Interpreting the byes for AFL Dream Team 2012

Thanks to the GWS entering this upcoming season, we don’t have to put up with those pesky byes that normally remove a player of two from our teams for a week. Those and the dreaded multi-byes (aka Donut Heaven).

However, now we have 3 rounds with 6 byes each! It’s like removing a long pain with a short burst of unbelievable torture. We saw how bad we went with only 3 teams out, now we have double that! Hopefully Virtual Sports can forecast our potential suffering and will give us a three-week break from those rounds in the league like last year.

Round 11

Friday June 8^th to Monday June 11th: Adelaide, Brisbane, Greater Western Sydney, North Melbourne, West Coast, Western Bulldogs.

In round 11 we’ll be missing our Giant young guns like Patton, Cameron, Tyson, Coniglio, Shiel, Giles and Reid, especially if you plan on stocking up Eagles and Lions like Shuey, Naitanui, Cox, Brown, Longer and Rockliff, or if their is an injury crisis in your team, which happens a fair bit as your approach mid-season and start conserving your trades preparing for finals. There is some light at the end of the tunnel however, that the number of GWS rookies in your team will likely fall as you approach round 11 as they start hitting their price ceiling so that you can trade them out for guns. The other 3 teams that are Adelaide, North Melbourne and the Dogs have some gold DT options, like Goldstein, Thompson and Boyd, but apart from those they isn’t much to pick from.

Wrap: You should be missing a fair few amount of rookies from GWS but the other clubs with byes have little DT relevance bar the Eagles and Lions.

Forecast: ~7 players out.

Round 12

Thursday June 14^th to Sunday June 17^th: Collingwood, Essendon, Fremantle, Geelong, Melbourne, Sydney.

In Round 12, the halfway point of the home and away season, We’ll lose players from a few strong sides that will be pushing for the premiership (Collingwood, Geelong) or top 6 (Sydney, Essendon, Fremantle). Missing Collingwood and Geelong will hurt as we lose players like Swan, Pendlebury, Cloke, Thomas, Beams, Sidebottom, Chapman (the latter three not so bad as they have DPP), Selwood and Stevie J. Essendon, Sydney and Fremantle are all good DT sides holding players that are touch-and-go like Stanton, Zaharakis, Watson, Barlow, Pavlich, Goodes and McGlynn, alongside youngsters like Kavagnah, Crozier, Sheridan and Mitchell. Melbourne will most likely not hold any players in our starting 22 unless you want Colin “Injury” Sylvia, and although he can be good will piss you off A LOT.

Wrap: Collingwood and Geelong will make us lose a fair few guns; Bombers, Sydney and Fremantle will have some impact.

Forecast: ~9 players out.

Round 13

Friday June 22^nd to Sunday June 24^th: Carlton, Gold Coast, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, Richmond, St. Kilda.

Round 13 features three divisions of team classifications with the bye in this round; several good teams (Hawthorn, Carlton, St. Kilda), alongside several poor teams (Port Adelaide, Richmond) and one young, developmental team (Gold Coast). The first division takes from us Buddy, Mitchell, Rioli, Scotland, Gibbs, Murphy, Judd, Nick Riewoldt, Goddard and Fisher. The second division takes away Boak, Wingard and Jack Riewoldt, nobody else really of DT Gun relevance. The third takes Ablett and a host of second year players like Smith and Swallow.

Wrap: Should lose a fair few players from Hawks, Blues and Saints but not much from the other 3 apart from Ablett and Wingard.

Forecast: ~8 players out.

After analysis, it appears that round 12 (June 14^th through 17^th) will damage our teams the most, seeing our stars from Collingwood, Geelong, Essendon, Fremantle and Sydney missing in action from our team, which could cause a major drop in points. Round 11 will see a whole lot of rookies out from GWS, so little cover will be provided for injured players.

Virtual Sports is yet to confirm any league changes for those three rounds, however one can assume they will give us league byes for those three weeks (maybe a trip to Arizona for some high altitude training during this break to ready ourselves for the finals) so that those of us going for league will be spared; however those going for overall will have to even their side between the byes to prevent their teamsheet looking like a Donut King.

Thanks to Ronaldo for this article. Stay tuned to DT TALK for more info on the 2012 fixture and what it will mean for AFL Dream Team as the rules are confirmed for the multi-bye rounds. You can follow Ronaldo on twitter @VivaRonaldo23.