Your DT Strategy: is it time for a rethink?

Like thousands of other coaches, I like logging in late on Sunday night to check out how my team pulled up after the weekend’s action of footy. Of course I already know how I did because I spent a large portion of the weekend monitoring the progress of my team. In this regard, I would also like to think I am not alone! However, I do find it interesting checking out my new national ranking, and also the progress of the teams right up the top of the Dream Team world and how their teams are structured.

The number 1 dream team in the land at the moment, quite curiously named ‘Frog a doodle FFW’ coached by Catherine, presents a very differently structured team to most others at the top. Before I talk about the structure of her team, I’ll point out something that most of us already know, or probably think we know. And that is that midfielders are golden in dream team. A premium midfielder can average you 105-125, whereby a premium defender/forward will usually only average you 85-95. So with this in mind, we should all be trading in premium midfielders as fast as we can right? …Wrong. And now, using ‘Frog a Doodle FFW ‘as a template, I’ll tell you why.

Unlike most of the other teams at the top end, who’s midfield already consists of 6 premiums – i.e. Boyd, Swan, Bartel, Watson, Mundy &  Pendlebury. Froggy’s team (as I’ll refer to it from now on), consists of only 4 midfield premiums: Swan, Boyd, Thompson and Selwood. This was something that I found quite intriguing. Then I looked at Froggy’s defence and forward line of which consisted of 6 premiums in each position. Compare this with teams that have 6 midfield premiums and in those teams your probably looking at 4-5 premium forwards/defenders. Clearly at this point of the season, most people would prefer a team with 6 premo midfielders than 6 premo forwards/backs, but Catherines team dares to be different – and its winning!

A team with a structure like this has a lot of upside. Whilst many dream teamers over the next month or so will be panicking about the potential donuts their likely to cop as a result of a heavy reliance on rookies in their backline and forwardline – a team like Catherine that has set out to strengthen these positions early, is going to have the luxury of picking which 2 premium midfielders should be traded in over the next few weeks.

Apart form the fact it is currently leading, a team like ‘Frog a doodle FFW’ is great because its different. And personally, I find it encouraging when coaches with new ideas/different strategies can pull them off as it gives me hope of one day grabbing hold of the elusive mantle that is DT champion of the world! So what are you thoughts on a strategy for building your own team? Do you prefer to strengthen your midfield first, and leave the historically weaker scoring positions like defense and forward line until last? How many keepers do you currently have in each position on your field?