Demon Dynasty

That about sums it up for me. Inexperienced teams don't travel well or so i'm told. Been in this same situation for roughly 5 years now.

Ethan you may want to go incognito. Something that will make you blend in with the locals? ...

Bugg usually plays more of a tagging lock down role mostly inside daisy. Can't see Matty doing that. More an outside player who gets into space for the receive. For the outside guys just play whoever is willing to bust their gut and who can hit the most targets by foot with reasonable degree of difficulty. Chipping around the back and out wide to a plus one loose near the boundary excluded.

Why did we resign him Lucifer? He was looking so good

His efficiency was always quite high but I suspect that was mostly from hitting up alot of boundary targets/low percentage outcomes . Now he needs to hit up the short stuff more often through the middle and quickly. If he can do this consistently he probably keeps his spot

He can actually hit targets and should be played forward of centre off the wings. Dont play him down back. Hesitates and props/stops too often and often loses yardage here. Get him up forward and force him to hit targets inside and targets inside 50. One of the few players that has shown he is capable here at times. The Hulk/Watts will be the beneficiaries and so will our results on the scoreboard.

Play Frost forward now that White is in. Frost likes to run around, jump and shoot. I would rather have him missing targets up forward than off HB where the opposition is more likely to score. Has a decent leap and can at least bring the ball to ground for Jeffy and Watts to work off and likely to be an improvement on Dawes. White is pretty much a defender's defender and would expect him to be more solid down back.

The bottom line IMO is the 100 plus gamesters. Yet again we have less than half vs the Dockers. Similar to the Swans game. I don't rate the Dockers however, but at the same time we are just leaving too much to too few every week. I dream of one day seeing this imbalance reversed in our favour...hopefully I'm still alive to see that. Dockers by 3 to 5

I hope you aren't including Frost and Omac as part of the "bunch of kids" Stuie, they are the future and they can do no wrong. They will lead us to the promised land eventually. Just keep playing them no matter what happens or how badly they perform. Even If they can't hit our targets, who cares. They look fast and impressive when the run, they take the game on and hit plenty of the opposition up. We are getting games into them and they will eventually learn not to pick out the opposition or kick it into dangerous vacant areas in the middle of the ground after running the ball out of defence so impressively ... A little like Tmac in diapers

Kick 6? So you're saying you don't want him playing for the demons again Poita? Tim Smith will kick 6 before Dawes and would probably give a more decent return for us on about half the coin

Thought he was Ok rjay. Didn't particularly stand out from any of 3 or 4 other defenders as mentioned. Grimes is too small made to play or impact through mid at AFL level for more than a few short stints. Tends to drift to HB a fair bit where he mostly tends to hug the boundary. Need players who can also pull trigger inside running off HB. Unfortunately Grimes and most of our other defenders aren't capable here with the exception of Wags & Hunt. Grimes work rate is second to none however, and I expect he will outperform/impact a little more than Bugg this week. And Vanders... Lucky! Another game just by tackling and being desperate and hitting the contest? Not sure that's enough but who am I to question. Roos still loves him obviously. Would have gone Vanders before Bugg based on last few weeks.

ANB for Bugg and Spencer for Dawes makes more sense. 2 extra defenders for a mid and a forward?

Frost and Dawes were the 2 worst IMO OD. Apart from Frost's first quarter which was solid (except for overrunning a ball at one stage which gave the Crows their first) he was barely sighted after about half way through the 2nd and easily pushed off it once he lost his initial strength. No tank / strength for the contest over more than a few quarters right now. Dunny would be a better option this week if he did the meters required.

Oliver was solid against the Tigers fading a little in the last but not many others stood up either outside of Grimes, White, ANB, Keilty, Michie and Smith. Kid is class and knows where to run, gets there often and gets the ball out accurately for first use more often than any other mid fielder. Sells players into space also, not into trouble a fair bit eg; Bugg/Tyson/Jones boy. Tackles pretty well in close also. Play the future champ where he'll learn and make the most of it upstairs for the remaining junk games. Not downstairs with the junk game style that Casey are playing (vs AFL). Too good for Casey and we go for 2 defenders In place of a mid and a forward. Makes no sense. We become more defensive and much slower across the ground and in ball movement with Grimes playing an old Melb down the line style hugging the boundaries. If you said IN: Grimes, White Out: Bugg, Frost it might make more sense as Grimes can spend a bit of time through the mid to make up for the lost rotation and lock down options with Bugg out. White covers a too raw with no tank (but some potential) Frost.....easily. Frost is unable to play to a reasonable standard for much longer than a quarter or 2. Might end up a solid player but not ready for AFL yet. Hulett for Dawes surely. Not ready either but if you need the 3rd forward option plus a goer who can also play tall through the mid. Worth a look for a few matches at least. Although I would prefer Tim Smith. Bloke's a gun. Get him! Hardly misses and clunks almost everything. Can defend also when needed. Bewildering selections

Good luck to him and hope he has a stellar intro. Haven't seen that many Casey matches must have good form. Personallly I didn't rate him any higher than our other key defenders in Dunn, Garland, Grimes against the Tiges though and thought Grimes & Keilty were the best defenders (yeh I know he isn't listed ?) Not sure why we are selecting 2 defenders and dropping a Mid/Forward. strange.

P.S. I noticed everyone doing a stack of short passing drills today. Had we hit more short targets or kicked to our advantage coming i50 on Sunday we may have won. We burn so many on the lead I reckon they sometimes figure they'll probably have a better chance playing from behind. There was an occasional strike but not enough to build much confidence. Hulk a classic example where he was missed on a number of leads early. Reverted back to playing from behind me thinks. Then ppl say he plays from behind too often

Thanks for the updates WW. Perplexing selections vs the outs considering the form guide from the Crows/ Tigers matches and the style of player going out/coming in.

U got it half right dazzle! He does a lot of running but that's pretty much a pre requisite for any hard working forward now WW. Unfortunately much of his running is at snails pace. He can't really lead and haven't seen him do so in the four games this year as his opponent matches/and or gets in front of him pretty easily. Our forward entries are stymied with him in the team as he generally doesn't get into a lead option nor is he able to clunk contested marks over the back or in a pack. This. Hulett should have been in this week for Dawes just for a brief look and try for 2 to 3 matches.

Thought his game was pretty scratchy and ineffective myself WW

Forgot to get mine in....don't know if it counts but anyway 6. Watts - Easily our best. Is this his first undisputed BOG for the Demons? Arguably now the best utility in the AFL. Never thought i would see him playing at this level. Ben Ken get out of his road bro, that was probably another goal coming up! Biggest yardage gained for us for the match. 5. Hunt - Gave us the spark and space as well as some fantastic pressure acts and intercepts. Also saw him at and under the contest a number of times. The desperation is there, the run is amazing, the read is improving and he is now starting to finish off his good early work a little better. Quick learner! 4. N Jones - Jonesy still needs to work on his passes i50 as he missed a few easy and obvious ones, but overall that was a solid game from our Captain. He was in everything and had to compete against Thompson most of the day which is no mean feat. Had the better of him IMO. 3. Harmes - A four quarter effort. Lacks a little polish at times but cleaned up alot of ugly fumbles and solid work rate saw him on the receiving end of much of the good work inside from the likes of Jones and Viney. 2nd biggest yardage gained for us. Nice. 2. Kent - what a fantastic 3 quarters providing the outside link man and also some fantastic pressure acts in the first half. Went missing in the last for all but the last 5 minutes and tried to take a few too many on on one or two occasions. If only he had a right side! 1. Garlett - Welcome back mate! Jeffy at his best. apologies to the Hulk (those handballs wow!), Tyson (sloppy at times), Nev and Viney (who got better as the game went on after a forgettable first quarter).

But he doesn't Jumbo. A significant part of his role surely has to be as resting ruckman instead of Watts? Watts is not going to win many of those (even though he does use a few clever tricks to do so at times) and is easily muscled out of the ruck contest most of the time. Expending valuable energy also when he should be either a kick behind play at the stoppages or on the outside offering a receive option and giving us valuable ball use/delivery inside 50 or creative link up assistance or playing forward. He is our best ball user and decision maker with ball in hand and our most accurate shot at goal. Whereas Dawes may be one of our worst ball users and rarely kicks goals. We also risk Watts getting a severe (unnecessary) injury like a corkie. Why would any coach want this set up/option? If Dawes can't play this role then he should not be in the team. The sooner Pedo returns the better IMO. I would rather see Spencil in until then TBO. At least he can fill the ruck role and offer a decoy for Hogan at times and take a tall defender. Couldn't be any worse than the current set up assuming 'Watts in the Ruck' continues. If Dawes played much more often as resting ruck then i might be more conducive to him staying until Pedo is available/ready. Spencil is certainly not a match winner vs Dawes on his own but by bringing him in as resting ruck/occasional forward it allows Watts to do more of what he does best and have more energy doing so, which in my books would more than make up for the loss of Dawes up forward.

You cant afford to be one man down In defence (or anywhere really) In today's game. Frost would have to be the luckiest bloke In the AFL atm on recent efforts. If they pick him again this week I will run naked around Goschs with a pair of red socks on In protest!

Having double the amount of players with over 100+ games under their belt Is going to take Its toll at some point Praha. Was keeping It to only 12 min or so not a bad effort given this? I wonder. We also went one tall defender too many for the 2nd week In a row and paid the price. We also chose the wrong defender as that 3rd tall again... very poor form on behalf of the brains trust last 2 matches.

P.S. pretty sure the FD wouldnt be throwing a player back to Casey unless he is suffering poor form over a certain period rather than in isolation, depending on how poor the last performance was of course.

If we had the depth/quality and batted a bit deeper like the Hawks/Swans etc OD I would say a few more of our freshmen would be at Casey earning and learning their stripes. Unfortunately we dont at this point. Another reason we need to bring In some experienced quality for next season. Sometimes the young blokes need to catch their breath before returning but the experience needs to be there to do the job upstairs while they learn/earn/return.