The Season

Friday Fantasy Fill Up – Rd. 9

Grab a knock off froth and get set for round nine.

by
Warnie
May 12, 2023

Welcome to a Friday arvo column that hopefully helps you get set for the weekend ahead. I’ll be looking at the key points/questions that have popped up during the week with some quick fire opinions, plus a look at how the mighty Warne Dawgs are looking ahead of the coming round.

Don’t miss:

Bye strategy

The byes are less than a month away. We need to get our teams ready for them.

Firstly, the rules.

Rounds 12, 13, 14, 15 – see image below – save it to your phone for reference!
Best 18 scores count – these must come from your on-field 22. ie. if you have 7 defenders playing, only 6 will be able to count.
3 trades – use them or lose them, as per normal, ahead of each of the rounds.

This year things are a bit different to what we’ve seen in the past. We have four rounds of byes. We’ve had four before, but that was the China bye which occured a couple of weeks before the grouped multi-bye rounds.

With the rules staying the same for each of the rounds, the first couple are easier. The easiest being the round 13 bye … which we have referred to as the ‘better bye’ over the last few weeks on our podcast. This has confused a few people (including someone on the Fantasy Pigsty Facebook group).

Why is the round 13 bye the better bye?

The simple reason being, only Suns and Cats have that bye. Now, if you didn’t have any Suns or Cats, you would be fielding your best team with your best 18 scores counting. Epic. You should have a cracking week. But you need to spread your players. Having some Suns and Cats is great for strategy.

Now depending on the players, you are hoping they will be there for the other three rounds. Noah Anderson and Tom Stewart are the premium picks that would be optimal to have. They should be there for rounds 12, 14 anf 15. Win!

Add to that bargain buy Brayden Fiorini … and then some of the other Suns legends who been good picks like Darcy Macpherson and Wil Powell. I also want to chuck Mitch Duncan here as he is a super-value pick at the moment if he can do what he normally does from here.

Rory Atkins needs to be mentioned… hopefully he can be there until R15. That would be a MASSIVE win if he can be (and continues to score like he is).

What about the other byes?

The strategy over the years has been to obviously have as many playing each week (the more premiums the better), with the aim to be getting more premiums on your ground towards the back end of the byes.

This has been done by offloading rookies at their bye. Every team is different and our rookies aren’t doing things perfectly for us, but some simple things I’ve been thinking about is trading a Luke Pedlar and Reuben Ginbey at their R14 bye. Maybe Alex Cincotta and Ollie Hollands go at R15. Ideally, trading them to a premium is what you want to be doing.

Coming out of the byes with a full premiums (ie. get into luxury trade season) is what we want.

Round 12 is a tricky week… more on that in future weeks. But after that, you’re bringing in players who have had their bye. Your three round 13 trades should be looking at bringing in Lions, Dockers, Saints, Swans. This is why holding off on getting an Andy Brayshaw, Jack Steele or Callum Mills could be a good idea. See them as post-R12 trade targets. The thing is, we are considering them now as they are value.

Hopefully there are some rookies/value options that sneak through. In saying that, this could be a year that we do more sideways trading than normal. But, again, every team is different.

We love the byes. They are a challenge. Hopefully you are getting your self set. The key bit of advice is getting a spread and mapping out what you team will look like – with hopeful improvement – over the four week stretch. While it is easy to count how many players you have, counting the non-rookies, or ideally premiums, is a better use of your time. Also be realistic with WHO will actually be there and make adjustments as you need to…

Gooooodddd lllluuucccckkk!!

Brisbane trip this weekend

We are heading up to Brisbane tonight so we can have a few beers at the Pineapple Hotel on Saturday afternoon. We’ll be there from lunchtime so pop in for a feed (there’s a $13 and $16 menu!)… and catch us talking on the mics from 1:15pm as we lead into the footy (Swans v Freo and North v Port). We’ll have some giveaways thanks to Calvin’s Quiz (starting around 2:30pm or so). This is all thanks to the legends at GameDay Squad. Entry is FREE!

What are we doing with Setterfield?

There are a few of us with Will Setterfield and are faced with a big decision.

If you waited until after his first two games of great scores, you paid $717k for him. Super-value for what he was doing. Unfortunately after his 54 and 70, he’s down to $750k and with a BE of 127, he’s going to be dropping more coin – likely to go below that R3 price we bought him for.

Ouch.

So – the decision is … do we offload now, cutting losses and taking that ‘$33k’ price increase, or do we see it throught to the bye.

Going to the bye was probably always the plan. It was for me – even after that 54. The biggest thing that changed was the role last week. He was on the wing and attended 0 centre bounces. ZERO! He scored 70 for that. It wasn’t the CBAs that were the issue the week before. He looked out of it. Role wasn’t great, despite the midfield time, and popped the 54. It was a tough match up (Geelong), but the price has taken a hit that is hard to recover from.

Does the lack of CBAs change this week with Darcy Parish out? You’d think so, but if we’re holding him this week, I think we have to have him until round 14. That’s 5 weeks.

The Bombers have a good run to the bye when looking at Cal’s Scale of Hardness. Brisbane are neutral, then it’s into green teams Richmond, West Coast and North Melbourne. Surely we get decent returns there?

Moving him is the ‘right’ thing to do IMO. His price allows you to get up to a big dog, depending on what you do with the other trade. You’ll sleep better at night. Plus, I don’t think he’s getting his price north of $800k when we trade at the byes.

Best rookies to grab

We need downgrades, but we are also hoping that they will be there at the byes.

Blake Drury (MID/FWD $221k) is the most traded in player this wek. He was solid with a 53 point game last week. He’s been named on field and hopefully North give him a decent run. The round 15 bye is perfect if he’s there for the next 6 weeks leading into it. He should make some cash and would be a good sell at R15.

It’s hard to back in the rest.

SOS (Son of Simon), James O’Donnell (DEF $200k), has been scoring around 60 in the VFL, but they’ve fast tracked him into the team after only being a Category B rookie for a month or so.

I like Harry Sharp (MID $246k). Clearly job security is likely to be an issue at the Lions, but he’s now been on the list a couple of seasons.

The one I am going to be watching very carefully when the 5pm teams come in is Cameron Fleeton (DEF $200k). This is mainly because of his VFL numbers this season… from last week back, he’s posted 106, 95, 86, 99, 103, 59. They look pretty good. Keep an eye on him. If he’s named, I will probably jump there.

Bonus Coaches’ Corner podcast episode

If you missed this episode in the podcast feed, give it a listen today. Vamsee is an old mate who were shared a few years talking to each other with around 30-odd coaches as part of the EliteDreamTeamers. EDT was a private forum with 30-odd like-minded Fantasy coaches playing Dream Team. Most seasons we would finish on top of the league table (when best leagues were ranked). A lot of great guys.

Vamsee is one of them. He returned to playing AFL Fantasy after a hiatus. The game has changed a lot, but he’s learning to adapt. When he thought the two trades per week that came in around a decade ago was going to make the game easy… the last couple of years has made him take those words back.

Give it a listen and make sure you follow @mryellowtbuk on Twitter for some great thoughts and content.

Warne Dawgs – Round 9

I’m still torn on what to do this week. Get rid of red dots and grab cheap players (rookie and the Rat)… or jump of Setterfield and get a big dog premium. I’ve gone the latter at this stage. I cover the options in the video. There’s a bit to think about… and I will do most of that over a pint at the airport this arvo!

ROUND 9 TRADES

Noah Long (F8) > Harry Sharp (M10)
Will Setterfield (M4) > Noah Anderson (M2)
Cash left: $36,000

ROUND 9 CAPTAINS

Tim Taranto VC
Tim English C

Click here to watch the YouTube team update video.

Lockout times

All times AEST

Friday 12 May

Richmond v Geelong (MCG) – 7:20pm
West Coast v Gold Coast (OS) – 8:40pm

Saturday 13 May

Sydney v Fremantle (SCG) – 1:45pm
North Melbourne v Port Adelaide (BA) – 2:10pm
Hawthorn v Melbourne (MCG) – 4:35pm
Brisbane v Essendon (G) – 7:25pm
Carlton v Western Bulldogs (MRVL) – 7:30pm

Sunday 14 May

Adelaide v St Kilda (AO) – 1:10pm
Collingwood v GWS Giants (MCG) – 4:40pm

Don’t forget we have our Patreon pumping along! From $5 a month you can be watching our flagship Sunday night live stream once the final game finishes. For $10 you get a bonus mid-week Q&A podcast, which we call the Pintcast, where we answer plenty of questions over a few beers! There’s heaps more, so check out patreon.com/dttalk for more details.