The Thursday Scramble: Round 18

Injuries, Suspensions and Poor Scoring.  Sounds like a bad movie that I just keep watching week after week! No, it is just my Fantasy Team!!  All of this just tells me it is time to Scramble!

Injuries and Suspensions!

We knew more were coming and it is always the way that they all hit at the same time. No surprises here. So we have Dunkley missing for yet another week (hopefully the last one from all reports), Sheldrick who has been providing us with some bench cover recently is now also missing and this looks to be more than one week, Lloyd is out with concussion protocols and there is no guarantee he will be back next week either, Ridley is a chance to miss this week too, but thankfully it was just bone bruising and not a serious knee injury and to top it all off we have Serong out suspended this week too.

Hands up those of you that have three or more of these guys, I know my hand is certainly up. This makes it really difficult and our benches are all going to be tested right?  Well isn’t this what makes the game fun?  So many coaches complain that everyone has the same team and this makes the game boring. Well it is curveballs like this that sort out the wheat from the chaff as they say. The good coaches will have some good cover and a way to trade themselves out of this situation. This is of course the way we will do it in AFL Fantasy but in the other forms of the game it isn’t that simple with many coaches now just about out (or completely out) of trades. That is where things really get tricky.

Question Time

I asked if anyone had any questions or issues with their teams and obviously these guys listed above dominated those questions so here are few of my thoughts on those questions.

Leo Beverage asked “What to do with Serong” and our good mate John (SinceUBeenGawn) asked “With injury bullets do we hold Serong for the week?”. Ordinarily in AF we would say you can happily trade him given our two trades per week. But given you are likely to have other issues then you have to consider the best ‘bang for your buck’. If you have players that are missing through injury, even if it is just looking like a one week, then that is who I would trade first. Reason being that Serong is going to be happily training this week and come back fit and firing the following week. Those guys that are injured may just miss a second week and when they come back they may be a touch underdone. If you have no other problems and Serong is your only issue then I think you can trade him out. Your bench rookie isn’t going to get you enough to cover what you will lose and odds are that in coming weeks we will have someone else out and you will be able to get him back in again.

William (Blockie2562) asks if we should “Hold Cameron if the best you can trade to is Keays or Bolton?”. I assume this is due to cash issues you may have. Keays has been good and posting some reasonable scores so he isn’t a bad one to go to. I don’t like Bolton only because he can be either red hot or stone cold in his scoring from week to week. Overall I don’t mind the plan to hold Cameron though, this is mainly because many coaches (myself included) are using him as our backup cover should something happen to either English or Marshall (this is most valuable in RDT and SC where we are just about out of trades). So the answer is, if you aren’t worried about that Ruck swing cover then you can trade him to Keays.

TheRealOogieBoogieBush tells us that his team is beyond help and wants it all to just end.  Hang in there mate, not long to go now, just 7 rounds left to endure!  I know there are plenty in the same boat and as they all fall by the wayside your team will jump up the rankings!!

Phil (Philwasshere) asks Steele and Harvey on field vs Mills and Johnson on field. Firstly, I agree you shouldn’t have rookies on field, but don’t worry I have one pesky one left that I just never get the chance to get rid of. And yes, you were unlucky with having traded Steele out last week. I don’t think getting him in and playing Harvey on field is the prudent way to go. Personally I would go Mills and Johnson on field as Johnson is likely to do ok and with both Fyfe and Serong missing from that Docker side he should score ok this week.

Digga wants to know Doherty or Sicily. I think for me the answer is Sicily. He will have a point to prove and the ball spends a ton of time in the Hawks backline. So he should be a very good scorer from here on out.

Things to Remember

• Check your red dot players, some are getting games now as we get injuries and this will make looping harder.
• See what the new DPP’s brought you in terms of flexibility but don’t bring someone in just because of it.

That’s it from me this week folks, sorry it is a bit short, super busy at work unfortunately so time was a little short for me to do too much. Keep going and don’t give up as we only have a few weeks to go and you will be surprised how far you can jump in the ranks as other teams start to drop off!  Have a great weekend and see you all next Thursday.