year players rock up to preseasons after solid work in the off season.

Shouldn't be training, in fact shouldn't even be at the club if that was the case. Might be MFCSS but I'm now predicting we have about 5 missing and 5 under the weather in round 1. You have gastro you stay home people.

I swung by later in the session by the time the Casey guys were gone. Seemed to be a focus on getting up and down the ground and then also on in tight handballing. Both were big problems against the Dons so I'm glad they're on to it. Got nice and physical with some tackles in the handballing stuff as well. Frost again doing work with the rucks and Dawes chiming in for boundary throw in practice. Pedersen neither - seems he'll be used differently this year. In some ways a shame that Howe did the full session but on the other hand he moved well. It does seem sub at best for round 1. According to Adam Baldwin - @adamwbaldwin on twitter from fox footy, vandenBerg isn't named for Casey. Are you sure he'll play Saty? If he doesn't play for Casey then I'm concerned that if they rested him for half a training session this week they aren't looking at him for round 1.

Batting: The Kiwi's rely on McCullum to fire up the innings. After that Williamson is the class. Guptill, Taylor, Elliott, Anderson, Ronchi and Vettori give them batting all the way down to 8. They probably don't have the huge hitting that we do, but Anderson can smack it. I certainly think there are 2 big wickets and from there it's a matter of restricting the rest. Obviously if McCullum goes berserk they could score anything, but really I think there are 320 team at best. Bowling: 3 absolute guns - Boult, Southee and Vettori. And they complement each other. Boult's a star up first. Southee is dangerous throughout and Vettori can put the brakes on whenever he's needed. Only saw this Henry guy v SA, but they had 2 class options on the bench and chose him instead. He looks solid and dependable. Anderson is decent for an all rounder, but hitable. They don't have a clear 6th option, Elliott or Williamson should both go if they get called upon. Aussie's advantage: Power hitting - Watson, Maxwell, Haddin, Faulkner, Johnson can all smack it better than probably anyone but Anderson 6th bowler - with 3 all rounders we have versatility and can bank Johnson, Faulkner and most importantly Starc for big moments, the Kiwi's bowl Boult out and keep on to Southee meaning the 4th and 5th bowler often play important roles Home ground advantage Kiwi's advantage World class spinner to tie us down More reliable big hitter from the top - McCullum has been better than Finch and Warner The Kiwi's have to win it in the first 10 overs of each innings I think. If they make 1-70 from 10 they can put up or chase a big score. Similarly if they bowl and get us 3-30 again they'll have a huge advantage. The longer innings go the more chance our flexible bowling options make a difference and the more likely our big hitting does more damage.

Goes hunting for wickets and is worried about economy. I think he's never been secure on a test team and hasn't played enough shield cricket to have full faith in his ability, either that or he gets guys out too easily the next level down. Wait until he's picked for the first test in a series and backed in the entire way. He'll find his confidence and bowl like he does in ODIs. Only problem is for now when Harris and Johnson are fit he's still going to be competing with Hazlewood for a test team and Hazlewood has bowled beautifully these last two games at least at the start of innings.

2 weeks and no reply might be enough to answer your question. Access to the NBA on TV has killed it. No point going to watch D graders when you can tune in to the worlds best on ESPN/league pass etc.

#heatland Kudos to you and well done Georgina, superb dumpster diving effort

Most likely I would think they are unclaimed by members, not ordered for members who didn't exist, if that makes it a little better. But I still think how they got rid of them was poor.

Would we? What's wrong with: A) giving them to the homeless/charity B) offering them to volunteers to stitch together, we could do with more red and blue quilts in the crowds come game day C) possibly returning them to the manufacturer for rebranding as 2015 scarves or; D) at very least throwing them in the bin discreetly enough that we don't get caught!!!!

I'm not a huge Terlich fan, but someone needs to put pressure on Grimes to step up and play with some cojones and stop fluffing around with hospital handballs and steady sideways kicks. Terlich might be too much the opposite but maybe with less responsibility with Lumumba providing some run and Salem some class he could do a little better this year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_AFL_draft Most of last years top 30 played, with more than a few playing regularly including Luke McDonald, Bont, Aish, Zach Merrett, Dunstan and KK at least being clear best 22. Some of those in finals teams. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_AFL_draft#2012_national_draft 2012 was a bit more hit and miss. But Stringer, Macrae, Viney, Wines, Mayes, Brad Crouch and Jaeger O'Meara all played a lot of footy. GWS started to have the opposite effect whereby they had so much young talent from the years previous they didn't throw them in as much. You shouldn't judge a guy from his draft position. We made that mistake with Toumpas, although I have big fears his problems are much more a lack of talent than a ruined psyche. Nor should you play a kid all 22 games unless he's a freak and certainly not all 22 in the rough and tumble. If Brayshaw really has been impressing at Casey then we are wasting everyones time by not getting him in the senior team. But I understand the need to protect him, especially as he managed a few head knocks in early trainings and the intraclub. I hope to see him play some time in April and I hope he's up for AFL and can get through 10 games at least. It's not impossible to tread the balance between throwing a kid in early and anointing him the messiah and also just dumping a kid at Casey for no good reason.

Speed, strength, less wonky kicking (not that he's great but he's better than McDonald) and slightly calmer decision making as well. McDonald's a very disciplined solid player. But his spot a good team would be challenged due to his lack of skills - marking, kicking and hand-balling and also because he's just not that good one on one. He doesn't intercept mark with authority or punch the ball clear, he's not immovable in a battle of strength nor is he lightning and capable of shutting down the best when they get him on the lead.

He wouldn't get near Hawthorn, even before they had Frawley. Like most of our defenders he's vastly overrated.