The Friday Scramble: Round 1A

Alright, this is it, enough of this nice friendly stuff, we finally get serious.  Blokes at work will start looking over your shoulder to see who you are picking (not that you do your team at work of course). 

Last season I brought you “Get Off The Bench” on a Friday morning as we had the weekly byes to consider and a much bigger bench.  But since we don’t have that problem this year, and when we get to the MBR’s this year we won’t have much choice!, I am going to bring you The Friday Scramble, as that is inevitably what Friday turns into.  A mad scramble to get the right guys on the ground and make the right trades.  I hope to bring you some topics to consider, some things to remember and highlight some of the things from the week just past to think about.  I hope you like it as it should help you solidify your strategies going into each round.

We are all now starting to really finalise our teams.  There are a few things that we need to in this next 36hrs before our first of 3 lockouts for round 1. 

Are you there yet?

A strategy that I think is very important is to have your team set to pretty much how you would have it if the full round 1 lockout was in effect as of the first game this week.  This means you should have your strategy in place, you should have settled on your premiums that you want to carry into the season and you should be also settled on the rookies that you plan to have, even those that don’t belong to GWS. 

What this means is that from Sunday to Thursday night next week, you don’t have to try and fit things in around your locked in players too much.  Any changes should be sideways trades and not complete structure changes as that approach could lead to disaster.

How many is too many?

I posed the question on twitter this week as to how many GWS players should you have and how many of them should be starting on the field for you in round 1.  I got a lot of answers to this and most seemed to be in a fairly tight range.  The consensus seemed to be that between 4 and 6 was the right number of GWS players to have.  I think if we look back to our starting squads last year, 6 was pretty much the minimum number of guys we had from GCS, however, in remembering that, also remember that we had an extra 3 players last year.  So you can’t afford to just stash a heap of cows out in the back paddock knowing that you will never need them to come into the main paddock. 

This year with only two spots on the bench picking the right rookies and cheaper players is critical and you can’t afford to pick a guy that might not play all that often.  Personally I am looking at having between 5 and 6 in my team and I am concerned that this might be too many.  However, based on what we have seen in the preseason and what we know about these kids from their time in the lower grades, there are some guns there.

The other thing to remember about the GWS is that they have taken a very different approach to the Suns and that is that they have picked a heap of these younger guys and they raided the old folks home a lot more than the Suns did.  This means that guys like Devon Smith, Stephen Coniglio, Steve Clifton and Anthony Miles aren’t going to be competing for midfield time like their Suns predecessors were against Ablett, Rischitelli and Stanley.  So their job security and time in the middle of the ground should be a lot higher.

The second part of my question was how many on the ground?  Well the consensus there was a resounding 3.  For me that sounds about right.  I think the guy that will be on the ground in a lot of teams is Jonathan Giles as there is a lot of talk around the DT world about running with a 1 and 3 setup this year.  This means that there will be 1 premium like a Dean Cox or Leuenberger and then have Giles at R2 with rookies on the bench.  This is a risky strategy, but it does leave you with more cash to use in other areas.

I think that you can’t do enough research on the GWS, so check out as many articles about them as you can and make sure that you have had a full read of @ChookDT‘s Rooks article from yesterday as he has some great information for you.  Also check out RLGriffin‘s article on GWS Picks for some great info on who you could be looking at.  Another article that RLGriffin did was on Who Are the Giants?  Well worth a read but keep in mind he did write it back in December so just make sure you look at NAB form for some updates.

 But he hasn’t been named??

So you had your eye on a Rook… thanks to our mate Chook.  But you find when you look at the teams that he hasn’t been named.  What do you do?  Well we are faced with that often and this week it comes in the form of Sam Darley who hasn’t been named, but we all know he is a good player.  There are two distinct schools of thought:

1. Pick him anyway.  This will save you a trade and you know he will play from round 2 onwards soon enough and score well.
2. Don’t pick him yet.  This allows you to see how he is going and if he doesn’t play til round 2 or 3 you will be able to trade him in for one of the other rooks that you picked (without Chook’s help) who has turned out to be a dud or does a Coad (gets a season ending injury after just 2 games with no price rise).  It also means that you have an extra week or two (if he doesn’t play til rd3) before he has a price rise.

This one is really a bit of personal preference.  I am not sure which way I am leaning but I guess I have to make a decision sooner or later!

Love in an Elevator

Alright, so it was a bad pun, but I know you all love Aerosmith.  But one of the things that happens at this time every year is the Rookie Elevations.  There are two types of rookie elevations.  Firstly there is the Nominated Rookie.  They can stay on the senior list all year as the team don’t have as many veterans on their list as others.  Secondly there is the Long Term Injury elevation.  Here a club has a player on the LTI and hence they can elevate someone in their place.  So far we have the following elevations (to the best of my knowledge):

Adelaide: Ian Callinan (Nom)
Carlton: Zach Tuohy (N0m) Ed Curnow (Nom)
Melbourne: James Magner (Nom)
North Melb: Aaron Mullet (Nom)
Port Adelaide: Darren Pfeiffer (Nom)
Richmond: Addam Maric (LTI) Brad Miller (LTI)
Sydney: Harry Cunningham (LTI)

So the keys for us here are really Darren Pfeiffer and James Magner who have both done well in the preseason comp, but beware that Magner was injured and may not get a game round 1. 

There are still some rookie spots open, ones that I know of belong to Port and Melbourne who have guys on the LTI but haven’t listed people to be upgraded as yet in those spots.  I think I have covered all the ones that have occured, but if I missed any pls add them in the comments.

Generally these guys are dirt cheap unless they have been in the system before which is the case with Pfeiffer.  But if they are getting a regular game, ride them as far as you can, but if they are LTI, keep an eye on the injury status for that club to see when you may need to jump off.

What the Vest?

The vest has become the most hated thing in Dreamteam I think.  We pick our side, select a few guys we think are gun rookies or mid pricers and Boom, they get a bloody vest!  This just destroys you, but if it is yellow you are hoping for an injury to someone not in your DT so your guy gets on, and if he starts on the field and lands the red, it just shatters you knowing that his score simply won’t change for the rest of the game.

If your guy does get the vest round 1, don’t be too disappointed, particularly with GWS as I can see them sharing the vest around a bit early on in the year whilst they are getting their structures right.  But if the guy is coping 3 or more in a row (yes looking at you Gaff) then start to be concerned a little.

 Bring it on!!

So we come to game 1 of the season this Saturday night.  And for us DT’ers, probably the most anticipated game of the season as we finally get to see how our Giant rookies go in their first game that actually matters.  I can’t wait, and although due to other commitments I can’t watch the first game live, I will be glued to my phone (unless the Mrs confiscates it or I get too drunk as the night wears on) to see my DT scores ticking over…. hopefully!

As you make your final decisions on Saturday avo, feel free to tweet me for any ideas… @pkd73