COACH Paul Roos says Sam Blease and Jay Kennedy-Harris have earned their call-up for round 18 through consistent performances for Casey in the past month.
The pacy duo has been added to Melbourne’s side, which is taking on Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval on Sunday. Blease has not played a match this season, but Kennedy-Harris was a constant member in the early part of the year, playing the opening 11 rounds. He has since played the past five matches in the VFL.
But Roos said the pair had worked hard for their promotion.
“Sammy has been pretty consistent over the last month and one of the things we’ve been trying to set for the players is not to have one good game in the seconds and expect to get a game,” he told Dee TV’s Roos’ Views.
“Sam’s been a good example of that and he’s put his head down and bum up over the last month and JKH has been pretty consistent since he’s gone back.
“It’s good to get a bit of speed in as well, so those boys come in, in good form and [I’m] looking forward to seeing how they go.”
Roos said midfielder Matt Jones, who has been omitted for the first time after playing 38 consecutive matches since making his AFL debut in round one last year, and defender Dean Terlich, who has played 14 matches in 2014, were a touch unlucky to be left out.
“When we’re losing and had a couple of 10 goal losses now, someone has to pay the price and probably Matty has just been a little bit off. We really like him as a player. He’s still working pretty hard, but that 10 or 15 per cent, he’s a little bit off,” he said.
“Terls has been reasonably consistent, but he’s just not rounding out his game for 120 minutes. Certainly Matty will go back [to the VFL] and Terls will come with us as the carry over emergency.
“But one of the things we want our seconds to do is put pressure on the seniors and that makes everyone better.”
After back-to-back 60-point-plus losses to Fremantle and Geelong respectively, Roos said it was another tough encounter against the fifth placed Port Adelaide.
“We’ve been pretty disappointed with the last two weeks. From rounds four to 15, we’ve been really good and really competitive and really consistent. Probably the jump up in class against Freo and Geelong – we haven’t coped with that as well as what we would’ve liked,” he said.
“It’s our third chance in a row to play against a high quality side, so we certainly have to play better than we have in the last couple of weeks.
“Probably the theme – as has been for most of the year – it’s a little bit less about Port and more about us and just trying to get what we do right.
“We were better in the second half – we lost by seven points in the second half – but when you’re 50-odd points down at half-time, it’s just not good enough, so we just want to play a lot better this week than what we have.”
Meanwhile, Roos said he was pleased with the appointment of good friend Ross Lyon as assistant coach of the Australian International Rules team, but questioned the timing of the series.
“I think it’s good to have Clarko (Alastair Clarkson) and Rossy – if they’re not the two best coaches, they’re certainly in the top three or four,” he said.
“They’re just fantastic coaches and it just really adds something to the game.
“My only problem [is] with the timing – interestingly enough, the players association won’t let you get the players back unless you’ve played in the finals, but they can go and play in an International Rules Series. I find that quite strange.”
