Demon Dynasty

He's shown some glimpses of being very good at VFL level Roost. In the end it would come down to quality of delivery plus JVR making the most of his chances. Macca must be very close though and if somewhere around 90% match fit he would probably get the nod. His experience would be invaluable if he is ready and would make for another tricky match up conundrum for the Bears.

I like Mr Hood but someone would need to come out for JVR. That's one of LJ & Melk and can't see Maxy being left as the sole ruckman so would have to be Melk. And would you not have Macca in ahead of JVR?

There might not be a 'next week'

If Max was a tad younger and/or fully fit you could possibly go in with just Max and swap LJ for JVR. Push BB more time playing higher up to help out down the line in a CHF type role, JVR playing mostly deep.

I agree pace is a factor. Both ways ...ie away from congestion / opponent and closing speed. If you want pace i reckon Bedford has to be close to the quickest on our list or at least as quick as the likes of Hunt & Kozzy. I'd love to see him in this week for ANB.

That last quote is a bit of a worry

Is there some online vision of this other than trolling through the replay Red?

Not a bad idea FAR but then we have the problem of being a rotation down through the middle.

Hope you've recovered Uncle. I won't ask how the maid is fairing.

Nice... from ANB as well.

Yes to up the middle if the opportunity arises Kev but depends on who's doing the passing. I don't think Max should be attempting those too often, especially around HB. Inside 50 maybe a diff matter.

Agreed but for whatever reason it doesn't end up in his hands all that often CD. We need one or two other VG ball users to be doing this. One of them used to be Melk on occasions when he played a more HHF role. Nowadays it appears like he's staying inside 50 more than not. Also when he does get it higher up ive noticed his passing isn't quite what it once was. Which might explain why he's a fair chunk more time deeper?

Yes same as last week from 9 to 11. Wouldnt call it training though. Its more for the fans and the boys to fine tune a bit i guess. They do a little dozy doeing at goal, handball drills etc. Nonetheless its a fun morning if Melb puts on a decent day weather wise. Highly recommended

Kev, any chance you could drive a few tractors onto the Casey oval and prevent any sort of serious match simulation hit out tomorrow!?

Referring to time spent in the D50 W11 not acts carried out while in there like rebounds. No doubt he spent some time in there hence the average of 1.4 rebounds per match in 2021. Just going by Champion data off Fox Footy. A month or so back they claimed Gus had only spent 9% of his playing time in our D 50 in 2021 vs approx 80% this season prior to his move into the middle. No doubt covering off for Salem being out. From memory i think Fox said his split in 2021 was roughly 80% between the arcs, 11% inside our F50 and 9% in our D50. The point im trying to make is if you had the opportunity to re-set Gus back to a wing/HF where he was so successful in 2021 (and so was the team obviously) now that Salem is back and the back 6 are pretty set, why wouldn't you take it? There could of course be many reasons Goody is doing so. As an outsider we are pretty much flying blind to what drives these decisions so who knows. Maybe it will all click this week, Gus will play a blinder and i'll be eating my hat.

Jake was kicking most of his set shots at training SD. Unfortunately for whatever reason not quite as accurate on Sat night. Tracc seemed to be going at about 50% - 60% at training. Does Tracc lean back a little too much? Some training vids i've seen suggest your body needs to be more upright/vertical when connecting with the ball. Clarry suprised me a little at training converting about 50% - 70% and really taking his time with very deliberate method/action. Obviously appeared to work on Sat night. I did notice that most of the set shots being take were from around 35 - 40 meters. Didnt seem to be much variation in the distance or the angles (maybe one slight change) in which the boys were taking their shots. In the end i think whether it's going to work or not is obciously much to do with routine / technique and then a % is above the shoulders and this probably varies from player to player and their ability to stick to the routine/execute under heat on the big stage. Easy for us to critique from our lounge rooms of course! The little master talks about the mental factor and how he prepared himself mentally to take a bit of the pressure off and make it more about routine, method and executing (see start of his tutorial below). No doubt with a ton of practice behind all that. What a master he was and beautiful to watch in full flight...

IMHO we dont need him to play a HB role at all now that the back 6 are set and we have Salem. Bowey on the sidelines as a Salem replacement. We won the premiership with him playing a roughly 80/20 Wing/Forward role last season and what a season it was for Gus. He spent virtually no time in our defensive 50 last season. The mid field experiment worked for one game and has been a progressive fail ever since, culminating in his worst performance this season (possibly his last two seasons!) on Sat night. Time to push him back to the wing/HF role of last year and move Harmes back in as his replacement, playing the Mid / HF role that he mostly played last season with pretty good effect also. Gus doesn't have the upper body strength and leg power (drive out of congestion/away from oppponent/tagger) to play more than a very brief cameo on odd occasions through the middle IMV. Would much rather see Harmes back in with brief cameos from Kozzy and/or Bedford (if he happened to be picked) to add some speed and provide the oppo with a diff look / match up conundrum on game day. Why would you want to take away one of your biggest strengths from 2021 and make things that much easier for the oppo unless absolutely necessary or the mid-field experiment was a great success? Makes no sense at all.

Ticketek having a lend with members vs general. As others have stated, you're more often than not disadvantaged as a member (unless you are wanting to by tickets en masse!). Last week on the Tuesday i clicked on M4 level one. It clearly offered me those and i ordered 6 tickets. It then did a gateway error 404 on me after i entered Cc details & hit the 'purchase' button. So i figured i'd been unsuccessful and went to try again. However, i then thought "hang on...better check Ticketek account just in case the error wasn't an error". After logging on to my account...low and behold there's my 6 tickets. Haha you beauty Newc i thought! But wait... hang on a mini... why does it say bay M50 Level 4 Olympic Stand!?? 🤔 So instead of allocating me my Level 1 M4 bay seats right next to cheer squad (as selected)... it hopped me into Lvl Olympic 4 up with the seaguls during the supposed gateway error! After a long winded episode filling out a refund form and chasing what appeared to be a dodgy contact who had English spelling / grammer issues representing Ticketek... i finally got my refund on the Thurs. Then re-purchsed the correct 6 tickets after more Ticketek errors on the Friday. I seriously figured these tickets would be incorrect also but with a sigh of relief they got this second attempt right. All up i think i spent 2 hours getting on (twice), filling in details, filling in refund forms, correspondence back & forth between Ticketek contact etc. What a shocking process / system they're running here. What year is this again ....1992?

Exactly. Can't hurt to use the pocket option 'occasionally' but once it's happened a few times in a row and the oppo is drifiting their expecting us to go there again, surely there are gaps and the odd player in front or on the fat side we could hit up or kick to advantage. Remember the Harmes 'steal' and great vision in the GF where he spotted Fritta out the back, kicked it to his advantage (beautifully) and hit him lace out leading to the fat side for that subsequent much needed goal! A goal that started the come back and consequent avalanche and ultimately lead to this team breaking a 57 year drought. We have a huge opportunity to tweak aspects and methods here and go back to back. Let's hope we do so vs going back into our shells and hitting that pocket / bombing so often. It's a non thinking easy 'get out of jail' card for players. Maxy one of the biggest offenders of late. Wakey wakey ...time to lead by example pls Maxy and change things up a little son! Alter course and let's bring home the bacon....again! Let's be more daring with our ball use and disposal coming inside 50! A little more finesse wouldn't hurt either!! Dare to dream....dare to win!

He's a lead / mark forward. With a few classy ball users coming inside i reckon he would do quite well at AFL level offensively. Not sure about his defensive work though. Ground level he appears 'ok' as well. The best of the KFs at Casey of late. JVR not far behind.

You don't think winning the ultimate after a 57 year drought has some genuis to it IRW? There's always room for improvement but he's also done a stirling job in following up with a 2nd spot and the double chance this season IMV. Albeit we would really need to make a Prelim for that to mean anything. Having said that i would like to have seen a bit more 'daring' in terms of tweaking the game style away from the usual, managing some of the older and/or banged up fellas during and around the Norf match and, lastly, giving a few more chances to those who appeared to be likely types (and have earned a stint) at Casey.

Maybe in another life QD 😄

Ditto Mr Fence

Four to Six turnovers in a match is pretty standard in most matches, especially mid-fielders and on ballers. Nothing unusual or game changing about that. It's the top three here that killed us. The top two in particular. To put the top three turnover kings in to some sort of context, Clarry, who had the most effective disposals of any player on the the night with 24, had only 1 turnover! Turnovers A Brayshaw 11 Jack Viney 9 Max Gawn 7 C Petracca 5 Ed Langdon 5 J Harmes 5 Steven May 5 C Salem 4 Jake Lever 3 J Hunt 3 B Fritsch 2 Ben Brown 2 J Melksham 2 L Jackson 2 M Hibberd 2 T Rivers 2 A N-Bullen 1 C Spargo 1 C Oliver 1 H Petty 1 K Pickett 1 T Sparrow 1

A young wet Amos kicking goals in a final in his second game. A super wet Darcy has kicked a goal for the Dogs in a final. No reason why we can't play JVR this week for Melk. Roll the die Goody!