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The Thursday Scramble

The Thursday Scramble: Round 17

A few one week injuries at a tricky time of the season! What do we do! We Scramble!

Have you fielded a full premium team yet?  I know a lot of good coaches that are having trouble doing just that, just when we seem to think we have got everyone up and about we get an injury or suspension. This is the fun that is Fantasy Footy!  No one said it was meant to be an easy game. Not long to go now so Let’s Scramble!

Hold or Trade?

We saw a few popular players pull up lame in Round 16 and now we need to make some big calls on what we should be doing with them. Let’s take a look at them.

Aaron Hall – How many of you took a chance on the Kangaroo after that 124 in round 15?  It was a pretty good option for a suspended Tom Stewart. We all knew he is an injury risk, but to go down that early in the game was simply unlucky! Now it wasn’t his hammy but it was a quad injury and he is listed as only 1-2 weeks which is better than most of us thought when he came to the bench. The initial diagnosis of 1-2 weeks could be enough to make you think about holding if you have good cover like a McCartin or D’Ambrosio, that would give you the ability to use that trade to deal with a bigger issue or if you have any rookies on field still you could remove them.
My thoughts with Hall are that I would probably trade him. He was only back for 4qtrs and 5 mins before he suffered another injury. We have 7 rounds left to go in the season and he is just too much of an injury risk to hold.

Dayne Zorko – A hamstring injury for Zorko but there are two important factors and the key one is that it was only a minor strain and it happened way back on Thursday night. This just gives him the luxury of an extra day or two of recovery over what he may have had normally. This is one where I would be looking at what cover I had and if I had sufficiently suitable cover I would be potentially holding Zorko.  The only risk is that this tweak becomes a full hamstring strain in his first game back. However, for me a deciding factor could be his age. At 33 those hammy’s have seen a fair bit of work and that just elevates that risk of the full hamstring strain a bit more. If I didn’t have any other issues I would maybe hold but if you have more than the one injury to consider that are fairly even he would be one that I would trade.

Daniel Rich – Incredibly similar to Zorko in that it has been listed as a one week minor hamstring strain. This means that he has almost the identical reasoning behind the decision to hold or not as Zorko above. With Rich being just one year younger than Zorko there isn’t even much difference there. For me it will once again come down to the cover that you have. With Rich only being a Def and Zorko a Mid/Def you need to look at what line you have them on. I actually have both and I am keeping Rich and that is because I have D’Ambrosio down back to cover him and I can trade Zorko up in the midfield to Petracca. So the player you can trade in on either line might be the other deciding factor if you want to trade one of these guys out.

Dusty Martin – Martin was also subbed out but with Hamstring Awareness, so not even a full hamstring. Just given the way his season has gone and his scoring I would be trading him out at this stage if you don’t have other bigger issues to deal with.

Finally some Good News!

Last night’s team sheets finally gave us some good news with the returns of Max Gawn, Luke Jackson and Sam De Koning. This will be music to a lot of ears this week particularly with Jackson having been a popular trade in the prior week.  Sam De Koning is also still quite a popular player and is providing bench cover for a lot of teams. This could really help with the decision to hold one of the above guys if you can play De Koning in their place.

With big Max back this week there will be a desire to look to get him straight back in. However, you may want to temper that rush given that he has a BE of 116 in AF and is coming off a few weeks off. Whilst he may reach that 116 I won’t be surprised if the Demons look to ease him back in and play Jackson on ball a bit more. In the other games he has BE’s of under 100 in both RDT and SC so he could be a much more attractive option in those games, but remember trades are valuable in those formats!

Things to Remember

  • This is our last Thursday night game! So have your team set and tips in for tonight’s game.
  • Be strategic in the limited trade formats of the game if you are running low!
  • Be prepared for late outs, we have seen a few lately and something tells me that we are hitting the ‘silly season’ of late outs!
  • Use your DPP to effect when trading. Try and upgrade to a player that  you can get the most points out of, not just someone on the line you are trading.

Good luck for this week as we count down to the Finals! Only a few weeks to go so make sure you are racking up the wins!  Catch you all next week!

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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