By JARROD POTTER
VFL – ROUND 9
STORMED on their home soil, Casey Scorpions left the arena muddied, bloodied and beaten by a fleet-footed Collingwood.
The anticipation of a marquee televised match at Casey Fields didn’t live up to its billing as Collingwood steam-rolled the hosts in the wet-weather slug-out.
After a captivating back-and-forth first term, with neither side truly seizing their chances early on, the match petered out for Casey.
Tim Smith’s early goal proved a bookend for the Scorpions, as Ben Newton managed to boot the side’s second and final major in the fourth term.
After he was unceremoniously dropped again, following last week’s loss to Port Adelaide, Collingwood forward Travis Cloke (two goals) made the most of his latest VFL outing.
Casey skipper Jack Hutchins had the hard task manning up on the premiership winning forward, but had good support with chop-outs from Declan Keilty and Mitch White.
Cloke snagged two for the day, dished off another and generally attacked anything within the Pies’ forward-50 to impress the sea of fans and not-quite fans which followed him from end to end.
Across the board Casey had difficultly halting the Magpies’ march – with AFL-listed duo Adam Oxley and James Aish starring across the paddock.
Four from the Pies in the final term shut the door on Casey’s chances and left the Scorpions with their second loss of the year and concerningly their second loss against a VFL top four side in 2016.
“It was just a tough day,” Casey coach Justin Plapp said. “Certainly a really wet-weather day of football and our players didn’t adjust quickly enough.
“Collingwood were clearly better around the ball and played the conditions better than we did.
“There were patches in the game where we showed that we had the game on our terms, but we had an inability to score and goals became really crucial on the day like that, so all respect goes to them.”
Keilty was best afield for his defensive efforts – and is quickly playing his way into AFL draft reckoning this year – alongside Viv Michie, Hutchins, Colin Garland and Jake Spencer.
Matt Jones (32 possessions), Michie (27) and Alex Neal-Bullen (22) led the stat-sheet for Casey on a tricky day on field.
Plapp praised Hutchins efforts against his powerhouse opponent, showing his credentials as one of the VFL’s best on the last line.
“Jack is probably one of the most in form defenders in the competition and showed why he was on an AFL list,” Plapp said. “His role that he did on Cloke was very mature and very admirable role he played.”
Sliding back to second on the VFL ladder, Casey heads up the hill to face North Ballarat on Saturday as part of a big month on the road.
“That’s a challenge in itself – we have had a lot of home games and had good results – but now we’ve got to do it on the road now,” Plapp said. “The North Ballarat trip is the hardest of the lot – as we’ve travelled there a few times in the last few years and haven’t performed well.
The Scorpions hosted a VFL Women’s curtain raiser, which ended with Darebin snaring a closely-contested 4.3(27) to 2.3(15) victory over Melbourne University in trying early morning conditions.
VFL SCOREBOARD
CASEY SCORPIONS 1.0 1.2 1.5 2.7(19)
COLLINGWOOD 2.2 3.2 4.8 8.11(59)
CASEY SCORPIONS
GOALS: T. Smith, B. Newton.
BEST: D. Keilty, V. Michie, J. Hutchins, C. Garland, J. Spencer, M. White.
COLLINGWOOD
GOALS: T. Cloke 2, J. Collopy, M. Smith, W. Knight, L. Ferguson, C. Gault, J. Aish.
BEST: J. Aish, M. Smith, T. Cloke, A. Oxley, L. Howe, R. Wills.
