Good Trade, Bad Trade: Grand Final Edition

 

Welcome to the final edition of GTBT for 2012!  If you have any trades left I say well done and hope there is carnage galore this week (or suffice amount that a trade will fix) to reward you for your patience and  discipline to hold one for the big dance. This week will be one of the few weeks where you can trade for pure luxury if all goes well at the selection table tonight. Selwood to Boyd for an extra 15 points? Well why not! like the last 3 weeks, trades this week can create a point of difference to your team if you and your opponent are too close to call. then again, it may make you lose. Live and die by the sword.

 

General Soreness, reporting for duty 

This week has always been a dangerous week where teams who are not in the finals give players an early holiday( see the saints last week) or teams who have sewn up a spot a finals spot (while all the teams are guaranteed a spot, where they finish in the top 8 is far from decided) apart from Fremantle, who as TBetta pointed out on Monday, will know what they need to do to finish where (read, 6th or 8th) None of the top 8 teams are likely to rest any guns, which is good news for Thompson and Dangerfield owners, who seem to be the first names mentioned when players are mooted for a rest.  We can thank Brisbane’s win for that. Outside of the top 8 players like Montagna, Deledio, Gibbs, Watson, Ebert and Boyd have all played every game this year and all have next to nothing to play for, so may be given a week off to play a kid who needs to prove himself to stay on the list for 2013. Personally, I think any of these players are unlikely to be given an early minute, but it is something to keep in mind.

 

Popular trades

This is the part where I analyse each position and identify popular trades for the week. At the time of writing (on a 5 hour bus trip through country WA) the top 10 trades of the week accounts for a mere 414 trades, thus not really a big enough sample group to analyse (the most popular trade accounted for 2% of all trades as well). Another factor is that by now every single person is in a different situation, so general trade advice is almost as useless as Travis Cloke and Chris Dawes in tandem. On the Twitterverse, I was asked the question by @CruttonHutton of ‘left field premiums who could go bang!’ Well what a great idea!

David Mundy – $430,500 The fuax premium from 2011 has been almost irrelevant this year, coming back slowly from injury and unable to replicate the 96 average from last year, until 2 weeks ago. Scoring a 130 and 125 against good teams in Richmond and North, Mundy is hitting form at the right time of year and could tear Melbourne a new one. Has a highest of 122 against them and projected for 111.

Liam Anthony – $449,000 – Remember this bloke? Touted as the next big thing after his debut season in 2009 where he played 10 games for an average of 96, Anthony went on to injure his shoulder (if i remember correctly) in 2010 and then slip away to DT irrelevance in 2011 with an average of 76. This year he has played 17 games and has recently found some consitency with 5 tons in his last 6 games (last week a 95). Is a proven scorer and has previously had 121 on the giants earlier this year (his highest score for the year). Have been told by a few that he may get a DPP as Mid/Def for next year. If he is, a lock for a 96 average!

Jack Riewoldt $367,300 – As almost all of the power forwards this year, Jack has been totally irrelevant for DT. Has an average of just 79 BUT  does love a sausage roll. As the tigers will miss the finals ( and disappointingly finish 10th, and not 9th) they only have two things to play for. 1 Making sure Trent Cotchin gets 3 votes in the umpires book and making sure Jack gets the Coleman. As all the other players in contention will have played on either Friday or Saturday, the tigers will know exactly how many Jack needs to wrap it up and a ‘kick it to Jack’ game plan will follow. If he kicks a bag of 10, he could be up for a monster score. Did have 116 2 weeks ago, so isnt in too bad a form). Picking him in GF week and winning the chocolates is the sort of story that will get passed on from generation to generation in families

Paul Duffield $414,400 – Thanks to his coach, The Duffman is on many coaches ‘never again’ list, as he has burnt many a coach before with role changes with his mate Broughton, and then decided to have a spell in the magoos. Unfortunately, his recent form cannot be ignored. Averaging 107 in his last 4 with a  125 last week, he is one of the form backman of DT. Expect another big game this week.

All Australian

This is quite off topic, but I thought I would share it as I think its a good bit of fun. Essentially you find a group of mates who think they know their football and you all pick your AA team. Once the team is announced, you score your team, with 2 points for a correct player in the correct line (coach and bench included), 1 point for a correct player in the wrong line, 3 points for the VC and 5 points for the picking the right C. Most points takes the bragging rights and if you throw in some money it could be a profitable little game!

 

That’s all folks

Anyway, that’s me done for the year. Hopefully I have helped in some way shape or form with my views and research in helping this DT community make a good trade. In retrospect I have probably made some good calls and some bad calls, but this isn’t an exact science and we are dealing with human beings and not exact formulas (see Carlton last Saturday) it doesn’t matter how much statistics and history suggest a certain outcome, it is no guarantee to happen (just ask Calvin). But honestly that’s what I love about the game, it’s unpredictability and it’s problem solving skills that are presented from week to week.

It has been a tumultuous year in DT and many trades were used in necessity of injuries and suspensions with varying amounts of luck with those decisions. Next year will no doubt pose a new set of problems (no expansion team for a start) and hopefully a good trading strategy can have more of an impact on a coaches performances as opposed to the high amount of variables out of our control (looking at you Ross Lyin’). Hopefully next year VS come up with some strategies to keep the masses involved for longer than the trades last and keep it nice and simple.Your feedback around this will be called upon in the next few weeks no doubt, so speak up!

I want to thank everyone for the kind words and support throughout the year which essentially kept me motivated to keep going til the end. I hope to continue next year (If Warnie and co want me to) and will try to come back bigger and better (better jokes if anything) to try and give some sort of insight to this game we all love (most of the time) . If anyone does want to have a crack at an article I encourage you to have a go, as you can see with me you don’t really need too much writing ability, just a bit of passion for DT and be willing to have a crack.

Good luck to all the coaches playing in grand finals this week whether it be for cash, bragging rights with your mates, or family supremacy as really, it is the main reason of why we do it. There is a VERY small % of people who can actually win the car, so you might as well use this game as a vehicle for socialising with your mates and meeting new people in forums who share the passion.

 

Give me follow on @jimbobholder for a chat about anything football (eagles especially) or cricket related over the summer!