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The Thursday Scramble

The Friday Scramble R14: The Last of the Byes

Dunny has all you need to get set for the last of the bye rounds.

Did you survive round 13?  I know many coaches didn’t get through without any donuts or at least a couple of terrible scores. But we aren’t quite out of the woods just yet. One more week to go. Hopefully we get a bit of good luck from here on out this season!

Thursday Loophole

Calvin had just the two Vice Captains for us from last night’s game. But there were a few that you could have taken. So let’s have a look at who was worth taking and who wasn’t

Calvin’s Choices

Zach Merrett 105 Once again was looking great and slowed down. Not enough.
Andrew Gaff 92 Not his night. His second lowest of the season (although he has had 91 twice which is his lowest).

Other Options

Shannon Hurn 61 With the Bombers kicking just 5 points there weren’t many kick ins for him and the footy wasn’t down his end much!
Dyson Heppell 87 Another guy who didn’t have his normal output.
Elliot Yeo 132 Lock that in and throw away the key! The only score that you should be taking from last night.

The line this week is 120+ because we have some of our big names back to pick from as captain like Max Gawn and Brodie Grundy. So we can afford to be a little more greedy this week. Having said that, Yeo I would take if I had him and I had VC’d him.

Bye Week 3 Strategy

Pretty straight forward strategy here this week. Bring in those blokes that aren’t on bye this week. Fairly simple really. But one of the keys this week is to not panic and sideswap premiums. We want to get as many premiums off the field as we can this week and hopefully go into next week with a pretty much fully upgraded team.

As with the other bye weeks look for some value. This season has been one of the most difficult in terms of cash generation and at this point of the season it doesn’t get any easier. Given that we are having so much trouble in generating dollars you should be looking to extract as much value from each dollar as you can. So if you are faced with a choice of two guys that are averaging fairly similar then I would usually take the cheaper one.

Whilst we are looking for value the other thing we need to do is consider the run home that the players have. This is where the Scale of Hardness comes into play.  With just 10 rounds left in the season some teams will have easier opponents than others so that is important. Teams such as Geelong, Sydney, Richmond, Freo and Adelaide all have a pretty good run whereas Melbourne, Gold Coast, Carlton and the Western Bulldogs have a pretty tough run. (thanks to @bricemitchell for this info, give him a follow, he is a wealth of information). So you want to favour the guys with the easier run. Also consider those that have a good run in the Finals too.

My last bit of advice here is that if you are downgrading just keep in mind your bench going forward. There will come times that you will need some bench cover at some point so don’t just downgrade to throwaway guys.

The great thing though is that anyone you select now won’t have any bye issues coming up!

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#AskDunny

Hi Anthony, for me this is usually a pretty easy one. Yes he has had a couple of down games recently but he is a premium. If Selby has taught us anything it is to hold your premiums and trade out your rookies and upgrade them. Now. Having said that if you are going to sideswap him this is the week to do it. If you can’t upgrade another player to get someone on the field then I don’t mind the move.

So, in summary, if you can upgrade someone else with that trade and get another rookie off field then I do that first but if you need the numbers then I am ok with trading out Cripps, but it isn’t my preferred option.

A few weeks ago this was the simplest of choices. However, as well as O’Brien has been going well lately I still make the O’Brien to Gawn trade. O’Brien’s best (excluding last week) is going to be somewhere near Gawn’s lowest. O’Brien won’t come up against ruck duo like Chol and Balta every week. Stack has been scoring reasonably well and as much as I don’t mind Daniel, Gawn is more of a must have.

As I said above I like what O’Brien has done but if he is sitting at R3 for you that is a lot of cash and points sitting on the bench each week. If you have Gawn and Grundy on field then you don’t need to be holding him. I cash him in now and use that cash to upgrade someone on field and put that cash to good use.

I don’t normally like trading out a premo and Kenny has said that Rocky will be back next week. But I do like the idea of getting Dunkley in as he is in some outstanding form. Brayshaw presents a huge amount of value at this price if he can get back into the midfield and show the form he showed on Queen’s Birthday. So I would tick this off I think even though we believe Rocky will be back next week.

Selection Table

JPK returns for the Swans, so if you were thinking of bringing in Parker then just be careful as Parker has been going big with JPK out of the side.
Ebert, Dixon and Wines all return for the Power. Robbie Gray is the one that this is likely to affect as he may be straight back to his forward role as Wines takes the mid time.
Westhoff is out which came as a surprise to me, I thought he wasn’t the worst of the Power side recently. I don’t think he will be out for too long though, I can’t see him being out for more than a week or two at the very most.
There are a three first gamers named in the squads for Sunday’s game but just wait til final teams tonight before looking at them.

Things To Remember

  • Trades Stick in RDT and SC today. You can’t reverse them after the round has started.
  • Last week of the byes! Thankfully!
  • If you are enacting the loophole you can put your C on a player on their bye.
  • Don’t just trade anyone in that is playing, make sure you are happy to have them in your side for the rest of the season.

We have made it through to the other side! So make sure your team is set ready to go for the rest of the season. We have another 6 weeks before finals in most leagues. Not long to cement your spot in the finals. Best of luck for this last week of the byes, hopefully it is better than R13 was! See you all next Friday!! Oh, and just a reminder, I love that there are heaps of people helping each other in the comments on a Friday, unfortunately work means that I can’t get on and answer your questions so I do apologise for that, I will try and jump on at lunch sometimes but can’t guarantee it. Cheers!

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A passionate Port Adelaide Fan who simply loves footy! That is how I would describe myself. Catch my weekly article "The Thursday Scramble" with all the last minute things to think about for the weekend Follow: @pkd73.




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