poita

We should have been working on extensions for both Tom and Oscar pre season, but hopefully we can now lock them both away for at least three years, hopefully four.

There is far too much expansion happening far too quickly. Even the better clubs are already carrying players that are not at the required standard. Increasing the player pool by 75% over two years is just ridiculous and will clearly have an impact on the quality of the games. Expect to see less scoring and more packs developing as you have more players who can't kick straight or more than 30 metres. Hopefully we can keep the big 3 (Pearce, O'Dea & Paxman), which surely means that one of O'Dea or Paxman has to replace Hickey as a marquee player. You would think that all of the Casey players would stick around, so it then becomes a matter of prioritising the rest - would losing Hickey at her age be the worst thing if she is worth enough points to meet most of our delisting obligations?

I suspect football has always come so easily to Petracca that he has never had to work particularly hard to succeed. For the first time in his football life the expectations of him are now exceeding his performances. I hope he can respond, because he clearly has all the attributes to be a super player. At present though, he is a player who is trying to do several brilliant things a game, rather than a large number of very good things, and he is failing (eg his putrid kicking on Sunday). Brayshaw looks like someone who has always had to work harder to get to the top, and that will hold him in good stead if he can keep healthy. He'll never be a superstar, but he can be a very good player in a very good team (not the same type of player necessarily, but a Joel Corey / James Kelly type at Geelong).

You mean the guy who was slow and had poor foot skills before he missed two years of football with a foot injury?

I'm not sure how some of the people on this website function in the real world. "Mummy, the mean man on the TV didn't say nice things about my football team". If you don't like the commentary, turn the sound down.

I'm not particularly a fan of Weideman, but I do like the three tall forwards. Whilst I would prefer Pedersen to play, I'd still rather Weideman play than neither. Amazing though that three weeks ago we played Hogan as the only tall - what an absolute debacle that selection meeting was. Neal-Bullen surely has to come out - he has had about five last chances now and he continues to regress. Viney plays if genuinely fit, otherwise Garlett given that he starred in his last game at the Gabba. I'm assuming Salem won't be right - if he is, maybe Hunt comes out. I still have grave concerns about the ability of Melksham, Fritsch and Hannan to play in the same side. We look much better with Garlett in the side, assuming his attitude is up to scratch.

Happy to see McDonald and Spargo in, although I sure hope the medical staff know what they are doing with McDonald's foot. The last thing we need is another Viney-esque debacle. Not sure why we have Hannan, Fritsch and Melksham in the same team, and I certainly wouldn't have brought Lewis back without a game at Casey given his recent poor performances. That said, Pedersen is the only one at Casey who is worthy of a call-up, and clearly he is out of favour. None of Garlett, Stretch or Wagner could feel too aggrieved by their omissions, although Neal-Bullen and Harmes should feel very lucky.

Yep, the only reason we lost on Tuesday was because of the umpires. ?

The only problem with Nathan Jones is that 13 years into his career he is still the second best midfielder at the club. Oliver has gone past him, but not one other player in the past decade has come close to matching Jones' output. Viney is the closest, but he misses too many games at this stage of his career. Any thought that Jones won't be at the club next year, or shouldn't be captain is just ludicrous.

Our lack of depth is criminal, and is why I was so upset by our lack of activity during last year's trade / draft cycle. We had to turn the list over by 4 - 5 more players (Vandenberg, McKenna, Johnstone, Kennedy-Harris and Filopovic were obvious starting points), even if it was just to get a couple of rookie picks. And then when we do get some picks we waste them on even more slow, inconsistent half forward flankers. Our bottom 8 or so players on Tuesday were truly awful and you could make a case for dropping all of them. Harmes, Stretch and Neal-Bullen have to go, plus Kent is injured (yet again). Vince and Garlett are close to the end of the road. If we wanted to play Weideman it should have been against Brisbane - he is miles away from being able to compete against the best sides. Wagner was invisible after the first quarter and Jetta still looks injured to me. Thankfully Lever and Melksham lifted from last week. In: Pedersen, Hannan, Spargo, Balic Out: Stretch, Neal-Bullen, Harmes, Kent

We have reserved seats on level 1 of the Southern Stand. There were large numbers of Richmond supporters in that area on Tuesday who had purchased seats on Ticketek. I don't like it, but I don't blame the club for selling seats when Melbourne supporters don't bother coming.

Certainly a far stronger and better balanced side this week, but there are still a few passengers on board (Melksham, Harmes, Neal-Bullen & Lever to name four). Hopefully those guys can make a contribution this week. I'm no Weideman fan, but clearly we needed another tall forward in the side. All I ask is that he consistently presents and crashes packs when he needs to. If he can give us 8 minutes or so of decent ruck work a quarter, that will be a bonus. If Sam doesn't show some appetite for the contest, I hope he is sent straight back to Casey and Pedersen is in for Essendon. The key to us winning is to play through Rance's opponent and make him accountable. If we just bomb the ball inside 50 and allow Rance to be third man up against Hogan and Weideman, we will be flogged. They are too good at moving the ball for us to stop them once they break from half back.

Tend to agree with this. There are just too many of these stories floating around to think that it is a happy camp at present. Hopefully there are just one or two dissidents who can quietly be ushered out the back door. If it is more widespread than one or two, then clearly there is a major problem that Jackson and Mahoney need to handle immediately.

Just so I'm clear on this, do we have 27 players set aside for this game? Or do we have a bunch of players carrying injuries that haven't been reported? In either case, the question is why? Other than annoying the supporters, what would you hope to achieve from it?

Aside from the result last year, it was a great night and anybody who chooses not to turn up is as pizzweak as the team was on Sunday. That said, I suspect the crowd will be closer to 65K. We will lose a few off the top with Richmond 11 game members not getting entry this year, and then a few more for soft Melbourne types not turning up. Anything over 70K would be a great result in my eyes.

This rubbish about str Rubbish. The structure that was planned for all summer was that Hogan and McDonald would be the talls. When McDonald went down, the structure required that the next in line (presumably Pedersen or Weideman) would fill the void. What Goodwin has done by dropping Pedersen and replacing him with a small is exactly what you are arguing against. It just shows that the guy is making things up as he goes along.

It is amazing to me that people continue to support Bugg. Do you ever wonder why it is that he gets shots on goal? It is because his opponents don't respect him and know that he won't hurt them if he gets possessions inside 50. Far better to play 2 on 1 against Hogan, and leave Bugg free, rather than allowing Hogan to compete 1 v 1 and wasting someone on Bugg. It wasn't just his missed shots either, it is also the three-grab chest marks that prevent him from playing on quickly and the numberous ground ball fumbles.

Gawn's ruck work was truly awful on Sunday. 66 hit outs, approximately none of which benefited the team. Obviously our midfield were extremely poor and didn't work nearly hard enough, but in those circumstances Max would be better dropping the ball at his feet rather than into open space. I love Max's work rate around the ground, but his goalkicking from inside 30 metres is abysmal. I find it astonishing that he hasn't tidied this up in the past three weeks.

- Simon Goodwin - Senior Coach - Brendan McCartney - Player/Coach Performance Manager - Matthew Egan - Head of Player Development - Ben Mathews - Stoppage and Contest Coach - Troy Chaplin - Backline Coach - Craig Jennings - Game Analyst and Education Coordinator - Jade Rawlings - Casey Demons VFL Coach I assume all of the above names have something to do with the current state of our defence, but the buck surely stops with Goodwin & Chaplin. How hard is it for six defenders to each have an opponent and the spare, if we must have one, to provide cover against the most dangerous forward/s? It seems to me that we have a lot of coaches making things more difficult than necessary, just to justify their positions at the club. Some of the goals we conceded on Sunday were unbelievable. Players not rushing the ball through the points from a metre out, spoils directed to the goal square, everybody up in contests leaving multiple Hawks on the ground, and so on. None of these are complicated. How can seven responsible coaches not ensure that we have the basics sorted, before they go about reinventing the wheel?

In: Pederson, Hunt, Tyson, Hannan, Stretch Out: Lever, Harmes, Bugg, Lewis, Melksham Very, very lucky: Frost, Fritsch, Neal-Bullen, Wagner, Vince Safe (for now): Hogan, Jones, Salem, Petracca, Brayshaw, Gawn, Oliver, Hibberd, Kent (can't believe I'm saying that), McDonald, Garlett, Jetta. Not playing a CHF / backup ruck is just ridiculously dumb, particularly given the way we bomb the ball forward. We don't need 3 tall defenders against Richmond, and Lever is just slightly more woeful than Frost. Tyson is a given. The others are just shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic, but Bugg has Z-grade skills and I'm sick of Melksham's one handed marking attempts. I would have dropped Lewis before his injury was announced.

Regardless of the appearance and the fairness of the tactic, ultimately it is yet another match day tactic that Goodwin has failed to combat. His inability to read the play, so to speak, on game day is astonishing.

Lever is making Lumumba look like a committed, competent footballer at the moment. His lack of composure and awareness, together with his atrocious disposal, surely warrant a stint at Casey. If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if he'd actually played the game before at a decent level. Yes, our defence collectively has been woeful (with the glaring exception of Oscar McDonald), but Lever is the biggest culprit. As a loose man he has had zero impact and has offered zero support for his teammates; as a true defender he has been flogged by everyone from first gamers to D-grade hacks.

Amazing how often you get injured when you don't give 100%. If the other bloke is going harder than you, of course you will come off second best.

Wagner's been good, without being super. It is certainly noticeable that when his intensity drops off, even by a few percent, he looks very average, very quickly (1st half Geelong). When he is really attacking the ball and his opponent at full bore, he looks so much better (2nd half Geelong). That said, I think his decision making and disposal is questionable under real pressure, and I don't think we have seen the team under much pressure in the last two weeks. The next two weeks will be a much better test of whether he will make it.

Jesse's work rate was extraordinary on Saturday. There are times he needs to play from the goal square, and times he needs to play up the ground. We are very lucky that he is so capable at both, however we definitely need another big body up forward when Jesse is not there.