Starting Swan?

Are You Starting Swan?

This is the $596,700 dollar question.

Will you be starting Dane Swan this year or rolling with someone else.

Why you should start with him…

It’s Dane Swan for god’s sake.
He has been the premium of premiums and will average 120+ again this year.
He doesn’t always get tagged (Pendles, Daisy are contenders each week too).
Although if you don’t start him and you ‘plan’ to get him later, you might not be able to due to his price being too high or your team might get other issues/injuries that you need to patch up.
If he does start on fire… you are going to miss out on so many points, especially if he is your captain. Arggg me hearties.

Why you should pick him after the bye/Arizona trip

He knows he’s going to have a mid-season break and will be ‘lazy’ leading up to it.
He averaged just 87 in the 6 weeks leading up to Arizona and 128 in his 11 home and away games when he returned.
He won’t play all games this year because of this ‘break’ and may miss a minimum 2.

After weighing up the options, let’s see what the DT Talk professionals have to say:

WARNIE: I’m torn. Of course I want him, but I think that he will be better to get after the mid-season break. It will hurt so much not having him from the get go and watching those 130s go past me, but I’m quite happy with the upside I have in my ‘premium’ mids I currently have. I don’t know. My mind will change multiple times up until lockout, but at this stage… no Swan for me (probably until tomorrow’s team update).
ROY: At this stage I don’t have him, but there is every chance he will be back. When he is in the team I am happy having 2 Mid rookies on my ground, but when he is not sitting there I feel the need to over compensate for the points I will be missing out on and run with 5 premiums. I will have him at some stage and am disgusted in myself that he is not currently there, in fact I might change it before I go to bed because I’m not sure I can sleep knowing he is not on my team. What if I have a massive kip and miss lockout?! OK, he is back in. I hope this helped……
CALVIN: Currently locked. Not only is he a go to captain, you need him in the early stages of the year… regardless of the trip coming up. My biggest issue here is, we all have great plans of what we want to do throughout the year… but occasionally it just doesn’t happen as injuries etc screw them up.
TBETTA: He’s currently in my side, but by no means a lock. Unfortunately, I am pretty convinced that he’ll have a game or two off this year, which makes prospects like Boyd (who’ll never take a game off) all that more convincing. Ultimately though, I think Swan will end up being in the top 6 Mids by aggregate score, and their pre-bye fixture is favourable, especially compared to their post-bye fixture (see here for more info). For this reason, Collingwood’s players are some of the worst to upgrade to, so it’s all or nothing for me – I’ll be starting Swan at this stage.
CHOOK: None of my players are locked just yet, especially my premiums (don’t have much time left for the top-dollar dawgs with all the rookie watching that goes on at my coop). But, at the the moment, it’s Pendlebury – not Swan – in the number-one midfield spot in my Merv Gray Autos squad. Lightning does strike twice, sometimes, and I’m hoping Swan has another underwhelming start to the season so I can add him to the Autos at a decent price after Collingwood’s mid-season bye, just like last year. Maybe he’ll be a straight swap for James Magner? A man can hope.

So with all that in mind… what will you be doing with Dane Swan this year and if you are going with someone else… who?