Playing well: Jesse Hogan. Photo: Sebastian Costanzo
The new Melbourne coach may be further enticed by the development of young key forward Jesse Hogan, who again dominated at VFL level in the 47-point win over the Coburg Tigers at Casey Fields on Sunday.
Hogan, who was picked up in last year's mini-draft and is unable to play with the Demons until next season, has continued to excel for the Scorpions under coach Rohan Welsh, who has no doubt Hogan will be an instant inclusion in Melbourne's best 22 next season.
Hogan kicked four goals against the Tigers, to go alongside 21 possessions and 11 marks.
But the real fear for Welsh is Melbourne's history of restricting its youngsters from playing VFL finals and instead putting them in for end-of-season surgery, or simply resting them.
"The Melbourne footy club have got to realise too that sometimes the best thing for these kids is just to play footy,'' he said. ''They seem to train for days on days and months on end, yet they only play 20 games a year.
"From a development point of view, there's nothing better than playing games.''
Past Scorpions coaches such as Peter German and Brett Lovett were frustrated and bemused come VFL finals time. The Scorpions have typically had fine regular seasons before being bundled out of the finals in straight sets.
"We haven't spoken about it with them [Melbourne], but if we go on past seasons, then definitely that will happen [and players will not play finals], so it's important that we get a real even spread from the Casey guys leading into the finals," Welsh said.
Casey (8-2) has shot into the top three, joining Box Hill and Geelong.
In other matches on Sunday, Frankston thrashed Sandringham by 96 points, with Michael Lourey kicking six goals, and there are injury concerns over Sandringham's draft prospects Adam Cockie and Myke Cook.
North Ballarat demolished Bendigo Gold by 118 points, with Myles Sewell kicking five goals.
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