The Friday Scramble: Round 13 (MBR3)

I don’t know about you guys, but I must say that over the last couple of weeks, whilst our scoring has been no good and it is a bit of a raffle, I haven’t had to do a great deal of scrambling.  Mainly because there are no choices to make of who to play and who to leave out.  The only decisions we have to make each week at the moment are in relation to our trading.  And those sorts of decisions are fairly easy to make once the teams are out.

Having said that, don’t worry I have been just as hard hit with non selection (bloody Hargrave) and bye related donuts as the next guy, but my one consolation has been that everyone is in the same boat at the moment unlike the dreaded LTI’s that we have been having that have hit people at random.

As we have been doing all through theMBR’s with our trading, we are still all looking to improve our squads and have them pretty much set for the rest of the year by the end of round 14/15.  At that point you should be looking towards only making trades for LTI’s and in the Finals for guys that are getting a visit from the General.

Everyone’s Different!

Over the past two or three weeks there has been a monumental amount written and discussed in forums and podcasts about how many trades you should have left and whether or not you should keep someone that is out for 3 or 4 weeks.

However, when I sat back and had a look at it in my own situation I found that the answer is never the same.  When I look at my team I see a team that is pretty much complete and maybe has around 8 – 10 trades left (no I am not giving everything away).

Now for me, I am going after a league win predominantly in my workmates league (let’s face it I have to put up with these guys every day of the week!).  In that league I am lucky enough to be sitting top by percentage  with 8 wins.  Based on that even though I have another upgrade I want to make, I can afford to sit on my team and hold that upgrade for a week or two as I know it won’t hurt me if that player doesn’t score well.

However on the other side of the coin are the teams that are sitting about 7th – 12th in their league and have about 8 – 10 trades left.  These teams should be trading to make sure that they make the finals otherwise they are simply going to fall too far behind by carrying a player that they could unload to help them cement that spot in the 8.  There is no point going into Finals with 6 trades if you find yourself in the Tit-Ed cup (bottom half finals for the uninitiated).

Lastly you have the guys that are going for the FJ.  These guys need to have been very lucky with their LTI’s and have a lot of trades in the bank.  Minimum 12 I reckon.  That way they can easily pounce on the next big thing and make sure that any premium that is dropping low scores can be quickly traded out for someone that is playing well.

So for me, when people ask these questions I am answering with “what are you trying to do and where are you placed at the moment”.  It is your current position that will determine your strategy over the next 4 weeks.

 Untried Talent

With many people trying to avoid donuts at this difficult time of the year there has been quite a few people that have thrown normal convetion out of the window and have decided to trade in guys that haven’t even played a game yet.  The most notable of these recently was Sam Gibson from the Kangaroos.  This guy is a mature aged player and was tearing it up in the VFL.  So it made sense for people to jump on him right?  Well there are always the obvious Vest risks, but he managed to avoid them and score a tidy 67.

The biggest challenge now is to hope that he keeps his spot in the side.  I am by no means saying he won’t, but if you are relying on him for bench cover for the rest of the year and in particular this week whilst we are without stars like GAJ.

The other one that has come up this week has been the Bulldogs Ruckman Tom Campbell.  What I feel is the major concern with him is that Minson is only out for one week thanks to his errant mouth.  When he returns next week I am concerned as to the role that Tom will play?  There has been discussion that he could go and play up forward.  However, when I watched them on Sunday night I saw Ayce Cordy up forward as the main target and I didn’t see him do anything that would cause him to lose that spot in the team.

Speaking of untried talent, now that we haven’t seen Tom Couch yet I am kind of hoping that we don’t see him now this year.  If we see him for the last half dozen games or so then he will ruin his price for next year.

 Deja Vu?

The other massive issue of the week has been whether to trade or hold Scott Pendlebury.  Now, if I do recall we have had this discussion twice already this season!

Both of the guys that we have been told were going to be out for about 4 weeks were Gary Ablett and Dane Swan and both of these guys were back after two weeks out.  Now we are up to 3 weeks out for him if you include the bye round.

If you have held him this long and you have some bench cover next week for him, then you may as well hold on.  Reports are that he is training well and should be back in R15 hopefully.

We have had a couple of others that have been telling us they are out long term only to turn up a week or three later… Heath Scotland springs to mind!

Things to Remember

• Job Security is King – Just because someone new has a couple of good scores doesn’t mean they have cemented a spot in the team.  Just ask Aaron Hall, so make sure you have done your research.
• If you trade in now… they should be in your team at the end – So make sure you aren’t trading someone in that you are planning to trade out again.  You won’t have enough trades.  If they are a cheapo or rookie and don’t get another game, then just call them Relton and leave them there.
• They don’t hand out trophies in June – So just because you have negotiated the byes and won a couple of games to get yourself up the top, we are only half way home!  Make sure your team is solid with cover on each line and ride them home til finals.
• Ablett isn’t playing this week – So make sure you pick a different Captain this week.  Cause if you don’t, then that VC you left on Robbo from last week means you get a donut for your captain score.

Week 3 of the MBR’s and aren’t we happy about that.  Hopefully Andy and the big boys down at AFL house don’t put us through 6 weeks of this hell like they have been saying for next year!  But as we have been saying all along, it isn’t just your team that is copping this sort of carnage at the moment, everyone is!  I scored 1836 or so last week and only dropped 3 overall ranking points, so that told me that my score wasn’t too bad after all even though some others had scores of 2000plus!

Keep an eye out tonight for the late changes and final Sunday squads.  In particular that Melb v GWS game.  I guarantee that Sheeds has an ace up his sleeve and will pull the old switcheroo on us tonight when we least expect it!

Have a great weekend of DT (its’ all I have this week with my team off on the bye, which is a good thing as we have no fit players left!) and I will catch you all on twitter @pkd73