The Friday Scramble: Round 17

I don’t think there has been a bigger week in football lately but geez has it been big.  Not only for what happened on the field (or didn’t) but also for what happened off it. I understand that Carlton have sent Juddy down to the farm to spend some time with Chook to learn how to properly take care of a chicken wing.  Let’s hope he comes back better for the experience.

Quick… call Colonel Sanders… STAT!

Of course the biggest issue was that a lot of people had traded Juddy in last week as he started to hit some form!  His average of 115 over his last 3 and his general game play was showing us that he was getting back to the form he showed us in the first 3 rounds where he averaged 117 before fall ing into a slump that saw him average just 79.75 from rounds 4 through to 12.  If you got him in then 4 weeks at this time of year is an eternity, particularly if you are still carrying Buddy and Waters on your benches…..WAIT STOP THE PRESSES  What is this$#*$& WATERS IS BACK!!!!!!. Well, that will help but you will still have Buddy to carry on the forward line.  However, you now have Broughts to carry on your backline bench rather than having Waters on the bench, that is if you are unlucky enough to still have him…. like me

Given that Judd won’t return until after the first week of DT finals and it is quite conceivable that his side will be out of contention for the real finals at that stage (sorry Roy) then it may be that he has turned off the after burners and just cruises through those last 3 weeks of the season.  If you have the trades available I think you would use one in this situation, particularly if you are struggling to make the 8 in your league.  Luckily he has a bit of value at $418,500.  So you should be able to trade him to a good player.  Some you could consider would be Marc Murphy who is only $406k or you could go up to Josh Kennedy at $422k.  Personally I would be going to Murph.  However, if you have got some cash then you will be able to go up higher in the price range to Carrots at $437k.

Don’t Double Up and make a Mistake!

Now I reckon that this is going to be a familiar story throughout a lot of DT teams.  You have made a trade to a new player… let’s take Matty Suckling for example fromBeau Waters last week.  Only to have Suckers do exactly that and only return you a 31 point dividend.  The worst thing that you can do is to now look at trading Suckling out and go back to Waters.

Let’s face it, you got this guy in for a reason, he is a proven scorer.  31 is his worst return for the year with the next worse being a 70.  He only has 3 tons but has 5 scores of 80+ and the rest are in the 70’s.  Consistency is generally what you get from him.  I understand that he was in a lock down role on Sunday and this isn’t what he normally does.

Quite simply, if you have made a call on a guy and he has had a bad week the one that you picked him up, well just wear it on the chin and get on with it.  Trades are far too valuable to be chopping and changing now.  Who knows whether or not the guy you trade to from here is not going to do the same thing.

To trade back to Waters now it will mean that you have used two trades and have the same guy!!

 The second coming of Lazurus!

For the second time this year we have had one of our players rise from the dead and come back after 1 week when they were advertised to be out for more than 4 weeks.  Earlier in the year we had Heath Scotland come back and score well upon his return.  Now after hearing that Beau Waters would be out for 4-6 many of us traded him out and as a result burnt one of our valuable trades.  But we all followed the correct formula which is that if they are listed to be out for at least 4 weeks then you have to trade them.  Now this would be fine …. if the teams would just be honest with us!!!

If you were one of the ones that traded him out, don’t despair. We simply don’t know how he has pulled up yet so we will need to see that.  But don’t trade him back in unless you have 6+ trades left or get another LTI in the backlines or if you have Broughts and he is giving you the sh*ts.  And when he isn’t named he can still annoy the cr#p out of you givenSam Shaw is also out this week which may mean that you don’t have any bench cover.

Things to Remember

• Get On Board with the Pirate! – If you missed last week he is back to his AAARRRGGGing best and picked a couple of winners for you.
• Play Zorko on the field – I made the mistake of not doing it a few weeks back and will never make that mistake again.
• Don’t rest players if you think you will win easy – Richmond did it and look what happened to them (Sorry Douth… couldn’t resist it)
• Conserve Trades– Just remember there are another 7 weeks of DT left (cause we are all making the GF aren’t we!) so don’t trade unnecessarily.  If we have learnt anything this year it is that LTI’s and long suspensions are the norm not the exception!

As we draw closer to the end and we start running out of trades we are all having less scrambling to do… not that we don’t want to, we just can’t!!  Hopefully you have gotten yourself far enough up the ladder in your league to not have to worry about having only a few trades left.

And with the outs at the selection table you won’t have much in the way of bench cover so hopefully you have enough players to make a squad.

Good luck this week, hopefully a win this week will secure you a top 8 position.  Apologies for the shorter scramble this week.  Work and home renovations have meant that I am struggling for time a touch this week, but I will be back to full strength next week.

Catch me in the Twittertown @pkd73