tbetta’s Bullets: Round 13

• I’m Back

Before I get into it, a massive thanks to Amanda, who took the Bullets vehicle for a spin last week and brought it back in great nick, with a bit of extra fuel in the tank! Team FLOSSY obviously responded well to her public criticism last week, and pulled together a great victory over Calvin, who has been right up there in the last few weeks after his slow start to the season.

Hopefully she backs up with a shocker, because the FLOSSY’s and Tbetta Than You go head-to-head this week!

• Me, Myself and my Dreamteam

Emotionally, I’m all over the place this weekend. I’m happy about my trades, angry about my vests, disappointed with my guns, impressed with my Captain, blasé about my lost matchups, apprehensive of the tribunal and downright terrified with what Thursday’s Teams will bring. Hopefully, that sums up Dreamteam for Round 13. I can’t decide what mood I’m in with my team and it’s prospects, so I’m going to compartmentalise.

Let’s start off with Optimistic tbetta. The good news is that a lot of crap things occurred this week, so if you had a shocker, chances are your opponent or those ranked near you did too. Also, with all the injuries mounting on teams, we should see a few more timely debuts – most notably Ian Callinan, who apparently chopped in the SANFL this weekend. And I guess with a lot of average scores from a few guns lately, prices will be right down and there should be bargains galore.

But Pessimistic tbetta has a retort for everything. Like, why did the few remaining premiums left on our fields have to choose this week to go missing? We were already short half of our midfields! And why do the injuries all have to come at once – surely you can spread them out a little? Yes, sure there might be a few rookies on the way through, but what will the quality be like? JS would have to be next to non-existent for most of the fresh meat arriving from now on. And who cares if there are a lot of bargains, if most of them are players that I already own!

I have a feeling I will be a lot more of the latter, given the news that the tribunal will probably bring. Anyway, let’s take a look at a few things from the weekend I noticed.

• Boyd Manned

A fairly clever heading there I must say… Anyway, Boyd was the one who let us down this week, only managing 70 points. He was tagged by Doughty who took over in Reilly’s absence, and he obviously did a great job, keeping Boyd to a season low and his lowest tally since Round 16, 2008.

I would suggest it’s just a blip on the radar – he’s been in great form otherwise, and is still one of the premier midfielders, nay, players, in Dreamteam.

• Which Team Are You On?

Round 14 looks like it will be the return of one of the greatest rivalries – Team Swan vs Team Ablett! With Swan returning (hopefully) fit again and Ablett also fit and in great touch, it’s shaping as one of the bigger choices we will have to make each week – which one do we give the C to?

Swan was averaging competition highs over the start of the year until he sustained that niggling thigh injury. And Ablett has finally hit his straps – since Round 7 he has scored 156, 92, 132, 146 and 135. That’s a 5 Round average of 132.2, the highest in the league. Compare that to Swan’s first 5, in which his average was 130 per match – we may just have the great rivalry back!

Which team am I? You’d be crazy to bet against Gablett in this form…

• Makers and Breakers

Some huge scores this week, let’s check out the top 5.

I’ve already talked about Gablett, but I’m going to indulge and mention him again here, where he thoroughly deserves to be. He was the only Sun to top the ton, and it was 135, and it was against Hawthorn, and in Launceston. Enough said.

It was only Kreuzer’s second game back, but that didn’t stop him from amassing 133 DT points in a BOG performance, against one of the best 1-2 ruck combo in the league. With Sandilands out and Zmith listed as an ankle injury (although I highly doubt it was significant if it existed at all), Kreuzer could be a great unique 2^nd ruckman. Assuming he remains fit, of course.

Ben McEvoy is continuing his massive scoring tear, having topped the ton in his last three at an average of 122! If you picked him up for Sandi around that time, great call.

Savage is fourth on the Makers list this week with a team, game and career high 164 points on the Gold Coast (which is why he’s not a little higher) on Saturday. He’s now a shade under 300k, starting at only a third of that price, and he still has a BE of -6! That’s a huge profit, and he, along with Shiels, would have to be one of the best picks of the year.

Rounding out the list is the DT version of the prodigal son, the great Mick Barlow. In his first game back he collected an impressive 25 disposals on his way to 98 points. This was the top score in a team that was flogged by almost 90 points – a very good effort in any language. Unfortunately he is the most expensive player in the game at the moment, so he won’t be a viable option until very late in the year, but it’s a great comeback story nonetheless.

 

The Breakers only has 5 spots, which is not really enough to express how lame some of our players were this week. I was thinking, it’s bad enough having one or two of these guys, but it’s very possible you could have a reasonably successful team to date and you had a whole bunch of them! So the Makers looks a little different for Round 13 – check out this theoretical team:

 

The Breakers

BACKS
Adcock (inj)	H. Shaw (bye)	Broughton (46)	Goddard (56)
Heppell (58)	Lower (62)	Thornton (57)	EMG: Jacobs (25)
MIDS
Bartel (2)	Boyd (70)	Pendlebury (bye)	Swan (bye)
Selwood (susp)	Montagna (45)		BENCH: Mundy (inj)
RUCKS
Cox (91)	Sandilands (inj)		EMG: Z Smith (inj)
FWDS
N. Riewoldt (29)	Knights (20)	J. Riewoldt (71)	S. Johnson (72)
Dawes (bye)	Didak (bye)	Darling (44)	EMG: Prestia(29)

 

A pretty good team, yeah? I mean, I’d be pretty happy to have a team that looks like that at this point of the year. Well, this week it would have posted a grand total of 846, including Boyd as captain! Crazy, because let’s be honest, these players are all very popular fantasy players.

So that’s my Breakers. I don’t really want to dwell on it too much, because I own half that team (17 of them, actually). Knights (subbed – a little headache), N. Riewoldt and Broughton were all particularly bad, and Boyd had his lowest score of the year as a popular captain choice.

• Next Round

It’s a huge relief that we get all our Pies back this week, even at the expense of some of our Sainters – and honestly, I can do without your combined 85 points Goddard and Riewoldt.

Now, remember we still have 11 Rounds to go – keep those trades until you absolutely need them! You’ve been warned.

Also, keep your ears to the ground for news on Franklin, O’Keefe and the rest for the Match Review Panel’s findings. Early mail is not good…

Until next time.

 

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