The Thursday Scramble: Round 11

Here we are, one week to go til the byes and after this week we are just about at the half way point of the season. How is your team shaping up? Hopefully you are steaming towards a fully completed team with the byes all planned out.  You’re not?  Well I am very confident you aren’t alone!  Just a few thoughts for us this week as we head to the last round before the byes.

What do we do with this week’s trades?

This can often be considered a bit of an odd week of trading because we know the byes are just one week away and whoever we trade in this week will be missing for at least on of the following three rounds. There are a few options on what you can do with your trades this week as you prepare for round 12.

Double Downgrade. You could do a double downgrade and build yourself a Warne Chest to allow yourself to do a couple of upgrades and just the one downgrade prior to R12. Many would say that this leaves you one premium behind everyone else, which is true, however it can also help you as what it would do is allow you plenty of flexibility with the three trades you get before round 12. The concern with doing a double downgrade though is that you are bringing in two rookies just before the all important bye period. We all know that it rookies are just one poor game from getting dropped and we can’t afford to have players missing over this period. So if you do plan to take this approach you need to be sure that this player has great job security and is likely to last at least another three rounds.

One up One down. Just our standard approach that we have been doing all the way along. As we have said all along just go ahead and make sure that you have your byes in mind when you make these two trades. Remember you get 3 trades next week so that means you can fix up any issues before you get to the first bye week.

Clear out your Red Dots. Do you downgrade and upgrade as per normal or do you focus on getting your Red Dots cleared. This is a great approach as if they aren’t going to be a chance to play in the following three weeks then they aren’t going to be any use to us at all. So getting all these guys that aren’t likely to play off the field is a very prudent approach. Not only will they help us get to that all important 18 players it also helps generate us some cash. You don’t need any red dots to act as loopholes because all of the guys on their bye can fulfil that role for you.

Sideswap your underperforming premiums. I would say a big no to anyone that suggests this approach.  Unless you have 30 premiums in your side then you can’t afford to be doing this.  You need everyone you can get and even if they are underperforming they are still playing and hence you can use their points.

Injured Premiums have to go. With every player needed you can’t afford to carry anyone that has an injury, if anyone picks up an injury this week then you simply have to trade them out (unless of course their bye is the week immediately following their injury and they are only out for one week). It could also help you fix up your bye strategy.

My advice?  Clear out Red Dots by doing a down and up if you can. Nothing worse than heading into the byes with a couple of guys on the bench that aren’t likely to get a game.

New DPP’s

After this round we get new DPP players in the games so you need to just keep that in mind. There is a lot of talk about who we would like to have listed as DPP but remember it can be dangerous to predict. However, I think the two that are fairly safe are Bont and Bailey Smith from the Dogs, from what I am hearing they just need to cross the 50m line and they will get themselves forward eligibility.  I will be trading with that in mind, but don’t be surprised if you don’t get what you want!

Apology.

A few weeks ago I gave the advice to not pick up Darcy Cameron. I really hope you didn’t listen to me. He has certainly proven me wrong and is really performing now. With this role he is scoring well and with a bit of luck he will keep this going right through until Grundy comes back to the team.

Things to Remember

• Not all leagues play through the byes but your rankings will still change
• We get a new set of DPP’s for the byes so you can take that into account in your trading if you are certain of a change
• Just watch the weather report before selecting captains. The weather is starting to get wet as we saw in Perth and it will be wet in Adelaide this week and this can affect scoring.

I am someone that looks forward to the bye rounds, if you are like me and have set up your side you can make some serious headway in the rankings once the bye rounds start. Don’t see them as a hassle, see them as an opportunity.  Once again sorry for a bit of a shorter scramble, unfortunately I have been quite busy this week but I will see you all again next week when we are down a few players and really having to Scramble!