Casey Scorpions officials are hoping key-position recruit Matthew Moore can give the club a focal point up forward this season.By Marc McGowan
THE Casey Scorpions have lacked a genuine key forward on their VFL list in recent seasons, but the search may well have come to an end.
Meet Matthew Moore.
The 194cm and 93kg former De La Salle strongman (pictured) finished runner-up in the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) goalkicking with 59 goals in just 13 games last year.
He also came third in De La Salle’s best-and-fairest award.
Moore, 22, has trained with the Scorpions since November, but only committed last week.
He knocked back the opportunity to play with VFL club Box Hill in 2005 after just one training session and also rejected the overtures of officials at TAC Cup under-18 side Sandringham as a teenager.
But Moore is finally ready to knuckle down and make the most of his obvious talent after representing the VAFA representative under-23 side against South Australia last season.
“If I let all these opportunities go by, I’ll just regret it,” the Glen Iris resident said.
“You play against all these kids in the ammos, but playing against ex-AFL players and actual AFL players (in the VFL) is something you don’t always get the opportunity to do.
“I think I can play at the level and hopefully it leads somewhere else.”
That ‘somewhere else’ is the AFL and Casey football manager Craig Lees actually used the introduction of proposed AFL club Gold Coast in 2011 as a lure for Moore.
And Lees is confident Moore will make the grade – at least at VFL standard.
“He’s obviously been one of the best forwards in the A-grade amateurs and that’s a pretty good competition,” Lees said.
“He’s a real athletic forward – not so much a power forward – and has really good fitness and endurance.
“We’re pretty rapt with the signing and he will definitely add a bit to our forward line with the likes of (Melbourne players) Jack Watts and Liam Jurrah and probably releases Michael Newton a little bit to play further up the field.”
Moore, who also played for South Cairns in the QAFL in 2006, prides himself on his defensive pressure and hopes to improve the accuracy of his goalkicking in 2009.
He joins an impressive group of recruits, including former AFL players Peter Faulks and Glenn Chivers, at the Scorpions.
And there could be more on the way.
Lees has partial commitments from two players in the Northern Territory Football League.
One is a speedy indigenous forward and the other is a former Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League midfielder.
Casey players and officials are heading to Bright this weekend for a training camp before the list is trimmed to 45 in the coming weeks.
The Scorpions play the first of their three practice matches at Casey Fields against Box Hill on 21 March.
