The Thursday Scramble: Round 11

Last week of games before the dreaded bye period.  Are you like Warnie who has been planning for the last 6 months or are you like Calvin who has only had a look at his bye structure this week!  Whichever you are, it is time to Scramble!

The Byes.

Now, I am going to assume that you are all seasoned players and that you all know exactly what you are doing in the byes. And even if you are it doesn’t mean you are fully prepared. I am probably not as prepared as I would like to be.  And to make matters worse, the first bye is the worst one as it has a heap of popular players in it.

I guess I will just run through a few of the things I like to remember as we head into next week.

• Take the opportunity this week to get rid of some red dots. They are going to be super important over the subsequent 4 weeks.
• Remember we have a best 18 three trades a week for the four weeks of the byes.
• Use a bye planner to work out what you would like to do with your team over the bye rounds. It probably won’t work out that way, but as they say, a failure to plan is a plan to fail.
• Our plan is to have more on bye in the later byes than the start as we can trade them out as we go.

We will have plenty of punches that we need to roll with so don’t stress when things go wrong. Just be ready to adapt.

Thoughts on the Sexy Fish….

Now, I have heard numerous podcasts this week with people talking about bringing in either one of or both of Sexton and Fisher.  Like last week I just want to throw a few ideas out there as to what I think about this idea and give you a few pros and cons for each of the guys.

Sexton

So we all started with him and he was ok until he got dropped after their early bye. It then took him a number of injuries and 6 weeks before we saw him again and he hasn’t disappointed since then. The question is. Will he stay in this role when Will Powell eventually returns. He is available in Round 15 but there is talk that he may be made to come back in via the VFL to ‘earn his stripes’ again.

Sexton does have a great BE in every form of the game, but the flip side of that is that he isn’t cheap. You won’t be able to downgrade someone to him and it could hurt your ability to bring in an upgrade this week. However, as I mentioned above you may want to just clear some red dots this week and it is a way you can do it.

Probably my only concern is his job security. I feel that if he has one or two bad games he is at risk of being punted back out of the team. However, if it is a short term ‘bye cover and cash grab’ hit that you are looking for. If you can look past the price tag you can certainly do it.

Fisher

I’ve probably got a few issues with bringing in Fisher, but don’t worry there is some upside too.

Before you take the plunge just consider a few things….

Fisher is another guy that we have to pay up for. He isn’t cheap. You need to pay up for him which may hinder some trades you want to do later on. His BE isn’t too bad at 38 thanks to the 100+ scores that he has in his price cycle at the moment but as they drift into the past they have less impact on his BE and value. So if he doesn’t keep it up then he could be a concern.

The role of the Kangaroos players is a bit of a mystery at the moment. We have Sheezel playing some mid time which has sent Fisher back but they will get McKercher back after their bye so that could change this configuration quickly. We have all seen how quickly Sheezel’s scoring flipped when his role changed so just wanted to put that on the table.

The last downside was that whilst he had a great score last week, he did have a monster last quarter where he scored over 50 of his points. That isn’t going to happen every week. So that 120+ score could easily have been something in the 70’s/80’s.

Having said all of that he is on a hot streak of 100+ scoring with three in a row and because of that he is quite attractive.

‘With his bye next week it means you get just the one game then the bye after which we believe Colby will be back.  There are just a few too many things going against him for me to recommend bringing him in. However, if you want to go for it then do it, fortune favours the brave, I’m just not that brave to bring Fisher in.

With both of these guys there could be massive upside or downside, you just have to work out how lucky you think you can be and go for it.

Things to Remember

• Prepare, prepare and prepare some more. Last chance to do so!
• Red dots aren’t your friend anymore. Let’s clear them out!
• Trust the Pirate. He may have not picked 5 winners last week but we al know he will bounce back!

Best of luck for this week, it is our last week of 9 games for a few weeks so make the most of it! Catch 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.