By JARROD POTTER
VFL – ROUND 14
A CLOSELY fought VFL home-and-away season is starting to wrap up – with second to seventh separated by a solitary win.
Stuck squarely in this logjam is Casey – whom needed a win to stay in the finals’ hunt and potentially get a finals’ double chance.
While victory alone would have sufficed to keep Casey in the top echelon, an absolute pumping of a depleted Northern Blues outfit by 47 points was the actual outcome.
“We’ll just keep on keeping on,” Casey coach Justin Plapp said.
“We’re healthy and getting some really good results from all parts of the club at the moment, so it’s all going well.
“You’re only five days away from another loss though – so things can unravel really quickly and we really respect that… we’re focused on taking each game on its merit.”
Kicking away progressively, Casey started its Northern rampage at the coalface in the interior.
Smashing apart the Blues’ rucks via Mark Jamar and Jake Spencer they funnelled the ball out through Viv Michie and Jack Grimes – with the Melbourne quartet leaving little room for the Blues’ to fight back.
From there it was all outside run and carry through Jimmy Toumpas, Jayden Hunt and Matt Jones – with Hunt excelling in one of his best outings to boot four goals.
While kicking was a little lopsided – booting 15.15 (105) to 9.4 (58) – Casey’s hard-edged approach reaped the better results.
“We felt that we dominated the stoppages, the contested part of the game – Jamar and Spencer as two big ruckman give us plenty of first use and first possession,” Plapp said.
“We were able to get the ball to the outside and use those guys and set up that we’d be able to get the ball to better parts of the ground going inside 50.”
Casey’s route towards the finals is fairly precarious – with this weekend’s match against Collingwood (seventh), just the start of harder things to come, the run home featuring clashes against the VFL’s top three – Box Hill, Williamstown and Sandringham.
But that’s not the immediate issue for Casey and something the coach will leave for another day to worry about.
“We’ve got a tough five weeks, but we want to focus on Collingwood and we’ve got a brand of footy that stands up to the way they play,” Plapp said.
Casey heads out to Victoria Park at 12pm on Sunday.
VFL
NORTHERN BLUES 1.2 4.3 5.3 9.4 (58)
CASEY SCORPIONS 3.4 7.7 11.13 15.15 (105)
NORTHERN
Goal Kickers: J. Johnston 2, K. Jaksch 2, B. Johnson 2, M. Watson, S. Murray, P. Dirago.
Best: L. Jones, J. Roberts, Z. Ballard, J. Johnston, T. Armitage, M. Whiley.
CASEY SCORPIONS
Goal Kickers: J. Hunt 4, M. Jamar 3, J. Spencer 2, B. Rutherford, S. Byrnes, M. King, J. Grimes, M. Jones, V. Michie.
Best: M. Jamar, J. Grimes, J. McKenzie, J. Hunt, J. Hutchins, E. Panozza.
