Demon delight for Scorpions

Casey Scorpions recruit Nick Scanlon impressed in the second half of Melbourne’s intra-club match at Casey Fields on Saturday. 27192 Picture: Stewart Chambers

By Marc McGowan
CASEY Scorpions football manager Craig Lees is tipping big things for his club’s new AFL relationship with Melbourne on the eve of the 2009 VFL season.
Lees praised Demons officials’ approachability after their intra-club match on Saturday and expects the alignment to be more successful than the Scorpions’ eight-year partnership with St Kilda.
“It’s like pears and apples with Melbourne and St Kilda – we trained with St Kilda four times for the whole year (in 2008) and had to go to Moorabbin (nearly) every time,” he said.
“They’re (Melbourne) just going to make the alignment work and that’s a great opportunity for our young list.
“You just don’t know what will happen, success wise, on the footy field this year because you don’t know about injuries and the competition.
“It’s hard to dictate what’s going to happen, but you can see it’s going to be a successful alignment.”
Thirteen Casey players, including key recruits Nick Scanlon, Michael Stockdale and Peter Faulks, played in the intra-club match.
Lees said he thought Stockdale was good.
“He was runner-up in Gippsland’s best-and-fairest last year – he showed he’s ready to play senior VFL footy straight away,” he said.
“Nick Scanlon was unlucky. They lost his magnet and forgot about him in the first half.
“Then in the second half he got three kicks in a minute and they realised he could play – he hasn’t missed a beat in the pre-season, has good finesse and finishes well with his feet.”
The Scorpions have 60 players training at the moment and officials will reduce that number to 45 in the coming weeks.
“One thing that’s going to happen with our list this year is that it’s going to have depth,” Lees said.
“Our reserves will be stronger and will hopefully play finals footy.
“We have 60 training at the moment and we’ve got to cut 15 and it’s actually difficult – last year we had 35 definites and we were trying to get 10 other blokes in.”