The Friday Scramble: Round 6

This is it, we are starting to get to the real scrambling part of our season.  Who to upgrade, who to downgrade and of course those ever present pain’s in the backside, the byes!  OH, and don’t forget to throw in there some partial lockouts as well as the ever difficult quest of who to play on the field and who to start on the bench!  Welcome to the wonderful world of an AFL Dreamteam coach!

Ups and Downs!

It is about now that we start to see some of our Cash Cows fattening up to the point where we need to cash them in and make the cash that will let us upgrade to the full premium team that we are all striving to achieve.

Detailed information on who to cash in and who to cash in to has already been covered in Jeppa’s Juniors on Wednesday so I won’t go into too much detail and I would strongly advise you to revisit that and have a read.  But I will just highlight the ones that I think should be a priority.

Dom Tyson is definitely one to trade out. His BE has skyrocketed in all forms of the game after his vesting last week and subsequent poor score mean that he is ripe for the culling and should be downgraded to a rookie on the bubble (or at least one that has had only one price rise)

Xavier Ellis was always a risk for us with his history of soft tissue injuries.  His price rises and scoring have been a bonus, but his 2 on the weekend caused through an early injury mean that it is time to move him on also.  The money you have made on him has been valuable, but he won’t earn you much more in a hurry.  Also, with this injury we may not see him for a few weeks as I am sure they wont’ rush him back given his history.

I agree with Jeppa’s analysis of Luke Dunstan.  I think that whilst he won’t make a heap of cash quickly at the moment, he is still a good option for you and if you can get an average score of over 70 out of him still I think that is worth keeping him for at least until his bye round then look to upgrade him to someone that has already had their week off.

There are a few injuries up at the Lions at the moment and that has meant that two of their youngsters are keen to put their hands up for your team.  Nick Robertson has been good and has a BE of -52 in RDT and has to be worth a look.  He is the perfect option to bring in for Tyson.  Tom Cutler brings us an option down back and if you want to look at downgrading either McDonald or Langford or Langdon then he would be the one to look at.

Something else to be on the lookout for over the coming weeks is fallen premiums.  There are a few that have some high break evens and if they don’t have supreme games in the next week or so should drop in price nicely.  Joel Selwood is certainly one of those.  He has a high BE and should drop nicely to pickup just after his Round 8 bye.  Our mate the pig Swanny is one that has just dropped a little early for his bye, but if you want to get him in (or back in as the case may be) then this may be the cheapest time to do so.  However, if you are trading out a R9 or R10 player to do it it may hurt you during round 8.

Side by Side

No this isn’t a Collingwood section.  What I am referring to here is Sideways Trading.  I have two theories here.

Firstly, in the limited versions of the game, I advocate highly against this practice as it can be seen as wasting a valuable trade and you may be trading out someone that is about to go BANG!  Just take Patrick Dangerfield for example.  However, there are other times when your patience has worn completely thin and you have to unload a guy.  I.E. Scooter Selwood who both Calvin and I are unloading this week!

Secondly in AFL Fantasy where we have the two trades per week then this practice isn’t so bad as you can get rid of a guy one week and then pick him back up once his price has dropped and his BE says he is both back in form and his price is about to go up again.  However, be careful, if you want to get someone back in you may have bigger fish to fry that week and can’t get your player back in for a week or two later than you had hoped.

In summary, I am not a fan of sideways trading, but there is a time and a place for everything and if you simply feel that you have no other option then go for it.  After all, you have no one to answer to but yourself when it comes to using your trades.

Lockout Madness!

We have some rolling lockouts again this week with Anzac Day games meaning we won’t know full squads before some of the games start.

AFL Fantasy has a rolling lockout across the first two games (Coll v Ess and StK v Bris) where all players for those teams will be locked at the start of those games.  All other games will have lockout from the start of the Fremantle v North Melbourne game.
Real Dream Team has a FULL LOCKOUT from the start of the Collingwood v Essendon game.
Supercoach has its’ regular rolling lockout across all games.

Make sure you know when your lockouts are and remember that with the rolling lockouts in AFL Fantasy and Supercoach there is no option to roll back trades once the first game has started.

Bye Bye Bye

Was this a pop song once?  Not sure who sang it but it rings a bell.  Anyway, the way I look at it at the moment is R8, R9 and R10.  If you haven’t been doing it yet, you need to start now and that is to check your team for the bye structure you are running with.  What you need to be doing is making sure that your bye’s are backended.  By this I mean that you are carrying more players who have their bye in R10 than you do in R9 and also more R9 than R8.  Or at least something like that.  What I would recommend you do is that you map out your trades that you plan to make for the next 4 rounds now and see how your team will be sitting in each of those weeks.

Remember that the rules are the same as last year in that the best 18 of your team on the field will be the ones that count.  Remember, they must be on your field!  For an in depth (and funny) conversation on it, make sure you catch up with the podcast from the boys on the AFL site from earlier in the week.

Things to Remember

• Check your team after you reverse trades – I stuffed it up a few weeks ago and Warnie did last week.  Don’t follow our lead!
• Check your lockout times – In case you have the memory of a goldfish I mentioned it about 200 words ago up the page!
• Eliminator starts this week in RDT – So jump on and check out your opponent.  It is a fun part of the comp that you can hopefully stay in for a while.
• Loophole Captains are in play in AFL Fantasy – But you will have to have a VC from Collingwood, Essendon, St Kilda or Brisbane and it will have to be a quick decision with full lockout later that night.  Check out Calvin’s Captains for the lowdown.

Another huge weekend of Footy with our traditional Anzac Day Game to kick things off then a top of the table 1 v 2 game to finish it off on Sunday night with Port v Geelong.  Have a sensational weekend and hopefully your team does too.  Mine had certainly better lift after last weeks horrible performance.  It was so bad I went to Melbourne to have a harsh word with a few of my players.  Also for those of you heading along to Dawn Service I hope it isn’t too cold.  For those of you that haven’t been to one I would certainly put it on your list.  I went for the first time last year and found it a moving experience.  I will be at the Glenelg service again this year.

Lest We Forget