The ol’ Switcheroo Strategy

I remember back in the days the ridicule you would give somebody if they played a dual position player in the Midfield rather than the Back/Fwd. Obviously at the time it was right to call these people Muppets because the dual position players could not be moved once they were picked. Wasting Didak or Chappy in the middle took up a spot that Ablett or Bartel could have used. Meanwhile your forwards had two less 100pt potential players.

But now that players can be rotated from position to position it raises a few propositions.

We all know the basic strategy of the game is to make money from a cash cow which then gets poured into an upgrade from mid ranger to premium.

So when picking your first team how should you actually make the most of this function? Obviously it is difficult to afford all of Swan, Boyd, Montagna and Bartel from the get go, there would be no money left for anything else. This is why we wait until they have dropped in price and catch them at their lowest point. So generally we can try and pick a midfield consisting of a few players who we think may be turn out to be  keepers but are reasonably priced, and a few cows. This way we still get the points coming in as we wait for cash. But in doing this we don’t leave ourselves the amount of spots we need to get all the best midfielders when they become available.

For example if you start with a midfield of

• Bartel
• Pendlebury
• Murphy
• Sewell
• Harris
• Swallow

You may have three keepers and three upgrades, that leaves you only three spots for the likes of Swan, Boyd, Montagna, Selwood, Stanton or whoever else pops up as a gun that year.

With the dual position function that we can now use it seems silly not to utilise it to the full. The idea I have is to start with a midfield full of dual position players then when all the cash cows are ripe you can move the dual players to their other positions leaving your six midfield spots for the best money can buy.

For example starting with a midfield of

• Goddard
• Didak
• Gibbs
• Goodes
• Harvey
• Morton

Would have the points rolling in and as each cash cow gets milked you could just transfer them one at a time to effectively upgrade a player in the forward or back. By doing this you are getting an upgrade in the middle and an upgrade in the other position at the same time and seems like a way to get an all star team.

By using this strategy I have come up with this team

DEF: Deledio –Bruce- Broughton- Grimes- Krakour- Otten –Heppell

MID: Goddard –Didak –Gibbs –Goodes –Harvey –Morton

RUC: Cox –McEvoy

FWD: Franklin – Riewoldt –Johnson – Higgins – Dangerfield–Zaharakis – Krakouer

55k in the bank.

Imagine this team once those midfielders replace the midrange backs/forwards and Swan, Boyd, Bartel etc get injected into the middle!

Obviously you need to pick the right bench cows and mid rangers who can be used as a dual link.

I know there must be a reason why this strategy won’t work but I can’t think of it right now!