The Thursday Scramble: Round 16

How good was it to post a nice high score again with all our players back on field! Also it was great to see 9 games of footy again over the weekend. But as usual the week has thrown us a couple of curve balls so let’s look at them.  Let’s Scramble.

What was that Tom?

A huge brain fade from Tom Stewart this week as he is now going to miss the next four weeks for that hit on Prestia. At least he dropped a nice big score for us this week and made sure his value rose a little! But those with him in all formats just need to trade.  One week is a hold, two weeks is a maybe hold but four weeks is just out and out no chance of holding.  For those playing for their league win, we only have four games left before the finals so you would need to be incredibly sure of your spot in the top 8 or 4 to even consider holding him for that finals run. And there is little doubt that something else will happen later in the season that will give you the perfect excuse to bring him back in.

Who to trade him for you ask?  Well that is going to be dependant of course on individual team structures. He is clearly in the top 6 best defenders and would have sat right towards the top of Roy’s Rolling 22. The best option that I see for him is Jordan Dawson who has been playing some great footy and has a well documented great run home. If you already have him the Docherty is the next option that I would be looking at.

However there are other options you can take and that is, if like me, you have a couple of guys in your midfield that have DPP with defence like maybe a Sinclair or a Hewett. If you have cash in the bank that you can use with Stewart you can swing one of those guys back into defence and then use that cash to bring in another top line midfielder that is more likely to replace the points you are losing with Stewart out than the 7th – 10th ranked defender.  At worst they are going to be a more consistent scorer. This is certainly the plan that I have in mind for this week. And of course if you are doing that then you have a myriad of options that you can look at to top up your midfield.

Whatever you do, just remember, whoever you bring in you are likely to have to hold for the rest of the season so make it someone you are happy with. This is particularly true if you are in the limited trade formats of the game.

Do I still get Jackson?

How good was Luke Jackson this week! A great game as he was the number 1 ruck for the Demons, and against McInerney who is notoriously hard to score against! I think we have seen a taste of what he will be but we are hearing whispers that Max is looking to return in round 17 so this could be the last week that Jackson is 1 out as the key ruck. Having said that, will Max go back to his regular time in the middle? Personally I doubt it, I think they will ease him back in for that first game with fair bit of forward time so Jackson should be ok that week too.  But for those that are looking to bring him in this week on the back of that great game I would just say don’t expect this kind of scoring right through the rest of the season.

Finals are just around the corner

As I mentioned above there is just four more rounds until the Fantasy finals begin so you need to make sure you are positioning your team the best you can in the top 8 and this may mean that you need to take some more risky picks with your selections to make sure you get up there. So this could mean that you have to have a look at your opponents team and either cover of their star player or if you have too many similar players you may want to trade out a similar player to get in a POD that hopefully propels you to the win!

Things to Remember

• Use your Stewart trade wisely. This could be the move that makes your season if you can get the right player in.
• Check the Scale of Hardness and the run home with just 8 rounds less the difference in toughness of the run home for teams will only get bigger.

Let’s hope we don’t get any forced trades this week and that teams tonight are kind to us so that we can finally start doing some luxury trades rather than having to trade out suspended or injured players!  Hope you all have a great weekend and see you next Thursday.