Tom Stewart – Deck of DT 2025

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Why should I pick him?

It’s Tom Stewart! Don’t we always have him in our sides as our ever reliable point scoring defender?  Seasons ’21 through ’23 saw him average 96.8, 90.8 and 96.3 which is fantastic scoring from a defender.  Now there was a dip in the last season down to 87.5 but still, this is nothing to sneeze at.  And when we look a bit deeper we see he was injured and subbed out in three of the games with concussion and hamstring issues which, when removed, bump his average up to 93.65. There were some concerns about him, but realistically he still managed 8 scores over 100 and three over 120 which all came in a stretch of 6 100+ scores in a row from rounds 16 to 21.

Tom should settle back into that half back role again this season that has served him so well in previous years with the addition of Bazlenka to the Cats midfield and we should see him in that intercept marking role that he has played so well over the years as well as being that outlet kick for the +6’s.

With those injury games I mentioned before it is easy to argue that Stewart is underpriced by at least 6-8 points and it is highly likely that he will be in Roy’s Rolling 22 during the season.

Why shouldn’t I pick him?

Let’s face it, Tom isn’t getting any younger and is now 31 years old and we saw him miss a final due to a hamstring injury.  Soft tissue injuries are a huge concern as he gets older and if he gets a couple of them during the season and we see him miss games then this could derail your season.

Taggers. We saw a few times, most notably against the Power, that teams are targeting him with a forward tag to nullify his impact on the game. The game at GMHBA against Port saw him score just 64 with that tag on him. More of this during the current season is inevitable and will further reduce his value.

That run of great scores I mentioned earlier came when he was getting more CBA’s and with the introduction of Bailey Smith then what does this mean for him, I feel he will drop out of that mid rotation and settle on half back, but if he needs those CBA’s to get the big scores then maybe those big scores are now past him?

Lastly, he has that horrific round 3 bye with Brisbane, Sydney and Collingwood.  This is going to make it very hard to start the season with him. He does start with Brisbane, Fremantle and St Kilda before the bye, so once we find out what has happened in that opening round we will be able to make a more educated decision as to whether he is going to drop in price before we start the Fantasy season properly.

Deck of DT Rating.

QUEEN

Many coaches will select Stewart simply because we like to see a name of someone that has been there and done it before. Just be wary of the age, injuries and a role change. We really need to keep an eye on what his role is going to be this year during the Opening round clash with Brisbane where we get a free look at what he is going to be doing before we lock in our sides.

For those of you playing SuperCoach then Stewart is always a handy defender given the extra points for intercept marks.

In Draft he will still be in your top couple of tiers of defenders and will be off the board fairly early if for nothing else than his name. So, do your research and make sure that you are selecting him for what he can do and not just because of his name.

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.