By JARROD POTTER
ALL the chaos of a turbulent off-season didn’t affect the Casey’s VFL season opener – with the home-side running out 68-point victors over Frankston on Sunday.
With Melbourne’s rapid turnover of its 2012 list, the loss of its coach and some off-field problems marring the pre-season, there were whispers of a down-year for Casey going around.
These were whispers in retrospect no one should’ve listened to because the Scorpions walked over the Dolphins in an 11-goal canter with efforts from all lines impressing new coach Rohan Welsh.
A first quarter shootout ensued as Luke Tapscott drilled three goals from lace-out passes via Max Gawn, James Magner and Ben Kearns to push Casey ahead by 11 points at the first break.
Kearns didn’t miss out either, snapping two of his five goals for the match in an impressive debut for Casey.
While most coaches would be content with an eight-goal quarter, Welsh demanded more of his players – issuing orders for more on-field speed.
He demanded no running back off the mark, no backwards handballs and, in essence, anything that slowed down the Scorpions’ high-speed tempo.
From there the foot stayed on the pedal as Casey’s talls – Melbourne listed ruck-pair Jake Spencer and Max Gawn – put a hand up, not only for 21 hit-outs each, but for senior selection after Melbourne’s insipid Saturday night blunder.
Gawn also snared 19 touches, nine marks – most of which were up forward – and two goals in his best performance yet at Casey.
A six-goal buffer at the half quickly turned to nine by the final change as Casey strolled home with the Dolphins unable to mount much of a resistance.
The Scorpions major ball-winners – James Magner (34 possessions, 10 marks), Tom Couch (32 possessions) and Luke Tapscott (23 possessions and six goals) – roamed freely without too much Frankston accountability while VFL-listed players Mitch Gent (24 possessions) and Jake Best (12 possessions, two goals) were hard at the red leather all day.
Casey’s 23rd man Ben Kearns, a Gippsland Power listed TAC Cup midfielder, jagged five goals in a great crumbing effort underneath the tall forwards.
With an emphatic 1-0 to start his VFL coaching career, Welsh was pleased with his charges intent at the football and believes that level of intensity can post match-winning totals all year.
“I thought our ball use was a lot better, our decision making was good and our attack on the footy was pretty good as well,” Welsh said.
“Our game plan is to move the footy quick – get it into dangerous areas – if we can do that we’ll kick a score which happened today (Sunday).”
After the Demons’ 148-point lashing by Essendon, Welsh believed his Melbourne listed players wanted to send a message that there’s still some fight in the group, despite those lads wearing a Casey strip on the weekend.
“I think it’s important that the alignment isn’t dug in the ground and it’s better to speak about it – a lot of the Melbourne players have a bit of ownership of it,” Welsh said.
“They’re obviously hurting about what happened last night (Saturday) as well and they had a chance to make a statement today and I think they did that.
“That’s their job and that’s our job as a club – this club is made up of Melbourne and Casey so when we run out there – they might be wearing a Casey jumper, but inside a lot of these guys have a Melbourne heart, too.”
Casey sits third on the VFL ladder and heads up the Western Freeway to face North Ballarat on Saturday afternoon.
VFL SCOREBOARD
CASEY SCORPIONS 8.2 14.4 19.8 23.11 (149)
FRANKSTON 6.3 8.5 10.8 12.9 (81)
CASEY SCORPIONS
Goals: L. Tapscott 6, B. Kearns 5, J. Best 2, R. Bail 2, M. Gawn 2, J. Hogan 2, J. Magner, D. Kent, N. Jetta, M. Evans. Best: L. Tapscott, M. Gawn, M. Gent, B. Kearns, M. Evans, J. Magner.
FRANKSTON
Best: M. Lourey, S. Lloyd, Z. Alwan, J. Irving, M. Bosward, D. Gallagher.
