The Thursday Scramble: Round 0

Welcome back!  Here we are again, how soon did that happen! And what is with this Round 0? Do I need to hit up Warnie for some overtime here!  Ha ha.  Anyway, Let’s talk Round 0 and for the first time this year…. Let’s Scramble.

No need to Panic

By now you should all be across this Round 0 stuff. We know that Fantasy hasn’t started yet and we get a free look at these 8 teams this week. But the key is, don’t panic. This is an unprecedented free kick that we are given. The problem of course is that it isn’t all 18 teams, but hey we will take anything we can get right.

We are all used to seeing the Community series and basing our judgements on that but this week there is no stuffing around by the coaches resting people, they are playing for the 4 points and they won’t hold back. So we should get a great view of the roles that people have and how these rookies will go.

So what should we look out for?

Well this isn’t too hard to work out, we want to see what rookies get a game and the roles that players have. What are some of the things that I am looking for?

• Zac Williams – Will he get through the game? Can he score? What is his role?
• Sam Flanders – What is his scoring strength? Will he get the ball use that Dimma mentioned?
• Brodie Grundy – After a less than exciting showing in the community series let’s see if he can lift his scoring when rucking one out.
• Patrick Lipinski – Was the form in the Community series real? Can he keep doing this with all the players back?
• Caleb Windsor – What is his role and can he score in a real match?
• James Jordan – Is the role real? Let’s hope so
• Errol Gulden – Could he do it again? Another score over 120 means we are going to be forced to take the chance on him even with the bye.
• Keidan Coleman – One more big game from him should help lock him into my side.
• Tom Green – A big score from him with WC and NM in his first to games means that he is likely to have some huge price rises early in the competition.
• Alex Sexton – A good score will be enough for me.

What are you looking out for? Tell us in the comments below.

Things to Think About

As we know, this round doesn’t count for our Fantasy for the year, but it does count for price increases. So if we see a rookie or mid-pricer have a huge game then they simply have to come into contention for you as they could really give you a kick start to your money making season.

An early bye isn’t a No Go zone. There will have to be some exceptions to this rule. Remember that the rounds with the byes early on are only best 18. So you don’t have to completely ignore these players. And this is even more important with the rookies and the mid priced players. It is really just the premiums that you need to try and avoid having too many from the one bye.

If you are thinking of fading someone like Errol or Nick Daicos, that is fine and a valid strategy, but if you are doing it just because of the bye just think about this. Whilst they are going to miss the one week, is the amount that they are going to score week after week going to be sufficiently more than the person you bring in instead. For example, if you fade Daicos and take Tom Stewart there is nothing wrong with this. However, if Daicos is going to score 15 more than Stewart each week then it would only take about 7 rounds for Daicos to catch up those points that you lost by him being on the bye. Anything after that is “profit” over what you would get from having Stewart the whole time.

But is it a strategy to just completely ignore the byes? Maybe? You can trade your way around them of course, but this could hurt your upgrade cadence. So just be careful here as injuries could cause this strategy to backfire.

Are you going for the Car? If that is the case then these bye rounds are an opportunity for you to get the jump on the competition. In that case just avoid the early bye round players completely and load up on premiums from the other teams.

Things To Remember

• It is a free hit weekend, so enjoy the footy and watch the games closely
• If something happens outside the ordinary, don’t assume it will happen every week, just check all the reasons it happened.
• Don’t listen to too many opinions. Have your own opinion as there is just so much info out there and some of it does contradict the others.

Enjoy the footy being back and let’s look forward to a great season. Take plenty of notes this week and remember we will only have til Thursday to finalise our teams for the first round of Fantasy.

Dunny

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.