The Thursday Scramble: Round 22 Finals Week 2

Did you make it through the first week?  Hopefully you got through to the Prelim final. Otherwise it is all knockout from here now. And what a week it was, a few big scores but one issue in Daicos. The big question this week is, what do you do with him?  Do you have options and what is the best one?  Time to Scramble!

A Daicos Sized Hole

Well we were all worried about his score this week up against Maginness once again, so thankfully there wouldn’t have been many that put the C on him. So we dodged a bullet there, but the bigger problem now is what do we do with Daicos? Well clearly we trade, but what are the options, do you have to bring in a Defender or is it better to get someone in another position?

If you look by average you probably already have all the key guys but if you didn’t get SicDawg in before this is your chance! Only thing is it will cost you a bit of cash. But other than that you are likely to already have Doc, Dawson, Stewart, Sinclair and maybe Ryan. If you don’t have one of those guys you can certainly add one of them in for Daicos and you will be more than happy.

Now, that is the plain old way to play this game.  Now, let’s think outside the box a little.  What sort of options do we have?

Grab a Midfielder? I am sure that you may have someone like Dawson in the midfield, one of your plays would be to flip him back to defence and the grab yourself the very best midfielder you can for your money. Obviously if you had Daicos in the mids then do the same thing. Now, if you do this you are likely to be breaking your Mid/Def swing. In AFL Fantasy this isn’t as much of a risk as you have trades left but if you are in Dreamteam or SuperCoach this is likely to be your last trade left and if that is the case you definitely want to retain your swing if you can to add that flexibility that you are going to have to ride all the way home.

Could you get a Forward? Again, if you have Sheezel or Ziebell up forward and Daicos down back you can swing one of these guys back and pick up the best forward that you don’t have. Now the risk by cutting your swing set here is much less. The thing here is unless you have one of each of these guys in each position you are unlikely to have another player to have this swing with so giving it up isn’t as big a deal.

Whichever way you go, as always look at who they have coming up as opponents. With just three games to go there are certainly going to be some good and bad options so check the run to make sure you aren’t coming up against any dark red teams.

Time to take a risk?

Bloody oath it is. Three weeks to go, time to put all the cards on the table and go for it. When you only have a few weeks to go you can afford to reach for that guy that has the big ceiling against some of the opponents he has coming up. You only need two big scores and one around their average from the three games for it to pay off handsomely.

The one that has been talked about a lot this week is Luke Jackson. He had a great game against the Lions who were missing Big O which has many people looking at him now for the next few weeks. And when you look at those weeks you can see why. Both the Eagles and Power have no rucks left apart from very green rookies, Port don’t even have big Charlie Dixon to throw in there as he is now out for the rest of the Fantasy season. So don’t discount looking at a guy like him for the last few weeks.

Similarly if you don’t have any big issues (how have you survived this long without Daicos) you should certainly be looking to move on players that are likely to get the tag like a few did last week with Daicos (what a move). The issue here is that the Hawks play the Dogs this week and they now need to work out who to tag, is it Bont or Libba.  So you could take a stab and trade one out if you wanted (not something I would do, but it could get you a leg up on the comp if you pick the right way).

If you do have Daicos, then you can look at not taking the highest price guys but look a little down the list and save a few dollars and put them on someone else’s head in another line and lift them up to an uber premium. This is definitely the play if you have one last mid pricer or fat rookie that you just haven’t been able to get off the field.

Again, this is a play that you are going to make if you want to really take a flier and try and jump up the rankings, or if you are an underdog in a crucial final. You don’t want to go into the offseason wondering what could have been if you had taken that big chance.

Things to Remember

• Don’t give up! Just because you have been knocked out in your main league, keep on going, as teams do drop out you can really rise up the rankings fast in these last few weeks.
• Don’t be afraid to take a chance, whether that be a risky trade like I mentioned above whether it is a risky C to try and catch lightning in a bottle and captain the guy that puts up a 170.
• Enjoy the last few weeks. It has been a long season, but I guarantee you will miss it after a couple of weeks.

As always have a great weekend and I want to see heaps of you in the Prelim finals next week to show that the DTTalk Community is the best one out there! I’ll be back next week to see what fun has been dealt to us by the fantasy gods and try and help you make some decisions as we head into the last couple of weeks of the year.  All the best and see you next Thursday.