The Friday Scramble: Round 6

Another week, more DT problems.  It seems to be the norm now after we had those two great weeks at the start of the season.  Not only did we have Ablett‘s injury to deal with we had the now well documented Late Withdrawals to contend with.  For me, I copped all 3 of the significant late withdrawals from Birchall, Hargrave and Porplyzia.  Whilst I was ok with Porplyzia being out since they were playing my team, it meant I had to wear Devon Smith’s 39 which didn’t please me, and then my real team lost too which just compounded a very average weekend of footy for me!

But thats what Footy’s all about… there is always next week (until you get to finals of course).  My week started well with the joyful news that Joel Selwood was cleared by the MRP and would be free to play this week, however this was short lived until we found out that Nat Fyfe went down at training and the decision was made to send him off for surgery forcing the hand of those coaches that kept him.  Then to top it off on Wednesday morning we heard that GAJ would probably be out for another 3 weeks with that knee injury making it a 4 week injury!  Now if we had known that from the start many of us would have pulled the trigger straight away!  Then on Wednesday night we hear from Bluey that GAJ may be back in a week.  This is ridiculous!  Who do we believe!!

However, we all know that this is part of the game, we lose players here and there and we have to work around it.

It was always going to end in tears…

Well on Tuesday afternoon the news started to filter through that Nathan Fyfe had hurt his shoulder at training and not long after that was the confirmation that he was going in for surgery that sees his DT season end but for the real stuff maybe come back just before the finals.  So for those that traded him two weeks ago.. well done… however, for those like me that gambled… what to do now?  Well there are a few choices like Cloke, Chappy or TommaHawk.  Check out this article that Warnie put together on What to do with Fyfe?  Then also check out the trade talk article by JimBob.

Is it time to cull the herd?

There has been a lot of talk this week about people starting to cash in those cows that they have out in the paddock.  Some of this talk has come from me!  We have all had a look at them and are starting to get itchy slaughter fingers.  To these people (and myself) I say… hold on just a moment.  DT isn’t a game of emotion and rash decision (really? could have fooled me), but it is a game of science and mathematics.  The first thing I urge you to do before you decide to cash in a cow is to click the little toggle button at the top of the team screen ( you all have assistant coach right?) and ceck out your players BE.  If your guys have some fairly large BE’s that are approaching their expected score or their averages then you should be starting to look at trading them out.

To me there is only really one obvious candidate this week and that is Devon Smith.  He has a BE of 52 and and average of 65.8.  This means that he is dangerously close to that threshold.  However, this was really made worse by him copping the green vest last week.  If it wasn’t for that he would have had an extra week in the fields.   Adam Tomlinson is another that is in this category with a BE of 42 and average of 49.2.  I think that at best these guys have one more week unless they punch out a big score well above their average.  However, the problem here is that Tomlinson is out of the side this week.

Of course all the best advice in this area comes from Chook so go back and read Chooks Rooks from Wednesday and make sure you know everything there is to know.

ELIMINATION Time!

One of the fun features of DT starts this week and that is the Eliminator.  You can see your opponents now if you click ont he eliminator button.  When you do that you should be pleasantly surprised with how rubbish the team you are playing is (cause we know that everyone that reads this site regularly should be well entrenched in the top half of entries).  For those new to the game, this portion pits you against another team in a knockout competition that is based on the prior weeks weekly ranking.   It is generally fairly easy to get your way through the first two or three rounds of this comp but from there on it can become tricky particluarly if you have an off week and get matched up against a really good team. 

You could get lucky though as I have heard of a lot of teams that are playing against sides that don’t have people actually playing.  One of those is my son’s team.  He was very pleased to see that his side is playing someone that has 11 players that haven’t even taken to the park yet including all 4 of their ruckmen!

 GWS vs Gold Coast

Now I know that this game isn’t on til next week, but I wanted to make a different comparison, that is, that the Gold Coast lineup last year was much more settled and there weren’t wild changes to the lineup each week.  I am sure that this was better for the team and I know that it was certainly better for us DT coaches!  For example, many of us traded in Treloar last week before his first price rise and then BOOM! he is out with the General this week!  Now I know that he had a limited preseason, but surely the guy can play two weeks in a row!  Now the other guy that we are worried about Devon Smith is a chance to miss too after coping a vest last week.

It would be nice if we had an idea what Sheeds is doing!  It is bloody hard to settle a team if we never know who is playing and who isn’t!

Whilst on Gold Coast, what did Aaron Hall do wrong?  The kid has played well but just can’t get a game!

Mmmmm Donuts……

Well last week we managed to find ourselves eating some not so lovely donuts.  This week I reckon we will have quite a few teams finding themselves with some more donuts.  Particlulary those with Treloar, Devon Smith and Hall in your forward line along with Porplyzia who could be another late withdrawal (read my team here).  I am quite nervous about this.  The other people that are nervous (yes me again) are those that have Ablett and Jelwood.  It has been pointed out all week that the Cats are going to take a “conservative approach” with Joel.  This really worries me and what also worries me is that he is named on the interchange?  Since when does your captain get named on the interchange bench??  So I would make sure that you have some cover here on this line just incase Joel is rested.

Things to Remember for Round 6

1. Trade out Nat Fyfe – We know now that he is out for a minimum of 12 weeks.  And as Warnie pointed out in the live show last night, make sure that you are trading him out for another premium. 
2. Check your Emergencies – After last week’s carnage, I can’t see this week being any different.  So make sure that you have an emergency in each of the lines that you are weak in or there are rumours of a late withdrawal. 
3. Check your Captain – Given that we all had a crack at the loophole last week make sure you have reset your C and VC after consulting Calvin’s Captains.  Just make sure you haven’t left Ablett on the field with the C.
4. Check your team if you used the Reverse Trade button – With the carnage you have probably played with trades this week and reversed them, so make sure your team is set right.

Here is the part of the program where we all join hands and pray… or grab a beer and get pissed to pretend we didn’t hear that our player was a withdrawal this week cause if we have another week like last week it could break a few coaches!  Me included!!

Have a great weekend, hope you score well (but a bit less than me) and let me know in the comments what you are going to do with Fyfe and GAJ.

Find me on Twitter @pkd73