The Friday Scramble: Round 2

Well wasn’t that a much better weekend.  Not just the tease of one game, but we had 8 to watch as we all eagerly watched to see how our newly selected team went.  We all abused our players (I believe Greg Broughton was our favourite) and we cheered others to keep going.  But at the end of it we all ended up with a score that we either hated or were happy with.  Me, I was fairly happy with my 2185.  First time I have got off to a reasonable start for a couple of years… yes Dan Connors you are still on my never again list!

So right, we have got the hang of it now and can settle in to watch all 9 games this weekend… oh, that’s right, we have already seen one!  So last night we had the Lions and the Blues, but we were only in partial lockout, so you can still make changes to your teams today and tomorrow morning right up until the start of the Power v Bombers game (assuming you didn’t make your trades during the week and forgot to reverse them before the parital lockout).

This is our last chance to see our players before they have their first price changes after round 3.

24 Trades may not be enough!

After we had the great tutorial by Warnie on the New Trading System on Tuesday, I hope you all had a look at it…. BUT didn’t use it!  We all had players that were down or were just plain rubbish.  Now we know that a Knee Jerk reaction is always considered, but we should all have calmed down by now and should be looking at our team and remembering why we picked these guys in the first place.

Prices won’t change until after this round and league games don’t start til round 3, so you have another weekend to see how your guys go before you really look at cutting them from the squad.  On the other side of the coin, how pissed off would you be if you picked up a guy this week who got an LTI on the weekend  and you had to trade again.  Now having said that, this can happen any time during the year, but given there is no logical reason to trade this week, why risk it!

The only real reason to trade this week would be if one of your guys picked up an LTI that would see them out for a significant number of weeks.  To the best of my memory the only player of note on the injury list was Christian Howard from the Dogs who was a pick in the backline for 1.5% of teams.  He is listed as TBA with a knee injury, that can’t be a good sign!

However, there are some guys that are on their final warning.  The main two that will come under a fair bit of scrutiny are Greg Broughton and Brian Lake.  Broughton was promised to us as a midfielder and ended up a lockdown guy.  If this doesn’t change, many teams will look to sideways him to someone else!  Lake was just rubbish.  Many tossed up between him and Hargrave and if they picked the Lake, then they lost.  But it was his first game back after a shocker of a season and he also had his hands full with that very tall Eagles forward line.  So let’s see how he goes against Adelaide on Saturday night.

IMPORTANT INFO!!  We know that if you made a trade earlier this week and hadn’t reversed it prior to last night’s game starting you couldn’t reverse it.  BUT… If you make a trade today or tomorrow morning… IT STILL CAN’T BE REVERSED.  So, if you must scratch that trading itch, be very sure about what you are doing!!

As of partial lockout last night (so these trades can’t e reversed) there were 3.96% of teams had traded out Lake.  But what I find interesting is that there are 1.96% of teams that have traded out Darren Pfieffer who is yet to be selected for Port and a further 1.24% have traded out Dayne Zorko who is also yet to play a game.  Izzy Folau is also unloved with 1.36% dropping him.  Of those that have been picked up nearly 21% of teams have picked up Adam Kennedy, 11.21% have picked up Bugg and 5.4% have traded in the Magnet.  The interesting one in this list is Nat Fyfe who was traded into 1.66% of teams.  I want to know if they had a heap of money left or if they have done some serious downgrading to be able to afford him!  I hope people aren’t sideways trading this early in the season.

Get Off The Bench!

Last year we dedicated this article to this very topic as we had byes to deal with each and every week.  But this year with only two on the bench and only 3 rounds with bye’s (where you won’t get much in the way of choice as to who to play), it isn’t quite as important.  But at the moment with all these rookies in our team we need to make some decisions.  I would suspect that everyone that has any or all of (like I do) Bugg, Magner and Kennedy will have them firmly entrenched on the field.   To be honest, in the first few weeks we don’t have much more to go on than the previous weeks’ form so I can’t see why we wouldn’t start them.  The other guy that will get a run off your bench this week should be Clay Smith.  This bloke was incredibly stiff to miss out on the rising star nomination this week.

Don’t be too worried either by the poor starts to a couple of your rookies in Ellis, Morris or Dickson.   It was their first time and they got stagefright (well that is what I am putting it down to).  Just keep an eye on them this week and see how they go.  But most importantly, after this week is done, keep a look out for Chook’s Rooks next Wednesday as he will have everything you need to know in the land of rookies.

Where did my pretty lights go?

If I have been asked this once this week I have been asked at least 3 times… everyone wants to know where the little indicator lights on your players has gone.  Well, for those that don’t know you now need to have the Assistant Coach package for this.  Let’s be honest though, if you are reading this site you are serious about your DT and have already bought it.  I have seen a lot of people still asking though “is it worth it” well, if you want to have all the VS predicted scores, BE’s on your main team screen and the pretty lights to help you with team selection, then yes it is worth it.  Personally I didn’t hesitate as I had it last year and found it to be a valuable resource.

 Things to remember for Round 2

1. Don’t forget to change your C and VC.  Make sure you have read Calvin’s Captains to help you in picking them. So for those that used the Loophole last week, make sure you have moved your VC off of Mumford or Goodes and onto someone from Carlton if you plan to use the Loophole this week, or onto your regular VC option.  In short, don’t get caught with your pants down and the wrong C or VC.  If you don’t understand the Loophole, Calvin has some easy to understand instructions in his captains article.
2. Make sure you have moved Old MacDonald to your bench.  If you were lucky enough to have him on the field last week, make sure you have moved him to the bench (unless you are using him in your Captain loophole plans… see above) because history tells us that suspended players don’t tend to score too well.
3. There are no excuses for Sunday Teams this week.  Given that final lockout this week isn’t til you have started with your lunchtime chocolate on Saturday (isn’t this the weekend that this is all we are allowed to eat?).  There are no excuses for not knowing who is playing and not playing in Sunday’s teams.  We won’t know the subs, but we will know which of the 3 bench players have missed out.
4. If you had Matty Scarlett in your team…  Make sure you look for the Delete My Team button… and use it!  This applies to all 7705 of you.  His best average ever was 68 last year…. should never be selected.
5. If you had Hayden Ballantyne in you team…. Make sure you give yourself a whack on the chin… you deserve it.  This applies to all 10191 of you.  Whilst he scored 91 last week, he isn’t a known high scorer and as a forward, there are a lot of better options.

Bring on Round 2, there are still 8 games to go this weekend and there are plenty of points out there to be had.  Don’t be disheartened if you didn’t score well last week, it is only one week and unless you are going for the car, it doesn’t really matter anyway. 

Next week is where we really need to start scrambling.  We will have our first price changes after round 3 and in round 3 we will also start to play for real as the league games get underway.

Cheers and let me know what you are thinking for this week and any other general help I can give.  Twitter @pkd73