The Friday Scramble: Round 19

This is it.  No more time for pretending or posturing.  If you don’t do it now then you won’t get another chance!  Yes, it is your last chance to cement your position in the top 8 or even better, secure the double chance in the top 4.  If you are sitting in the 8 on percentage or just out, then this week will be the true definition of scrambling for you!!

However, whilst it is a special week where you know exactly what you need to do in terms of winning to keep or gain a spot, the usual issues of DT still exist!  We are still missing gun players with our mates Buddy and Robbo on the sidelines.  What this means is you may be forced to use one of those trades you have been hoarding or you may have some bench cover still.  Whatever the case may be we will have a look at a couple of scenarios whilst we scramble!

Are You Down To Your Last One???

Given the amount of players we have had go down this year I wouldn’t be surprised if you were down to your last one.  The question now comes down to what you are going to do with it!!  On Tuesday we had a great article by DTTalk newcomer @tomcraigie which was all about using your last trade.  I encourage you to go back and have a look if you haven’t already at Talking Points: Using Your Last Few Trades

As I eluded to above, if you are down to one trade and you are struggling to make the top 8 then you have to lay it all down on the line and use it. No point having a trade left and missing out on the top 8 by percentage!

If you can afford to hold and still stay in the 8 then do so.  You will need those trades when you get to the finals as there will no doubt be some resting.  This is what I have done for the last two weeks and will be doing again this week.  My overall ranking has suffered for this but at the end of the day I am after league wins as I was too far back to go for the car.

Bloody Broughts!

Greg Broughton has achieved one thing this year and that is to make it onto our Never Again list!  We were all sucked in yet again by promises at the start of the year of lots of midfield time for him and even early in the year he played there and scored some nice scores.  However, as usual, Ross Lyon has stuffed us around and started playing Broughts up forward.  Then to top things off he is now out for the year! 

 The main problem is that is that he is not worth much these days so unless you have a heap of cash in the bank you are pretty much stuck.  The main guys that you can trade direct for him are not ones that you really want!  Your choices would include (assuming you have $0 in the bank) Rhyce Shaw, Nick Malceski, Reece Conca or Brandon Ellis.  Whilst a few of these may have drifted through your team so far this year, they are probably no longer there for a reason!

The highest average from those guys belongs to Eski with 72.5 but he does have a bit of a liking for a Vest so that does worry me a bit when you can’t afford those sort of scores in finals.

If you are going to trade out Brougton then hopefully you have some cash and can go a little higher to someone like Michael Johnson or dare I say his name at this time of year, but Heath Shaw.

When does an I become a LTI?

We all hoard away our trades for this time of the year to cover a Long Term Injury.  But what defines a long term injury?  We have all been burnt this year, most notably by Scotland and Waters when we thought they were going to be out for extended periods of time and we would have to trade to cover them only to find that they are back the following week.  On the other side of the coin we had Pendles who many thought would be back fairly quickly but ended up having an extended stay on the bench of many teams.

So that brings me to the here and now and we have now been without Buddy for 3 weeks and tonight makes his 4th game missing.  4 seems to be the magic number that people use to determine if we should trade a player, particularly when we have heaps of trades and are trying to cement our position in the 8.  There is no hard and fast rule, it will always come down to your goal (league v overall), your current position and your number of trades remaining.

I know that some people traded Buddy out a few weeks ago but if you were like me and pretty much locked into your top 8’s then you held him thinking he would be back ready to have a game before the finals (i.e. this week!). 

Once again I come back to the principle of … if you need to win to get in the 8 and you have no decent cover, then you have to trade him.  But if you can get the W with what you have, hold him, all reports point to him being back for next week v Port in Tasmania and you wouldn’t want to miss out on those 130+ pts!

 Time for a Rest?

As you are making your trades this week to make sure you are in the finals, just cast an glance towards the next 4 rounds as well as anyone you trade in this week is pretty much going to be with you for the long haul and you don’t want to be bringing someone in this week that is going to be up against some of the more miserly teams during the finals and you also don’t want to pick someone that is likely to get themselves a rest.

We all fear the rest but do a bit of research and have a think about those that might still get a rest.  The most obvious candidate (and a member of my DT) is Scott Thompson.  At the start of the season it was said that he would be managed through the season and to date he hasn’t had a rest apart from his bye.  And given the draw that the Crows have I would not be surprised at all to see him accidentally miss the flight to Brisbane in a couple of weeks.

So just have a good look at the guys you bring in to see if you think their team is in a position to rest them and if they need a rest.

Things to Remember:

• It’s all or nothing this week! – You should do what you can to make the 8.  Even if you get bundled out next week you can still heap s%#t on the other 10 teams in the league that didn’t make it.
• Always look ahead – Just cause you have to look left and right when you cross the road you should always look forward so you don’t walk straight into a pole or parked car.  This is also true in DT.  Always check who a trade-in to your team is going to play over the next few weeks.
• Dressage is NOT interesting – nor will it ever be.
• There are no advantages to Tanking in DT – so go all out for a win.
• Stay close to Twitter and a computer on Fridays. – The Sam Jacobs late out was pretty much common knowldege on Friday avo.  There are often Donuts to be avoided if you have the info late on a Friday. Given the niggles to some of our stars like Coxy I would be worried that he may be a late out.  Luckily the gods have smiled with the Big O being an in this week.

Good luck for what is a MASSIVE weekend of DT.  I hope you all get the W and make your way into the 8 (unless you are playing me of course!). 

Keep an ear out on Friday Avo for any late breaking news and make sure that you have your best team on the park so that you have the best shot of a high finish in your league.

If I hear anything I will certainly tweet it via @pkd73 on Friday and I will give you some more mad ramblings across the weekend!!