The Thursday Scramble: Round 19

Wow, how was that for a weekend. But really, there were just bullets flying everywhere and hopefully you managed to dodge most of them.  I managed to get through the weekend with 22 heartbeats on the field but it was a close thing and I was helped by Maric being a late in.  So what is in store for us this week? Let’s Scramble and find out.

How should we use Emergencies?

I know this seems like a very silly question as we have been putting the big E on players for years now and we all know what we are doing…. don’t we?  There were numerous examples on the weekend of players that had managed to stuff this up, I can put my hand up and say I made a rookie mistake but thankfully it didn’t cost me any points. So I just want to run through a few things because as we are starting to get to the end of the season we are now going to have a few situations where the E will become very important.

The rolling lockout is your friend. Do you remember the good old days when you had to have your E’s all set on a Friday night and you just h0ped you picked the right one? Me too, but these days with the rolling lockouts you can hold off on setting that E until you have a bit more information at hand.  There is nothing that says you have to have all four of your E’s in place before the start of the round. You can apply them as needed throughout the round and go from there. So what I would advocate here is that you should hold off on your Emergency placement until you have a view of who is actually playing. If you have a couple of guys on the bench who are both listed as “real emergencies” for their sides and you think either one could be the sub, then just hold on the placement of your E until you know. Then if one is made the sub then whack that E on them, at least they are likely to score.

Looping 101 Another mistake we saw on the weekend. People without the E on big RoMar when they were using their red dot ruck as their captain. This is the one instance that breaks the rule above. If you have a permanent red dot on the field then you have a permanent E on the player on the bench. This is a non-negotiable!  This should be set on the Thursday night once you know the teams.

Speaking of Looping your captain…. Always and I mean Always make this a player that is NOT listed in the emergencies for their respective team. Better yet it is someone that is injured and a 0% chance to play. Many coaches got caught out by Osin Mullin on the weekend as he came in as the sub. If you have no option but to use a player that is an emergency, then make sure it is a player in a game that you will have the opportunity to find out who the sub is prior to the game so you can make the necessary adjustments. It is often wise to listen right up to the start of the game just in case there is one of those super late outs that causes a shuffle.

I know a lot of the above is Fantasy 101 but it always bears reminding at this time of year when the late outs are more of a possibility and you may be scrambling for warm bodies on field.

Trade Hold or Otherwise

So after my Scramble last week we found out that Tom Green was missing with a hamstring, many of us were also dealing with the 1 week Serong suspension. This is one of those cases where that “Edit Trade” feature is critical. Where we have a choice to trade out the guy with the injury or the guy that has been suspended, we take the injury player 95% of the time. With the 1 weeks suspension we know when they will return and also that they have been in full training in the interim. Many doubt that we will see Green for a couple of weeks and that reason alone should have had us all diving for the edit trades feature.

We are obviously seeing a lot of players now getting done for their dangerous tackle and I for one don’t mind what the league are doing, hopefully this message is filtering down to all the lower leagues. But from a Fantasy coach perspective this is frustrating as we are seeing long term suspensions from guys that don’t try to do anything dirty behind the ball but they just haven’t adjusted to the new way of tackling. Where you get one of these three week suspensions this is an automatic trade. No questions asked. However, many in the limited trade forms of the game may be struggling in that space. But a 3 weeker if you have any trades left is a trade there too at this late stage in the season.

Should I have a 23rd premium on my bench?

In AFL Fantasy the need for this is very low, we have our two trades a week and hence any issue we have can be dealt with by a swift trade, it is literally why we have the two trades per week. It allows us to have a premium (or something that resembles premium) team on the park all season.

However, in RealDreamteam and Supercoach it isn’t a bad play. And preferably this would be a player that has DPP too so that you can swing them around where needed. Many coaches (myself included) thought that Nat Fyfe was going to be this guy for us this year but sadly that didn’t work out. If you have been able to work that into your team then well done. If you still have more than 2 or 3 trades and can pull off a move to get one of these types of guys in then I think it wouldn’t be the worst play you can make. But if you are on 2 or less I would say hold those trades as you are going to need them on the way home, I guarantee it.

Things to Remember

• Two more league games now until we get to Fantasy Finals! Hopefully you are climbing the ladder
• The Scale of Hardness gets more and more important the longer the season goes. Ignore it at your peril
• Don’t despair when we get carnage at the start of a round, you won’t be the only one to have this problem.

Have a great weekend of footy folks, not long til the finish line now and hopefully you are getting your team in tip top shape ready for the end of the season. Catch you all again next Thursday!