The Thursday Scramble: Round 8

What a Long weekend off footy that was, but how good was it too. A few tight games, but a couple of blowouts. But what we did see was some carnage on the injury front and also some poor scores too! The one thing I took out of the weekend is it is time to Scramble!

Do you feel lucky?

So we are now starting to see a few injuries and niggles as well as some drop offs in scoring to our stars. You now need to make the decision, what are you going to do!

Connor Rozee has been named for tonight’s game. But will he be a late out? Will he last through the game? If something goes wrong, the big question will be, how long will he be out for then.

Jack Steele showed up to the toss on Friday with a strapped knee and has been with the rehab group and then in his last two has punched out an 87 and a 72 after such a great start to the year. Last year so many people that had him kept him and it ended up that he spent most of the season not scoring well.

Luke Jackson was never a long term play but his form was good, but now with Darcy back he has delivered a pair of 61’s. Can he recover from that? Or do you want to hold him through the byes because of his very favourable bye round that he shares only with Port Adelaide.

So do you cut the losses and not take the risk and trade them out now?

The golden rule that we have all held dear for so long is that unless your player is going to miss more than a week you simply hold and ride it out. The issue that we have by side swapping these premiums is that it puts you behind the pack with your upgrade cadence. By making that sideways swap you aren’t able to do a one up and one down (unless you have a heap of cash and can do a one sideways and one up). And then what do you do when you get another injury this week and the week after. It gets to the point where you are just shuffling sideways and never actually improving your side.

But what would I do in the above situations?

So with Rozee we think that even if he is a late out he should be fine for next week. So with him I would say hold him.

For Steele the big question is how bad is this knee and how long is it going to affect him? I think that I plan to hold him for now, he has North this week so should be able to score well without putting his body under too much stress. If he can get through this game and passes the eye test then I would say we can hold him beyond that. But any sign of a limp or slowness and I think he needs to go.

I like the idea of holding Jackson through to the byes so he can be cover for your ruck division since he has that stand alone bye weekend. Just beware though that he could lose a lot of cash between now and then. Also just remember that Darcy doesn’t really have a great record with being able to stay on the park.

Be carful who you drop down to

While we are in this upgrade phase of the game, we need to just be careful on what we are doing with our downgrades. It always seems great to just jump on the bloke that has got a debut or has had one good game. However, it is always good to do a bit of research before you do that. Why did they get a debut? Was someone out? Is the person they have come in for out long term or are they just out for one week and will come back in next week and displace your brand new rookie before they have had any chance to grow!  And the same reasons go for why someone may have had a good score, they may have had a role change because someone else was out. And of course there is always that dreaded vest risk.

There does come a point where we can afford to downgrade to a red dot rookie, but this isn’t it. That is more like two or three weeks left in the season.  Just remember that the players you bring in need to fatten up a little bit to fund the next round of upgrades that we need to do through the byes.

Things to Remember

• Now that we are back to a more traditional round of footy keep an eye on those game start times and particularly the overlaps for looping etc.
• There are a number of rivalry type games this week which can see anything happen and they are often tight matches so we will see some odd scores.
• Start planning your trades a few weeks in advance and of course keep those byes in the back of your mind too.

Have a great weekend of footy and I look forward to coming back to you all next Thursday!

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.