DeeSpencer

Feel sad for the bloke that whatever it is in him makes him feel he needs to be in Perth and can't manage the routine of AFL footy which I agree is strenuous for a 20 year old but not astronomical. Sucked in Hawthorn for thinking they could do what others couldn't. There will be one very happy WAFL club right now.

To put it simply not being able to kick is still compatible with being a tagger. It's not compatible with being an attacking half back flanker. If we need a tagger I'm happy with McKenzie to get more chances to show improvement in aspects of his game under Roos. If Nicholson is to play again I'd use him as a high work rate defensive forward if Bail, Blease, Byrnes, Tapscott or whatever resting midfielders are injured or out of form. Considering his defensive game one on one is prett weak I see absolutely no future for him at half back

As long as he isn't stupid he's unlikely to cop too many suspensions. I'd advise him to play his natural game if I was coach. Can always scale things back later but at least when he is playing he'd be doing well. 21 games left, plenty of time for him to make an impact this season. I hope Roos can develop players out at Casey as well as the 22 who play each week.

Dunn's pushing and shoving hasn't been effective when he didn't back it up by laying hard tackles or really attacking the ball. Of course it wasn't helped by his team mates not playing hard footy either. I, like most others, didn't think Dunn had done enough to go around trying to start fights when we are 10 goals down and he's had little influence on the game.

But did McKenzie play for Casey and is he fit? Also if we are tagging Priddis we are in a world of trouble. You have to win your own ball to beat Priddis, tagging him is a waste of a player. Shuey maybe, but he rotates forward and I'd rather have him chasing someone than the other way around. Michie has played half a game of footy, he's going to need time. I'd rather give him that time in the team now and whilst I want McKenzie in the team we might be better in attack. I'm a huge wrap for McKenzie but I feel like a few weeks at Casey getting 30+ touches could help him long term. Too many consecutive tagging efforts and you lose the ability to find your own ball. As we are never in front in games we never free McKenzie up to play offensively. I'm a fan of taggers but I like the Sydney model where O'Keefe would tag but if needed could go after the footy as well. McKenzie's kicking doesn't bother me as much as when he came in to the team he was a clearance player and good handballer as well as a lock down tagger. I'd rather see him do more of that before he is used as a pure tagger.

That's nice. Shame it goes against everything Roos has said he will do. Dropping 4 fit and experienced players for mainly kids. Matt Jones was good against the saints. Cross was serviceable, he laid a lot of tackles and did a heap of running both ways, his main mistake was not padding his stats like some other mids. Bail turned it over a bit but got a lot of ball in the right spots, if he had forward targets to work with he would've had a good game. Byrnes was Byrnes.

It's great to see we've maintained our record for players from other teams getting the rising star against us. Seemed like we had about 5 at least last year.

Sounds like the entire footy media have a pretty good idea but they for once are doing the right thing. I would like to see Mitch open up about his troubles eventually as I think it can be therapeutic and it's better to tell your story than have someone tell it for you but not right now. Mike Sheahan on the MFC website would be good for business if there is a right time for it.

If he's just done a calf on the back of a hammy then I'd say as long as he's icing the calf, doing a bit of swimming or other light cardio that he can do then for the initial few weeks it will make little difference. At some stage in a few weeks time it will presumably be time for him to resume conditioning activities that are best served at the club. But if the other issues aren't sorted then it's a waste of time anyway. The initial time away sounded like a good idea to me. But eventually after a break the best way for anyone to get back to their best is to get back to work if they can. WIthin about a month from now I would like to here that he's back at the club even if it's just part time for some conditioning and then some time with the players who are his friends.

Jones got an elbow to the head when he tackled someone as well. And I haven't seen the replay of how Fitzy concussed himself. Should we engage in niggling - maybe but it has to be against the right opponents and not distract from the focus of winning the game. Should we take every opportunity to lay a big bump or tackle with force - yes! And should we get some of our stronger harder guys to fix up taggers and those engaging in niggle - definitely. At times I've called for a line in the sand game to really toughen some of this lot up. That's probably silly. Same with the idea someone had of recruiting Campbell Brown. But I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more aggression and anger from the players. Viney and Hogan should help, even Dawes isn't a hard guy but he's a big strong body who won't take a step back. Spencer is getting angry. Gawn doesn't mind it. Plus we have guys like Cross, Vince and Tyson who might not dish it out but can still win the ball under pressure, same for Grimes and Terlich. I don't have high hopes for it but getting Tapscott up to AFL standard so we have a guy who isn't afraid to dish a bit of hard stuff out wouldn't hurt. But footy comes first. Confidence is clearly part of a good young side. If serve up some off the ball physical stuff it can help you back it up when the ball is in play. Loved GWS serving it up to Franklin and the Swans.

We've been lacking a superstar since Robbie Flower if not before but as Vince said we need an even performance. Especially once Garland is back we have a group of capable defenders even if we need to add some skill and pace off half back. We know the midfield needs work but Jones now has some support with Vince, Cross and Tyson plus more. Dawes and Hogan plus the bonus if Clark ever comes back plus the eventual freshening of the small forward roles with players like Salem and Kent gives us some forwards who can kick goals. The best chance we have of getting a superstar is Viney and Hogan. Both have great talent. But it's hard if not impossible to emerge as a young star in a very bad team. Unfortunately right at the moment tall forwards is the one area on the ground where it's very hard for us to get an even performance. We just don't have the cattle.

Whilst being eased back in to AFL in a team with 3 ruckmen. Nic Nat might not be the superstar that Gerard Healy thinks he is but he's still a fine player. Watts has had good games before. Let's wait and see if he can deliver against the men of the West Coast midfield not the boys of the saints midfield. He'll also have to do a lot of running a chasing playing on Gaff and Rosa. The last thing we need to do is contribute to the Nic Nat v Watts debate again. Let's just enjoy our fast and clean skilled wing man who does it all whilst also being 6'4 but still has a lot of work to do developing his game.

I'm more worried about Cox. Spencer is a fighter and has some speed, he can run with Nic Nat around the ground and fight for some hit outs. Cox is just such a great mark and really smart footballer he could show up Spencer. Fortunately it should be Spencer and Gawn together and hopefully they can battle away and stop some of West Coasts ruck dominance. That will probably mean seeing Spencer play forward again though for a bit of the game which is always a massive concern.

I actually agree. Pedersen is a decent long kick in space and overhead mark. Put him at CHB if McDonald is out so at least we will have the defenders to play on Kennedy, Sinclair, Cox/Nic Nat and Darling. Bulldogs tried playing small on them and it's not doing them any favours. The Fitz and Gawn combination seemed to work at Casey in previous years, lets hope they can give us something next week. The scariest thing is how good West Coast's pressure is. They are chasing and tackling like Hawthorn out at Casey. We are going to have to be really brave and run really hard to sweep the ball from the backline to the middle otherwise we will be chipping it across our goal line and kicking to a contest deep in defense.

Plus even if they can't execute it properly they already understand the game plan. The delivery of it should now improve steadily especially if we manage to keep some good players fit and get back some tall forwards. I've always thought good coaches don't try to rush and fix everything over night with short cuts but play the long game. I think Roos is preparing this team to get better as the season goes on and personnel come back. That's the hope.

Note to Cam Pedersen. When people want to replace you with Jamar as a primary forward you are in a heap of trouble.

Because what will that achieve? Jamar hasn't looked dangerous forward in about 2 years and Spencer is a better ruck these days. Spencer can't mark and can barely kick, but he runs, chases, tackles, competes and whilst he needs to work on where he hits it he does win his share of hit outs against lesser rucks. Not matter how ugly it is if all players did their role like Spencer we would've won by 5 goals. Against West Coast we need second ruck, we also need a forward who can at least grab a mark every now and then. Luckily Maximus Gawnius might do a little of both. Not expecting miracles but an upgrade on Pedersen.

Meh. Rodan and Gillies are gone. Byrnes will go after this year. Pedersen the next. None cost significant draft picks and there wasn't a whole lot of eligible quality free agents around. We are and will continue to pay for the Prendergast drafting from 2008 until 2011, add in Morton and Maric under Cameron in 2007. And that complete failure of Bailey to provide sustainable development (hampered by resources) and Neeld to provide any kind of development at all to the majority of the list. When you're down you got to get talent in and develop them. We didn't. So we are still down. Hopefully Roos can make something out of Watts, Tyson, Fitzy, Spencer, Gawn, Trengove, Terlich, Matt Jones, McDonald, Howe, Blease, Strauss, Michie - those mid level guys who are around the mark but need to be consistent performers. Salvage something from that lot and start some proper development and Hogan, Toumpas, Viney, JKH, Kent, Salem will be the cream.

I reckon Grimes badly needs about 5kg of muscle. A shanked kick fair enough, but pushed off the ball nearly the boundary line as handballing leading to a turnover, that's yuck. He's got no power in his game. He isn't taking intercept marks or attacking the loose balls and turning defense in to attack any more. It's a concern. He starting to play like Garland of early 2013 not like Garland of mid to second half 2013.

I don't expect us to be a good side early though. Yes I would've liked us to win regardless. Yes St Kilda were missing a lot and are still heading for about a 5 win season at best I think. But we lost by 17 points. We had our 3 best tall forwards, plus Fitzy (4), plus Gawn (5) unavailable. And the reason they won was Riewoldt turned the game in 5 minutes on an injured McDonald. My point was structurally considering it's early days in Roos' tenure we were ok. Effort wise we were ok. Talent wise we are a bottom side regardless but with so much missing and going wrong during the game all the saints had to do was drop a man back and compete. Adding Cross, Vince and Tyson is not enough to increase our talent level if we lose our CHB, reliable defender in Garland and our entire forward line.

But last night he was only a liability in aerial one on ones and if we persist with delivering the ball long and high to Toumpas we are in a world of trouble. His job was to be the half forward streaming to space. He did that well especially early when we moved the ball well. He attacked some balls on the ground with decent conviction and got the handball off. Toumpas version of one on one contests is using his brain and legs to get off his opponent. I thought he along with Bail were the only forwards who made positive contributions towards winning the game.

What could we have done about the loose man though. If we play 7 forward they play 8 defenders. I think at times our biggest mistake was not putting our own loose man in front of Riewoldt and then getting some quick run from half back ourselves. The extra man around the contest was often wasted. From stoppages I would have prefered to free up Dunn or Terlich and see if we could get some attack from half back if we lost the clearance. Plenty to work on structurally but mainly I think we lost due to personnel. No forward line pre game and 2 in game injuries. When we had fit guys on the field ie. the first quarter we controlled a lot of the game and just needed a half decent key forward.

It's not hindsight I said it at the time. As soon as I saw McDonald hobble out to Riewoldt I thought this wont end well. Play Frawley on him, move McDonald on to Rhys Stanley was my thought straight away. It would've been fine if he could run out the cork but it was getting noticeably worse by the minute the longer the game went. Fair enough they got through to half time but he was even worse when the third quarter started. 5 minutes after half time he should've been on a lesser opponent or playing forward. As soon as Frawley went to Riewoldt it resulted in Riewoldt playing higher and higher up the ground. Frawley some what disappointingly let him go and get his marks but he wasn't hurting us nearly as bad as he did in that 5 minute burst. By the way it's funny how we over used the ball across half back and around stoppages but when streaming out in space we often didn't give the simple handball to the guy with the most space and time to hit up the forward. Nathan Jones is a prime candidate for trying to do too much and not using his team mates effectively. I hate to bag him after he played a top game for effort but he's far from perfect.

Can anyone tell me what he said? Garry is usually pretty conservative in his media. If he was angry last night he wasn't the only one. Dodgy back, broken leg and torn hammy he still would've been our most dangerous forward last night.

No complaints about Pedersen really? Couldn't take more than just 1 mark on the lead all night. Missed a goal from 10m out. Generally slow and inept. There's a reason he was converted to train with the backline, he just has absolutely no impact forward. Down back he's so slow that he's not much better but if a match up can be found for him he might offer something as a depth defender if McDonald is injured. Gawn's now played 3 Casey games I think. If Fitzy or McDonald is out he's a shoe in, if not he's still better value as the second ruck and playing Fitzy as the key forward and getting rid of Pedersen. Excited to see Viney in a photo from the Casey thread. As long as he played enough game time to be match fit then he has to come in. Even if he's the sub.