Demon Dynasty

Round 8, 2024 MCG - Blues vs Demons Nibbla for a rare top of the table No.1 rating! Must have done a fair bit right playing through the middle after half time yes? Including a massive 12 tackles, 6 intercepts and 5 clearances. The BOG would surely be Tracc though with a masterful HF pinch hitting role after quarter time. Nice effort from Woey with only 23% game time. Clarry having another off night after last week's excellent bounce back. Unfortunately our losses at CBs in the first quarter and in general were quite costly for us. A likely fatigue issue after the 5 day break also so i think we just lick our wounds and move on from this one. Player Rating Rank 2023 Season Rating % Change vs 2023 A N-Bullen 4.900 1 2.532 93.5 S May 4.200 2 3.213 30.7 C Petracca 4.050 3 4.707 -14.0 C Oliver 3.575 4 5.002 -28.5 T McDonald 3.550 5 2.054 72.8 Max Gawn 3.475 6 3.350 3.7 Ed Langdon 3.375 7 3.057 10.4 Jack Viney 3.350 8 3.707 -9.6 Jake Lever 3.125 9 3.131 -0.2 B Howes 2.825 10 - - C Windsor 2.500 11 - - K Chandler 2.450 12 2.265 8.2 H Petty 2.250 13 2.718 -17.2 J Bowey < 61% 2.050 14 2.820 -27.3 T Sparrow 1.925 15 2.811 -31.5 J McVee 1.900 16 2.320 -18.1 K Pickett 1.850 17 2.101 -11.9 J Billings 1.825 18 - - T Rivers 1.800 19 3.696 -51.3 J V Rooyen 1.675 20 2.170 -22.8 T Woewodin > 23% 1.600 21 1.406 13.8 B Fritsch 0.700 22 2.324 -69.9 D Turner 0.450 23 1.825 -75.3 Team Score 58.95 69.86 -15.6 Top 6 23.75 24.43 -2.8 Bottom 6 9.45 15.17 -37.7 < Subbed out TOG > Subbed in TOG Stats courtesy of footwire.com & wheeloratings.com

Nice intensity from Casey in that quarter FTW! White immense in that last Q

Great run down and steal by White on Bins along the skinny wing. Gets it to Hunter who dumps it to BB. Gets a free for PITB and misses from 45 on a 45

Lol that was a 100% free to Jeffo in the goal square. Front on contact. Not paid

Great tackle on Moir by McAdam about 40 out for the ball up. Ends up getting kicked forward and rushed to level the scores

I don't see alot happening here TBH. Early days but not showing much so far.

Hunter to Bill to Neocleous for the dribbler to put Casey up by 5 points

Lovely pick up at ground level by Fullo, HBs to Windsor who hits up BB on the lead. BB goals from 45!

Verral takes a solid contested mark on D50

Laurie very busy that quarter and cleaned up his act a little. Now up to 13 disposals and a goal. Probably netting about 9 disposals if you take out the four turnovers (approx) in the first quarter.

Fullo into the rooms for a check up after a marking contest at HF

Scores level after a free to Moir for a behind

White roves the ball in in the pocket to give the Demons the lead with a nice snap.

Nice mark to Jeffo playing in front who links up with Steele. Hits up Fullo in the pocket. Fullo around corner for set shot goal.

Good gather and dish from Jeffo to Bill who looks to hit up BB in the square. BB realises he's about to be spoiled and taps it to the Kolt who walks in to goal

Nice goal from 50 to the Kolt

Benny back to the social club for this run up!

Must be Laurie's 4th turnover for the quarter. Tomo about two or three also. Those turnovers have probably directly resulted in approx three goals already, maybe two at best.

Kayo no more. The only stream is the AFL site via the VFL option

Unless my eyes are deceiving me 58er, BBs been named in both of KC's lists at FF

Neocleous, Windsor, LaPlanche* & Moodie named yet no Roy in sight!?? *emerg I realise some of those are not vying with Roy and visa versa for his spot/role but crikey. The guy kicked three goals in a losing team, was involved in a few other scoring chains (instigating at least one of those with a superb bit of play / handball on the wing at one point) and showed more talent on his right toe than all four of them. Perplexing decision unless injured or he was a one-off ring in/top up? Bell played last week then back to emerg this week. Can only assume he came in for the Shack last week and has now been replaced with BBB. Why is he even coming back unless we intended to continue on? Why not persist with a mid / HF type (like Roy / other?) vs Bell, which is an area where we are severly depleted and getting smacked up in most weeks? Surely you'd want to stengthen this area of our game as much as possible to attempt to win more often and improve the morale / development of the entire squad (inc. mfc players) in general? Where the hec is BBB at? Did he train (light duties?) during the week at any point? Are we aiming to get him back to senior level or is he just a floater from here and possibly stiffling a potential fast tracking of Jeffo's development somewhat? Or at least seeing where he's at trying to hold down a KP role for a few weeks before bringing a BBB or Shack back. Personally if you're going to constantly shuffle the likes of BBB in and out i'd use that to have Jeffo on some sort of rotating roster where he's hitting the gym / track for heavy loading for two weeks or so (when a BBB and / or.Shack comes back) then a game or two back in. Rinse repeat. The guy needs to seriously build up a VFL and then AFL worthy bod first in order to compete. That's assuming we are looking to develop him into a KP player at some point? And at this stage he's a fair way off the former and a lomg way off the latter. Try and fast track him in this area and work on the positional role play and forward craft at Casey in between those physical blocks. Have to say there's some head scratching stuff happening with selections and some players so far this season...

It's a coaches prerogative to over ride P.A. Yes you may upset the apple cart in a team sense but every coach in the AFL would know the odds of winning a game from 3, 4 and 5 goals (to zip) down in the first half. 6 is basically kiss the game goodbye territory against anyone accept the worst rated clubs. Even after three goals, you simply have to close the gate and try and shut the game down in then hope that you can wrestle it back on your terms. Max needed to hang in there until we wrestled back some composure and clearances through the middle. The odds of comming back and winning from about 4 down (early in a match) are very slim at AFL level, something like 10% - 15%. From 5 & 6 goals down you're pretty much toast unless playing someone like the Eagles (at their worst), North or the Tigers (when they were at the peak of being decimated by injuries as per when we played them). To take your best and only genuine ruckman off after going three goals down early is tantamount to handing them the game on a platter. And that's what we did. Also where was the review with Max (at any stage up to and including the half time break), to show him that hitting the ball directly forward at CBs was mostly ending up in the hands of thier defensive sweeper? Not as often but also happened around ground on occasions. The sweeper then either ran around and kicked quickly into their 50 or got a quick handball over to Walsh or Cripps over the top who did same. We also allowed Cripps to run out the front of stoppages far too often, which is a well known trait of his. The old footy adage ... "Don't get beaten by what you know" applies here. The Pies did a great job of stiffling Cripps in this area last week. What happened to us? Did we not learn and practice or set up for this during the week?

Super after quarter time tonight L ... Have seen Clarry do it a at his best without so many scores of course. Viney also but not to the level / consistency of the former two.

They aren't ordinary at CBs. They've beaten us in this phase the last few times we've played them. You have to ask why Goodwin played ANB in the middle for most of the 2nd half? Think he might've had one clearance towards the end and a few involvements but that's about it. And instead left Kozzy to rot at HF when the opposite was surely more plausible. The decision to leave Max off for at least 10 minutes after going three quick goals down was astonishing. JVR was smacked up and outta sorts during his stint during this period which allowed the Blues to continue on their merry way out of the middle. The fact that neither of our KFs fired speaks volumes for me. And i'm not including Disco here. He's more like a third tall behind Petty & JVR and a junior in terms of experience in our forward line. Game on the line and neither of them were able to stick their hand up and settle us down on the scoreboard early. Took Max to put a few serious leads in in the second half and then managed to kick a big bomb from 50.

No one hitting uo the leading lane there for Billings on the wing. Max finally clicked but way too late and ended up short of the contest and lost the battle. Horrid forward craft. Sorry but you aint making a PF doing that let alone a GF