CASEY coach Justin Plapp reviews the Melbourne-listed players who played in the VFL

VFL

Casey Scorpions 15.13 (103) d Richmond Tigers 8.11 (59)

Casey Fields,

“IT WAS a really strong, consistent effort and win. We’d been pretty close the last couple of weeks, but the weekend was probably our best four quarter game this year and it was against good opposition, so that was pleasing. We’ve got a bye this weekend, but a few guys have put their hand up for senior AFL selection. Max Gawn, Viv Michie, Jordie McKenzie and Dean Terlich, plus all of our senior players, played the games we expected from them. Whether those guys I mentioned get picked or not will be decided. If they don’t get selected, they’ll keep working hard. After the bye, we’ve got Collingwood, so that’ll be another big game – against another standalone AFL club – so we’re looking forward to having a full contingency of players and we’ll be ready to go.” – Justin Plapp

Max Gawn: It was probably his best game for the year. He’s had a bit of an inconsistent, up and down couple of weeks. Last week, he probably didn’t meet expectations, but on the weekend, after big ‘Russian’ (Mark Jamar) went down, he had to take a fair bit of the workload. He had 21 possessions, nine marks – and six of those were contested – plus 34 hit outs and three goals. So his contribution was really strong. He provided a real handful for the opposition and he puts himself into the mix for senior selection this week. He was one of our better players.

Mark Jamar: Jamar started the game really strongly on the weekend. He copped a knock to his head just before half-time and he didn’t take any more part in the game.

James Harmes: Harmesy played his role. He tackled really well, but he didn’t have a lot of the ball. He ended up with 14 possessions. He’s a kid we’re playing in different positions and trying to expose as a bit more of a flexible player – as a wing/half-forward. We’re trying to get some more consistency in his game.

Oscar McDonald: It was Oscar’s best game for the game. We’ve been working pretty hard with Oscar in regards to his positioning and body work, plus the work he does off the ball. He is also learning to deal with opposition players that are going to be physically more mature than him. We’ve seen a really big spike in his mentality and thought process, in terms of how he plays on some of the big forwards. His game from last week to this week was a real contrast. We put it on him to become more physical and he certainly showed the way in that area, playing as our second or third key defender. We were really happy with him.

Jordie McKenzie: Jordie’s past two weeks have been really strong. Some of his work around the footy has been critical. He put some strong, physical pressure on some of the mids and he ended up with 23 possessions and 11 effective tackles. He also went inside 50 five times, so he played a really important role for us on the weekend. As he does, he played a physical and close-checking game.

Viv Michie: Viv was probably one of our top three players. The way he responded after coming back from playing in the AFL was a real credit to him. He played midfield for most of the game and a little bit forward. He had 25 disposals, seven tackles and 10 clearances. He also went inside 50 six times. Viv had a really, really good game and some of his critical contest – his 50/50 contested ball – was a real highlight.

Alex Neal-Bullen: It was a reasonable game from Alex. He’s a real hard-nut and he really attacks the footy in a really strong manner. He won some critical contests when we needed him to and he really burrows in and gets the ball moving forward. He played a midfield/half-forward role, but I felt that it was one of Alex’s better games for the club, as a first-year player. He ended up with eight clearances and he certainly showed some strong improvement from the week before.

Dean Terlich: It was Terls’ best game for the year – no doubt. He had 16 possessions, five effective tackles and rebounded from defensive 50 five times. We’ve worked really close with Dean over the last few weeks to get his defensive positioning right. We know the type of footy Dean can play, so it was a much-improved game. The challenge now for Dean is to back it up with some consistency.

Mitch White: Mitch was assigned to one of their better forwards on the weekend, Nathan Gordon, and he did a really good job. Some of his defensive work was super. He then used the ball really well offensively. He had 19 possessions, eight marks and five rebound 50s. We were rapt with Mitch on the weekend.

AFL Victoria Development League

Casey Scorpions 18.11 (119) d Northern Blues 5.7 (37)

Preston City Oval

Jayden Hunt: It was Jayden’s third game back. Offensively, he was really good. Now we’ve got a bit of a plan in place for Hunty to keep building his game time, because he’s had so much time out of it. We’ve seen improvement out of him, which is the main thing.

Max King: Kingy kicked three goals and had 19 possessions and had 10 marks. His past month has been tremendous and he keeps putting his hand up to play senior VFL footy. Fingers crossed things might go his way. The issue we have at the moment is that we’ve got Mark Jamar and Max Gawn and some other taller blokes playing their roles, so it’s a little bit about opportunity for Kingy at the moment. He’s been really good, so he should be feeling really confident about his footy at the moment.