Josh Kelly – Deck of DT 2015

Name: Josh Kelly
Club: Greater Western Sydney
Position: Forward/Midfielder
AFL Fantasy: $395,000
AFL Dream Team: $393,500
Bye Round: 13
2014 Average: 69.7
2014 Games Played: 18
Predicted Average: 85-90

Why should I pick him?

Josh Kelly was born for fantasy football. He started his junior career with East Brighton VAMPIRES, then to Sandringham DRAGONS and now GWS GIANTS. See the pattern here? All creatures of fantasy, and this young will be a creature of fantasy in our teams for many many years.

Taken as pick 2 in the 2013 national draft, he was thrust in to the mix in round 2 wearing the dreaded green vest. Even then from a mere 31% game time he managed to chalk up 11 disposals, 1 mark and 3 tackles for 41 points.

For the next 3 games he avoided being sub and started to show the world what he was capable of with scores of 73, 76 and 84. Admittedly not setting the world on fire, but I was super impressed with the tank that he showed and the way he just found the pill. He also knew where the big sticks were.

Between then and round 20 he performed admirably for a first year rookie in a young GWS team. Suffering a hamstring and an eye injury that kept him out of a few games as well as 3 more green vests, it would be easy to chalk him up as a guy that has all the talent in the world but just not there from a fantasy perspective.

In round 20, he came up against Melbourne and produced a game that I have watched again and again. 140 points; 27 disposals, 9 marks, 7 tackles and 2 goals.  He was electric. Oh it was only Melbourne you may say, this is true, but here is an interesting statistic. The 2 most expensive players in fantasy this year and absolute fantasy royalty in Gary Ablett and Tom Rockliff have never scored that high against Melbourne. Just a note, Josh Kelly is not yet 20 years of age.

He then followed this with a 117 point game against the Pies, again high numbers, 28 disposals, 6 marks, 6 tackles. He finished up with an 83 against the Doggies to round out the year.

113 average over his last 3 games.. Not bad, not bad at all. Better than Barlow, Joel Selwood, Pendelbury, Heppel, Macrae, Sidebottom, Fyfe, Treloar and Priddis to name a few.

I mentioned above that he started as the sub 4 times in 2014, this brings me to my favourite stat, the NVA or Non Vested Average.

Take out the games that he started as sub and his averages jumps from 69.7 to 81.4. If he was priced at his NVA, he would be around $460,000…. He is underpriced by around 65,000!

His points per minute (PPM) were better than other higher profile forward options such as:

Riewoldt
Bennell
Gunston
Westhoff
Roughead
Thomas
Wingard
Bontempelli

I do love this kid!

Why shouldn’t I pick him?

We are spoilt for choice in the forward line, and why would you take a punt on a second year kid.

Second year blues, it has been proven again and again that it is real and it is only very special players like Macrae, Wines and O’Meara that have broken the rule

He plays for a side that is bursting with young talent; Ward, Treloar, Shiel, Coniglio, Greene, Smith, Whitfield, Hoskin – Elliot and of course Ryan Griffen

Can he avoid the vest in 2015?

Deck of DT Rating.

JACK – I have a huge crush on this guy and his fantasy potential and I really think that he will show us more of what he has in 2015. He has a lot of competition in the giants side and there are only so many points to go around. He is currently sitting at F5 in my side and it will take a fair bit to move him.

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