Demon Dynasty

In hindsight a completely wasted list space which no doubt hindered our chances, particularly in the back half and finals where he played mostly bruise free footy. Such a pitty we couldn't convince him to stay. Reckon we make at least one more prelim with him at his best the last two seasons and who knows from there. Silly decision on his part to go back so quickly when more silverware was on offer.

Three knee recos and other issues since. Risky

It wasn't to be unfortunately but hopefully you can rind your place and mojo at the next station. A very modest and humble fella. Quiet achiever who shined at VFL level and had some VG moments and games in the seniors on occasions. Stepping up to the AFL must very hard gig let alone staying there. Always a mighty Demon premiership immortal Good luck son

Very solid contributor at VFL level that helped Casey to the highest level in 2022. Deserved a few more windows of opportunity at the top end in 23 imho, even if they ended up fleating. Thanks for your amazing service Luke and so many fabulous memories watching Casey win a stack of games plus the biggest of all at Princes Park last year. All the best with the post game side of life.

Not only that. His match the week before was pretty massive even for Max. If i recall correctly he had a huge 22 contested possessions. Tracc & Clarry around the 15 mark. Another reason why we needed Schache to come on as a chop out in thd 2nd half. Where was the game day analyst advising on the numbers? Including the fact that T-Mac was not 'in the game' at all as per the previous week

Disco 'might' eventually fill the May role. Or Adams. They'll need to come on strongly in 24 though.

Absolutely. That could've been Dunstan for the Norf game.

He did stander but he also has days where he turns it over a fair bit. Not saying Smith didnt either but they do look similar at times.

Schache is the obvious option in the short term for that until Verral comes on (If he does). That's the reason i figured he was re-signed. Security in the short term for Max and occasional chop out late in a game if played as sub. At least that's what i thought until Friday night.

Or just design a ball that has the touch / snicko science built into it. Until then it's a goal unless proven inconclusively. Or if that technology isn't available, as George has highlghted, if it goes through the two sticks (provided the entire ball breaks the plane) then it's a goal, touched or not. Snicking of the ball by hand or finger tips really doesn't make alot of sense. The aim of the game is to kick the ball through the big sticks. If it goes through it goes through, provided the last action was a kick from team kicking for goal. So regardless, you would still need the snicko ball technology to ensure hands/knees/head/body hadn't come into play from a ricochet off a fellow player. It would seem it's snicko ball or bust then!

And what the AFL allows them to say In most cases a complete waste of time. I do enjoy listening to Ross the boss though. Amusing stuff and usually calls things as he sees it.

Any chance you can find out what happened to the 3 minute play book WC? Did we have one? If so why wasn't it implemented? If the media critics are correct, with under two minutes to go we only had one player deep inside 50. Astonishing if true. Also why we didn't use Schache in the 2nd half with T-Mac having an all time shocker (no doubt trying his best but his best meant we were effectively a player down unfortunately). Towards the end we had either no one rucking inside 50 or Tracc! Schache in the ruck (T-Mac subbed) with Max resting forward/ or bench (resting) after half time, then Max down back in the last 5 minutes, had to be seriously considered surely. The Schache for T-Mac option was also not an "in-game" conundrum on the day either. T-Mac had a pretty bad game the week before. Surely Goodwin & Co. had a plan B to sub him off early if that form continued into the Semi!?? Appatently not thougb as the sub not even used!

A bit of chicken and egg though Jnr. I've noticed some do try and switch in (not often enough though and many are often ignored as you point out) but when we do attempt to 45 we also often turn the ball over. Recruiting players with better passing foot skills might help resolve this as they'll more likely have the confidence to pull the trigger and look inside more often as their first option.

Well there goes that idea 😄

Sure you aren't comfusing him (turnover king aspect) with Roan Steele? Easy to confuse the two players at times as they look similar in the heat of battle. Roan is a pretty ordinary user of the ball imv. Smith probably not elite as such either but didn't think he was as bad as some are suggesting. Thought he had a big impact at Casey in a number of games. To say he didn't do much is pretty harsh. No doubt he suffered a little when matched up on bigger bodied players at times

Yes to moving on Stafford. No need for an assistant 58er. Just get some top quality new blood in there. Ablett Jnr should be on the radar

The Petracca highlighted issue is 100% spot on. It's been well documented that at the end of 2005/2006 Ablett Jnr had issues with aspects of his game and was asked to address them via their leadership group... The rest is history. I would argue we need this honesty and transparency to happen (inside the four walls) with all three of Tracc, Clarry and Viney. In that video i see a great bull player but one who too often panics, no composure and just wants to get boot to ball without assessing. And the ball drop....way too high. Burning so many players around him as well. The red mist that Garry so often speaks about. The window is still open. But all three need some tweaks to the way they finish with ball in hand if we're to make more of our chances, especially in big games & finals against the best clubs. Every club is improving each year and no doubt each player, even the already VG to great ones, are always looking at ways to imrprove theirs even late into their careers. No reason why these three in particular can't try and do the same.

I don't get this argument 58er. On one hand you're saying it's ok to be spudding up our forward work and expect it to continue ("we have to live with it"). Why do we have to live with it? Happy to see us squander this list and miss more opportunities at potentially winning a flag while the window is (was??) open. Yet you're then admitting that after two years we perhaps need an assistant to the forward coach as we've been spudding it up for 2 years. The responsibility for the mid to forward fiasco doesn't just lie with Stafford either. Yze is the mid coach. Not only are our mids mostly crud with delivery inside 50, we're getting smashed in long periods of games in the middle with one of the great AFL ruckmen of this time playing almost full time in the middle (2nd half of this season). How is that allowed to continue? Still astonishes me at how many Mlelb supporters are seemingly satisfied to continue on with consistent sub par performances in these two critical aspects of our game which ate ultimately killing off the chances of another premiership (during this era). Don't fix it now (ready for 2024) and we may not see another premiership tilt for a decade or more. Of all clubs we are one that should be acutely aware of the fall out here.

The same experts that have now lost four consecutive winnable finals and didn't park the bus when leading with 3 minutes to go. Unforgivable. We can't get over the Pies when they have a small lead from 5 to 10 minutes out at the end of our matches against them lately. They park the bus early and defend to the death.

Yes especially players with exemplary foot skills and leg speed DZ. We probably only have a two year window with the bulk of the present list so we'll need to nail this off-season draft / trade period. New perspective is right. More of the same will just see us doing more of the same. IF Goodwin comes out doubling down on this years mantra of "win the contests and defensive side and the rest will look after itself" and doesn't look to change up the FD and our methods in any significant way then i'll be expecting similar results in 2024, or worse!

In super slow mo frame by frame and blown up very close it looks touched for mine. I can rest easy on this one at least

With Jordon in the team there was no excuse to not play Kozzy through the middle for significant minutes. Another example of how badly managed the entire match was. In fact it couldn't have been more badly managed. Complete amature hour from the FD in this one. If it was 2018 i'd kind of get it. But not 7 years in.

This is true mono but there continue to be aspects that need reviewing. Aready posted on this so i wont bore ppl with details again. In summary... Forward craft 👉🏼 generally putrid Mid to forward connection 👉🏼 crappola 3 minute play book 👉🏼 do we have one? If not why wasn't it implemented on Friday? CB losses against the better clubs 👉🏼 alarming at times. Why? Costing us goals, momentum and matches on occasions imv Use of sub 👉🏼 Often questionable eg; Spargo in one match, Schache debacle on Friday Wet / greasy weather play book 👉🏼 Lost most or all of these matches in 2023. What's going on? Our biggest issues are mid/forward connection, forward craft / conversion, lack of speed on the outside and too slow / poor skills in transition Partly solved by better list management / draft and trades. Mid / forward issues who knows. Look to get in a gun mid/forward coach that takes them both on and brings them together as one! Would need to be a cracker jack coach who has had experience and a gun in both areas of the field. For me that would be Ablett Jnr.

Poor list management here. Needed to try and match the GWS offer and hang on to him. AMV is a now a better crumber and goal sneak than Chandler. At VFL level anyway. We may never know at AFL level at this rate. So the FD must be seeing something they don't like so far. Assuming he stays then yes he would need to have a big 2024. Need to move Laurie on imv. Chandler back to Casey in 2024 to work on a number of aspects of his game. Not sure why he was recalled after one Casey match. Tried his guts out but did nothing to excite against Sandy. AMW was the best of the small forwards on the day. The player management this season from a Casey form POV has been pretty bizzare imv Another example.. Dunstan not getting one game after racking up massive numbers and a number of BOGs (prior to injury) while Clarry was out. Instead we kept selecting Harmes who was ok but never set the world on fire at any stage in his Casey matches. Even some of those were hard to watch vs his 2021 Premiership year & 2022. He did have one very good game against the Bombers but wasn't able to carry that to AFL level.

MVP - Finals 2023 Not much of a finals series but here's the rub for who did what (statistically) and also a comparison with their entire H&A season rating The MVP in 2023 goes to Clarry. May coming in 2nd and Gawn 3rd. The 2022 Finals MVP went to > Clarry. Then May in 2nd and Harmes 3rd And 2021 was > Tracc. Followed by Clarry & Viney The combined team rating for both finals (the average of both) a massive 17.5% off the Team's season rating. A whopping 15.4% off the 2021 finals series team rating of 66.54 We managed to improve on our 2022 finals rating of 55.06 by 4.6% In the 2021 finals series we almost matched our H&A season rating of 67.23, only missing by a miserly 1% with a 66.54! That gives you some idea of how well we were traveling. Of the 25 players that played finals, only 9 of them either matched (for the sake of this argument let's say they got to within 5% or better of their H&A season rating) or bettered their H&A Season Rating. The nine players were... Clarry +3.5%, May +32.6%, Gawn + 15.3%, Tomlinson +8%, Hunter -1.7%, Pickett +11.3%, Smith +6.7%, Spargo +3.4% and Hibberd +4.3% Of the players who played at least one finals game (or two), the five worst player results in terms of missing their H&A season rating from the worst onwards were... T-Mac -63.5%, Jordan -60.6%, Rivers -48.2%, Chandler -46.5% & Lever -32.9% Tracc also posting a pretty ordinary finals rating, missing his H&A rating by a massive 30.4% Player Rating Rank H&A Season Rating % Change vs Season Rating C Oliver 5.175 1 5.002 3.46 S May 4.263 2 3.213 32.66 Max Gawn 3.863 3 3.350 15.30 C Petracca 3.275 4 4.707 -30.42 A Tomlinson * 3.150 5 2.915 8.06 Jack Viney 3.063 6 3.707 -17.39 L Hunter 2.888 7 2.939 -1.75 Ed Langdon 2.825 8 3.057 -7.59 M Hibberd 2.723 9 2.610 4.33 J Bowey 2.538 10 2.820 -10.02 C Salem 2.375 11 2.993 -20.65 T Sparrow 2.375 11 2.811 -15.51 K Pickett 2.338 13 2.101 11.26 B Fritsch 2.200 14 2.324 -5.34 A N-Bullen 2.113 15 2.532 -16.57 Jake Lever 2.100 16 3.131 -32.93 J McVee 1.988 17 2.320 -14.33 Joel Smith 1.988 17 1.863 6.68 C Spargo * 1.950 19 1.886 3.39 T Rivers 1.913 20 3.696 -48.25 J Jordon * 1.350 21 3.431 -60.65 K Chandler 1.213 22 2.265 -46.47 T McDonald 0.950 23 2.054 -63.49 B Laurie > 54% * 0.750 24 2.235 -66.44 A Brayshaw < 7% * 0.550 25 3.883 -85.84 Team Rating 57.66 69.86 -17.46 Top 6 22.79 26.25 -13.19 Bottom 6 9.36 9.26 1.11 < Subbed out / TOG % > Subbed in / TOG % * Played one match (or less if subbed out) Stats courtesy of footwire.com & wheeloratings.com