Scorpions’ season on the line

By Marc McGowan
SUNDAY’S nail-biting defeat will see the Casey Scorpions fight for their life in a do-or-die elimination final with Collingwood at Port Melbourne’s TEAC Oval on Saturday.
The clubs’ only meeting this year saw the Scorpions crush the Magpies by 62 points during a stretch when Casey won seven out of eight games between May and July.
Injuries and unavailability have hurt the Scorpions since, and they enter this weekend’s clash having lost three of their last four contests.
Collingwood, on the other hand, is going from strength to strength and has won three of its fixtures in the same period – not coincidentally since towering forward Anthony Rocca hit top form.
Rocca will be the biggest danger to Casey’s hopes of progressing to the second week in September, but Scorpions’ coach Peter German is confident of stopping the Magpies’ star.
German earmarked Peter Faulks, Alex Silvagni, James Wall and a wildcard – former St Kilda rookie-lister Glenn Chivers – as potential opponents for Rocca.
“We’ve certainly got options for him if our first choice doesn’t work,” German said.
“I haven’t really watched them over the last two or three weeks, but I would think they’re going to be very systematic in the way they play.
“They obviously have got a lot of AFL-listed players who would have done a lot of training together and know how they need to play and what’s expected of them.”
German is unsure of how many Melbourne players he will have at his disposal, but said a complete team effort would be the key to his side’s finals’ success.
“We’re going to struggle if we rely on individuals,” he said.
“That’s why we’ve done so well all year. Kyle Matthews, Silvagni, Wall, Faulks and these types of players have been up for some games.
“We probably only had a 50 per cent spread of good players (against Box Hill) and if we have that again next week we’re going to be in some serious trouble. We need to get a spread of 70 per cent right across the board of players who have actually had an impact on the game. We need to make sure that even the players who are not playing well are still making a good, sizeable contribution.”
One man who will not be playing for Casey is indigenous livewire Pierce Liddle, who was reported for charging Box Hill’s Ed Curnow in Sunday’s match.
Scorpions’ officials chose to accept a one-match penalty for the incident.
Liddle is the club’s only representative at the Victorian state screening session on 4 October ahead of November’s AFL National Draft.