The Thursday Scramble: Round 24 GRAND FINALS

Are we there yet?  Well, we can finally say, yes we are. Well done to those of you that have made it this far in the season without quitting and especially well done to those of you that made GF’s.  I haven’t made as many GF’s as I should have this year and got a bit ahead of myself in a couple of SC leagues where I thought I was a lock, but the Fantasy Gods got me with some rubbish scores and injuries.  Anyway, for one last time this season…. Let’s Scramble!

Final Round Planning

All of this is pretty straight forward stuff, but in the heat of the battle they are easily forgotten, so let’s just recap.

Sort out your loops now.
Nothing worse than having a great score on your bench or having an awesome VC score and not being able to use it. Taking a look at the fixture and the popular looping players, we have West Coast playing on the second game of the round. So that is a bit of a hassle as there are many of us, me included, that have been using a WC ruck on the bench to be our loop for captains. So unless you are taking Daicos on the Friday night, they won’t be of much help.  Another really popular one and possibly the way to go if you are planning to VC Xerri is to use Zach Reid from the Bombers as your loop as they play on Saturday night. He has stayed in a lot of teams all year as that loop and that isn’t a bad time slot. Lastly if you have been stuck with some of the Carlton players that you can’t move on then the are a great loop to use with that second last game of the round.
In terms of Emergency looping, with the Dockers in that last game then Fyfe becomes someone you could throw on the field if someone else in your side fails. And someone to put the E on on the bench is Humphries and Mannagh from the Cats with them having that opening game on the Saturday so this could mean you can loop them onto the field if you need to. They are probably the main ones that I would look at.

Keep your powder dry.
I don’t mind making trades early and just letting them sit there if need be and I know many don’t like the rolling lockout, but with the risk of resting and some stars getting thrown the early vest it is one round to keep on top of things. One that I think could be a concern for either a vest or a late out is Brodie Grundy. And with the Saturday night game you could be limited as to who you could trade to if he is named in tonight but becomes a late out as we know he has been struggling of late and looked cooked last week. There is also risk with the other Swans stars since their ladder position is locked up and they could throw Heeney or Gulden the starting vest too just to give them a bit of a break. So just keep your options open unless you are forced to trade early in the round with injuries or other players missing.

Don’t Panic on Sunday
Finally the AFL have listened and as we make that final push to the end of the season and the all important last day of the Fantasy Finals, we have no overlapping games on the Sunday so you don’t have to make decisions half way through a game. You can see how things play out before making any decisions for the following game. Now granted you will probably be out of moves to make by then but if you have any moves left that you can make you will have all the knowledge you need to make a move right up until the start of the Freo v Power game (and don’t listen to the boys, nothing wrong with watching these two teams! However, I am of course a bit biased here).

Don’t be afraid to throw that Hail Mary
If you are a massive underdog going into the round, don’t just give up and accept defeat. Keep fighting.  As I said at the start, I should have romped home a couple of my Prelim’s last week but fate had other ideas with some rubbish scores coming to the fore and destroying my season. And if you are looking like you are behind and have a trade left, maybe take that roughy that has a great match up this week. You only have to have them for this week and it might pay off. Last week I was tossing up a few players to bring in to my SC team to replace the injured Curnow, I didn’t have the kahunas to take Brent Daniels and took Jeremy Cameron instead in what I thought was a pretty safe matchup. How wrong I was and that single handedly lost me a couple of match ups, (yes I was against Daniels in a league and that was hard to swallow). So throw the rule book out the window and have a bit of fun with your trades and it might just pay off.

To go unique or to cover, that is the question.
As always, with your trading you can either bring in a unique to try and get that edge over your opponent or you can cover off their dangerous player that you think could give them the edge and effectively nullify them. That choice is up to you and how much risk you are willing to take. If you decide to cover then just look at the rest of the uniques in your matchup and see if you think they have enough fire power to take down the uniques your opponent has.

Overall, just remember, this is the last round of AFL Fantasy for the year so firstly congratulate yourself for sticking it out this year and have a bit of fun.

Things to Remember

• Set your lineup early and have options. Write them down or take screen shots but make sure you know what stage of the weekend you need to pull the trigger on your moves.
• This is a one week sugar hit for trading so consult the Scale and use that to your advantage.
• Enjoy the footy!  Hopefully some great games this weekend and if your team is in the finals I hope they go well (unless they are playing the Power of course).

Thanks

As always, I want to thank all of you that have read and are still reading my ramblings each week. I often think, does anyone read this and does it help, but then I see some of the comments and it is great to see that it does help some people and you all help each other with team choices in the comments. It has been a long season as always and I just want to say a big thanks to all of you and of course to Warnie, Calvin and Roy for letting me spin rubbish here each Thursday. Hopefully the stuff I talk about helps you look at the game and think about your team in different ways to all the other podcasts and advice sites. I like to think that the DTTalk readers are a bit more sophisticated and hence can handle a different view on the game rather than the same player v player each week.  Well done to all the other writers here too on excellent seasons, especially Fry who does a mountain of work and gives us some of the most valuable info each week.  So at this stage I will see you all next season for another big year of AFL Fantasy, SuperCoach and Real Dreamteam fun.

Cheers

Dunny

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.