Blues v Saints – Scratch Match Fantasy notes

An overcast February day and a half built ikon part saw a return to pre season footy, and more sketchy construction workers than my ill-fated stint on an village people cover band.
The blues were great, then terrible, then great again and finally sort of OK as they scraped to a 7 point win over a similarly up and down saints. Albeit a saints side somewhat lacking in fantasy relevant midfielders and or overly hyped mid priced and traded in floozys.  The much vaunted mid field pairing of Cerra and Hewett were good, Cripps was much like the fleet of scooters taking over inner city streets , suddenly electric and looking dangerous, and Steele was just as solid an predictable as a Lygon st coffee ( although much like a Lygon st coffee he took his time rocking up ) .

Rapid-Fire Relevance

Last year taught me some of you don’t like humor and memes and general awesomeness. That’s why we have this section, we’ve got CBA’s and tweets ( which may contain bad jokes now I think about it , oh well ) which provide an at a glance view of all the shenanigans that went down. Get it india.
Also Lordy Boys did a good write up on “The Fantasy Community” discord if anyone’s looking for an alternate take #Plug

 

Unavailable : Harry McKay, Tom De Koning, Liam Stocker, Sam Docherty, Sam Walsh, Jack Martin, Caleb Marchbank, Lewis Young, Ed Curnow

Paddy Cripps (MID $686k)

Forget Cerra, for me this was the story of the day. The big man was everywhere racking up 18 CBAs and I’d imagine at least 78 touches ( no one kept stats ), impacting the game, taking grabs, making tackles and looking buff. Without Sam Walsh paddy could well pick the #1 Mid role again, and  at 686K he’s a red hot bargain and looking gooooood for your midfield ( I just booted Crouch and put Cripps in ) , the only real issue is the possibility he gets tagged again. Or could they tag Cerra instead ? ……. ( probably not )

Adam Cerra (MID $732K)

One of the big questions from today was how was Carlton’s newest shiny and massively fantasy hyped admission going to fare and was he everything we were promised ? The answer is probably yes,  while he was no Paddy Cripps he did receive a lot of CBA’s (15) , get a lot of ball , did his fair share of tackling and even booted 2 goals in a barnstorming 3rd quarter. Is looking a good for a potential M4-M5 position and certainly should be in your mix going into the last couple of weeks of pre season.

George Hewett (MID $573K)

It’d been talked up as the perfect price and the perfect role for your defense, that remains to be seen, but todays results were encouraging and certainly moving in that direction. He spent plenty of time in the midfield got CBAs (14), ball around the ground, and at times pulled out some ferocious tackles. It looks like Vossy is keen for a solid midfield based role with Hewett and he should be good until at least whenever Sam Walsh comes back.

Charlie Curnow (FWD $347K)

I’ve seen him show up in peoples teams recently, and be mentioned on podcasts. He wasn’t good. Granted H.Mckay wasn’t playing but he was playing a role to knock the ball down to the smalls and didn’t get many touches, and when he did he shanked them, an appealingly priced forward he may be , but his fantasy game looks trash. Stay away.

Other mentions 

• Z. Williams ( 600k DEF  ): Realistically you couldnt do it, but he did actually look pretty good, and could be in for a better role this year than last. Could be a sneaky late pick up in draft
• N.Newman ( 725K DEF ): Another who looked solid and picked up his share of ball in the back half. Could potentially both be due to St Kilda’s crappy forward entries more than anything
• J.Silvani : (533K FWD ): Unlikely to be relevant in classic, or even in draft, but had a pretty solid game and seems to doing some ruckwork.
• M.Kennedy : (720K MID) : Sans his forward tag from last year he looks confined to the fantasy scrap heap, but he was pretty good today, and could potentially have some draft relevance.

 

Unavailable : Nick Coffield, Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera, Dan Hannebery, Jarryn Geary, Paddy Ryder, Rowan Marshall, Dougal Howard

Jack Steele (MID $1.02M)

Started rusty but warmed into the game and had a very good second half. The guns of the comp don’t often go hard in pre season so we were never really expecting too much from Jack. He didn’t give us any reason not to pick him, nor did he really do anything massive to justify that huge price tag. Nothing that happened today is going to change whatever view you have. One thing it did show though, is there isn’t a whole heap of gun mids around him stealing his ball.

Caveat : Steele aside, from a fantasy perspective there wasn’t really too much to report, but I’ll have a crack at some that might potentially be interesting.

Seb Ross (MID $669K)

While not back to his 2018 form ( Ave 107.33 )  he looked capable and certainly played a good midfield role racking up 13 CBAs. Probably overpriced given the uncertainty but maybe later in the season should the role be real, or in draft.

Zak Jones (MID $743K)

11 CBA’s and what looked to be a pretty solid MID role. He played a good game but didn’t set the world on fire and I wouldn’t touch him at that price. Could be some draft relevance though.

Jade Gresham (MID/FWD $509K)

I see his name get raised as a POD, but nothing we saw today suggests he’s worthwhile. He only got 2 CBAs and while he got a little bit of the ball there’s nothing in that role to justify picking him, really even in draft.

Jack Hayes (TBA)

The new SPP signing came on in the third quarter and got a few touches, seemed to move between forward and defense in the last and even take a couple of ruck taps off Pittonet.  I couldn’t find his price on the site, presumably he’s basement, and may get a run in round 1 if he continues to impress, could do worse.

Other Mentions

• Tim Membery  (FWD $647K) : Floated all round the ground and clunked a decent number of marks, never going to be classic relevant, but if you want a forward bench option late in draft he might go ok.
• Brad Hill (DEF $597K) : He’s on most peoples never again lists for a reason. But his new half back role looks interesting and when he’s good he actually looks pretty good.
• Josh Battle  (FWD $517K) : Played mostly in defense and dominated Curnow, I doubt he scored that well, but maybe keep an eye on him.
• Hunter Clark ( DEF / MID $609K)  : A few people on twitter were very keen to know about Hunter Clark, god knows why, keeper delists probably.  He was there, he got 6 CBA’s ( mostly in the first half I’d suspect ), but didn’t do that much, may have been rested late.