vfl.com.au recently chatted to Casey Demons senior coach Justin Plapp about what could lie in store for the club on the field in 2017.
FACT FILE:
AFL ALIGNMENT: Melbourne
2016 FINISH: 2nd (16-5)
2016 BEST AND FAIREST: 1. Jack Hutchins / 2. Alex Neal-Bullen / 3. Declan Keilty
2016 TEAM OF THE YEAR: Jack Hutchins / Declan Keilty / Tim Smith
2016 DRAFTEES: Tim Smith (rookie pick no.25 to Melbourne) / Oscar McInerney (rookie pick no.37 to Brisbane) / Declan Keilty (rookie pick no.41 to Melbourne)
OTHER FORMER PLAYERS CURRENTLY ON AFL LISTS:
- Selected from club in 2009: Alex Silvagni* (Fremantle/Carlton)
- 2011: Tim Mohr (GWS)
KEY 2017 INS & OUTS:
- In: Dan Allsop (Dandenong Stingrays) / Trent Armour (Gippsland Power) / Kieren Byers (Gippsland Power) / Ethan East (Gippsland Power) / Nathan Foote (Frankston) / Nathan Gardiner (Frankston) / Mitch Gent (Noble Park) / Lachlan Gill-Renouf (Dandenong Stingrays) / Ben Giobbi (Noble Park) / Tom Glen (Dandenong Stingrays) / Liam Hiscock (Sandringham) / Keenan Hughes (Gippsland Power) / Mitch Lewis (Dandenong Stingrays) / Goy Lok (Sandringham Dragons) / Jai Rout (Gippsland Power) / Yilber Zijai (Sandringham) / Gach Nyuon (Essendon AFL)
- Out: Yarran Jaffer-Williams (Port Melbourne) / Declan Keilty (Melbourne AFL) / Oscar McInerney (Brisbane AFL) / Paul Pattison / Bryce Rutherford / Tim Smith (Melbourne AFL) / Kody Wilson
DEPARTED PLAYERS WHO’LL BE MISSED:
Tim Smith, Oscar McInerney and Declan Keilty: “We sort of retain Tim and Declan in our system because they were rookie-listed to Melbourne, but they’re part of the AFL team now. I was absolutely rapt those three were rookie-listed, because when you’re doing this job you want to create opportunities for players to reach their full potential. I was pretty proud of Tim and how he was able to knuckle down and keep focused on where he wanted to go as a footballer – to be drafted at 25 years of age, it doesn’t happen too often. Declan came out of the TAC Cup (from Gippsland Power) and had huge potential but took a little while to physically mature. Oscar just developed really quickly after we recruited him last year and played some good football at the right time of year.”
RECRUITS WHO COULD MAKE AN IMPACT:
Mitch Gent: “Mitch previously played 60 VFL games for us and is coming back to the club after a year at Noble Park (in the Eastern FL). He was pretty keen to give the VFL another go, and given he’s a quality player we certainly weren’t going to knock him back. He’s a big-bodied midfielder who can play a number of positions. He’s had a really strong pre-season and I’d argue he’s in better shape than he’s ever been.”
Yilber Zijai: “Yilber played 27 VFL games for Sandringham over a four-year period. He’s a small forward/midfielder who’s hard at it and a clever player who seems to make things happen every time he touches the ball. We think he’s a big in for us.”
Nathan Gardiner: “Nathan’s an ex-Frankston player who kicked 52 goals over the last two years at VFL level. He’s a medium-sized forward with really strong hands and he’s going to be important for our forward-line depth.”
Goy Lok: “Goy is a 19-year-old big-bodied midfielder we’ve recruited from the Sandringham Dragons who played three VFL games for the Sandringham Zebras last year and performed really well. We think he’s going to have an instant impact.”
BEST-AND-FAIREST CONTENDERS:
“Jack Hutchins springs to mind pretty quickly. He won our best-and-fairest last year, he’s our captain and he gets the big jobs in defence most weeks. He’s a massive player for our team and has a lot of experience. Ed Morris (pictured) has played just about every game for us the last two years but he was unfortunate to miss out on selection for the Grand Final last year. He’s gone away and worked really hard on his general fitness and has come back in amazing condition. We expect him to bounce back from that disappointment.
“Mitch Gent’s going to play a pretty big role for us around the middle of the ground and he wins a lot of his own ball. He has really good leadership qualities too. Angus Scott’s another one – he played every VFL game last year and had some really significant improvement in his running ability. He generally makes something happen when he has the ball.”
BREAK-OUT CANDIDATE:
Dylan Gordon: “Dylan’s a defender who reads the ball and intercepts really well. We recruited him from the Northern Territory two years ago and he’s really matured physically. He played one VFL game last year but is tracking like he’ll become a really important player for us. His pre-season’s indicating that he’s really developed and we’re expecting he’s going to come on in leaps and bounds.”
BIGGEST TEAM STRENGTHS:
“We’ve worked really hard on building our culture over the last three years. When we talk about our VFL program we talk about our AFL players as well as our VFL players, and we think our ‘one club’ mentality is clearly a strength. I think the outside perception was that we were really healthy from an AFL-list point of view last year – which we were – but I don’t think we had any more AFL-listed players playing week in week out than any other aligned club. I think the perception was that we got good results just because of those players, but I’m happy for other clubs to think that and keep focusing on that.
“With the list changes at Melbourne, we’re probably not going to have the midfield depth we had last year but we’re going to be better off with key-position players. We probably had a lack of key-position players last year but our strength this year is probably going to be our tall backs and forwards.”
AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT ON 2016:
“We were ranked first for inside-50s (per game during the H&A season) last year but we weren’t able to hit the scoreboard as much as we would have liked, so we’ve tried to tighten that up. We’ve certainly got a big focus on being able to score more consistently.
“Also, we want to just continue to build chemistry between our AFL-listed and VFL-listed players. If you can get that area right and have everyone on the same page, I think the results will come.”
COACHING PANEL CHANGES:
“Unfortunately we lost Brett Allison and Daniel McPherson who were both line coaches for our VFL team, but we’ve got Max Rooke in from Gold Coast’s AFL team – he’s a Melbourne development coach and will do midfield stoppages for us – and Mick Stinear – who was Melbourne’s AFL Women’s coach and will be doing our offence. Sam Radford – who was an assistant coach with Melbourne’s AFLW team – will do defence and Danny Ryan will become our midfield coach. He was previously second-in-charge to Jeremy Barnard at the Sandringham Dragons in the TAC Cup. We feel we’ve lost a couple of very good people but we’ve also gained some really capable people.”
* Next preview: Footscray
Related content:
Collingwood season preview
Williamstown season preview
Sandringham season preview
Essendon season preview
Port Melbourne season preview
Box Hill Hawks season preview
Richmond season preview
Werribee season preview
Coburg season preview
Northern Blues season preview
North Ballarat season preview
Last Modified on 12/04/2017 21:31