The Thursday Scramble: Round 5

How good was last weekend! As someone in SA, it was a great weekend. It is just something to go to a game (Power v Essendon) and I saw someone in team colours from every single club (except St Kilda, the only one I missed). But also it was great to have all 18 teams playing. But back to a best 18 round again this week with Sydney and Collingwood both on their early bye. If nothing else we need to Scramble!

The Nick Daicos Conundrum

So. Here we are, the Collingwood bye is upon us, he copped a half of the Finn tag and it has now pushed his BE in Fantasy to 130 and he has lost $75k this season. If you did start with him and you have held him this long I don’t think a BE of 130 is enough for you to trade him out for his bye. He comes back in a week and plays Port at the MCG and (unfortunately) he is highly likely to get himself to that 130 comfortably. If you don’t have him then you would be fairly comfortable with the position that you are in and you could still take that week against Port to look to see how it pans out without the risk of him skyrocketing.

My advice. Hold him if you have him or maybe wait til rd7 if you don’t.

Is it Upgrade Season yet?

Normally around now we would start looking at the moves we can make to start upgrading our sides but maybe you haven’t started to put too much thought into that yet because we have been so busy worrying about the mini bye rounds. But what we don’t want is to get to round 7 and still have a heap of rookies on the field and we have simply been sideways trading around these byes.

If that is what you have been doing so far, then it is time to switch gears. We have two more weeks with best 18 and really this is the best time for us to do this. You have 4 ‘dead’ spots on field so if you do need to do some fancy trading then you can kind of hide it a little.

The real issue though is there are a number of rookies in our teams that aren’t quite ready to be culled for stars. My advice here is don’t rush things. Don’t just trade one out because you feel you have to. If you have other things you can do that make more sense and let your rookie fatten up a bit then take that option.

The must trades for me this week would be Howes and Jordon. Particularly Howes as he is more than likely going to lose you money this week. Jordon can wait if you have other issues because he won’t change in price this week at least.

Also, don’t forget that we are going to get some DPP’s before round 7 when everyone has played the same number of games. This may help you with what you want to do with your trades. Personally I am waiting for a couple of guys to get defensive status so I can swing them back and trade out some rookies from defence.

Did someone say DPPs?

Well not yet they didn’t but there has been plenty of chatter around the place about them now and you should be taking note.  Now I would never advocate to trade in on the back of an anticipated DPP change as we just never know what is going to happen. But what you can do is factor things into your plans. We are fairly sure that guys like Nick Martin are going to gain defender status along with Karl Amon and maybe Riley Bonner. So what you say, you already have them. But what it means is that if they get this DPP status you can get rid of one of your rookie defenders (they may even be red dots if you are still carrying Coffield or Reid) and then get in a fresh rookie in the mids or even up forward with more DPP as they are more prolific in those areas normally (except Cloehsy this week).

So I guess what I am saying is don’t bank on a guy getting DPP, but certainly have a plan in place if someone does get it so that you can take full advantage. This may even mean holding on to someone that is only a mid to good performing midfielder as they would rate in the upper echelon of the defender ranks.

Things to Remember

• We are back on best 18 again this week with Swans and Pies missing.
• Don’t forget to build your team ready for upgrading
• Use the best 18 to your advantage, it may mean you can hold someone and have a donut on the field as it won’t matter.
• If you are going to loop a captain you can use the guys that are on their bye as they shouldn’t be locked out until the start of the last game.

Ok, so there we go, just two more of these annoying little multi bye weeks and we are back to normal for a few weeks before we have to contend with the regular bye rounds!  Have a great weekend and I’ll see you all again on Thursday next week.

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.