Harry Sheezel – Deck of DT 2025

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When the traders asked me to write about North Melbourne’s best player and someone who is likely to be D1, I immediately got to work.

…

Imagine my surprise when I log in and it turns out my 6 page essay on Charlie Comben is useless, and I actually have to talk about Sheezel instead.

And when it comes to Sheezel, it’s all down to one question – where does he play? Answer that and you know whether or not to pick him. Sheezel earlier this month confirmed himself that he will be playing a MID/FWD role this season, but will it be 60/40 or 30/70?

If you will quickly refer to the graph I’ve done a quick analysis on his scoring output based on his position.

And not to get too wanky with it, we’re going finance heavy to explore what the bull case and the bear case of Harry Sheezel in 2025.

Why should I pick him?

Let’s be clear – even as the most deluded North Melbourne fan there is (and there are a few of us) I don’t believe we’re getting the 125-point averaging Sheezel when he played at half-back. North Melbourne have Caleb Daniel/ Zac Fisher & Colby Mckercher now playing that role, and while it was a perfect fantasy match, its not going to happen.

However, the bull case (the good one) of Sheezel is clear – even if he’s not getting marks in the backline when he plays in a he’s a full-time mid he’s a bonafide star. When he played over 50% CBA’s last season he averaged 113, and that’s only in his second year. During early match sims he has been playing mostly through the midfield, and if he increases his CBA output to 60/70% of the total, not only is he D1, he might even outperform his 112 average from last year.

The midfield group of North Melbourne is difficult to predict though, particularly with the injury to Wardlaw and the introduction of Luke Parker. In the screenshot below that I’ve blatantly stolen off Twitter you can see that Wardlaw was North’s second-highest center bounce attendant in 2024, leaving a lot of opportunity for Sheezel. Personally, I believe that Jy Simpkin’s >50% role in the midfield will be replaced by Luke Parker (and Simpkin moving forward, with CBA’s down to 20-25%), Tom Powell moves up to 60-70%, and Sheezel takes the remaining 20-30% on top of his existing 31%.

This would take Sheez to the 50-60% cutoff he needs to be a dominant midfielder and average what you would need to pick him.

If you see Sheezel averaging 108+ then I think you should pick him. In that scenario while he will lose a little bit of cash he will be a lock for a D1, a captain option most weeks (especially if you don’t start with Xerri), and will set your squad up perfectly going forward, someone to set in your team for 23 rounds as the true definition of a premium. He’s also super bloody good at football and is enjoyable to own.

Additionally, if North do improve as many are predicting them to, he might have a few extra points of upside. However, I cannot in good faith rely on my football team getting better as a reason to pick someone… I have been hurt too many times before

Other joke reasons to pick him include 

• Giving yourself a reason to watch North Melbourne games
• His name rhymes with Cheezels
• You didn’t own him in 2024 because you switched him to Lachie Whitfield last minute and it ruined your entire season and your friends and podcast co-hosts never let you forget it and it eats you up inside (this may be a personal anecdote)

Why shouldn’t I pick him?

Simply put, in the bear case, Sheezel is expensive as shit, and you can’t afford to pay $1.15m on a man with a role changing to a fwd/mid. A lot of the fantasy community is cold on Nick Martin & Sam Flanders for this very reason, so you shouldn’t change your goalposts in who you pick just because his name rhymes with Cheezels.

If Clarko starts the season with Sheezel in the forward line, and he dominates down there, then he might be closer to the 40/60 split that we’re all hoping he avoids. He’s so clearly North’s best player that its hard to imagine them (us?) winning many games with him not playing in the position that’s best for the team.

Now while I have spent the last two years in the USA, and only watched ~20 games a season, all 20 of those were Kangaroos games, so my fantasy focus has 100% been on watching Harry Sheezel (and Comben but apparently that’s irrelevant for this article). Between rounds 8 and 16 we saw Sheezel learning a bit of forward craft, and he (like North) wandered around a bit aimlessly with very few CBAs, and this saw him average around the 100 mark. While you’d normally be happy with 100-105 from a starting defender, given Sheezel’s price to start the season this would be a disaster for your team value early on, as there are some great options $200k cheaper (e.g. Wanganeen-Milera) that you could start as D1 instead, and use that cash to upgrade elsewhere.

We’ve seen Sheezel practising deep in the forward line in the last few weeks, which is obviously concerning. While I don’t believe he’ll spend much time there, the fact that he could play 10-20% of a game as a deep fwd pocket rather than a half-forward that pushes up to the contest might drop him another 2-5 points for the season. If you’re looking for reasons to not pick him, this is probably it

As a side note, some incredible analysis from Liam @ FreeKickfantasy lets me know that he averaged 109 when he has zero kickins, so we know that even if he gets the midfield rolehe’s probably unlikely to outperform his current average in this role (and thus lose some cash). There is a lot of people in the fantasy community who would say that your starting team needs to be value from top to bottom, so this rules him out here.

Don’t just take it from me: In the words of my friend Nick K. who somehow won a Hat last year: “Sheezel still should be good but I feel like at some point he drops a stinker due to a weird role or tag, then pick him up after that.” My other friend in the same chat Sam A. (who does not have a hat but is the commisioner of my home draft keeper so I need to get on his good side) said “Too expensive for role.” So do with that what you will.

Deck of DT Rating.

KING*

The questions around his ability to score 110+ with the role change means he’s not quite an Ace, but the potential Mid/Fwd Sheezel means he is close – He’s probably the King of Spades (notoriously the best King)

I believe he’s a lock for 105+ (my hat chat hosts disagree) and top 6 defenders, doesn’t have the injury risk of Sinclair – the question is if you think there’s better value out there.

But lets be honest… we’re all waiting for the pre-season matches and if Sheezel scores 130 he’ll be 50% owned, and if he scores 90 he’ll be 10% owned

*Technically in 2024 I was Hat Chat’s 4th best coach out of 4 and as previously mentioned, have not been living in Australia for the last two years… take my advice and words with a grain of salt (although I did correctly predict a Charlie Comben 100 last season so maybe I am a god)

Bonus meme:

Obermullet

Nathan is a full-time North Melbourne fan who is determined to get an AFL Fantasy Hat. He is a part-time podcaster at Hat Chat, which takes a weekly look at the AFL Fantasy world, targeted at those coaches looking to win a hat!