The Thursday Scramble: Round 2

Just when you thought it was safe to play Fantasy again, we get to round 2 and we are already missing a couple of teams!  I do really dislike this early bye setup, so without any further rambling, Let’s Scramble!

Early Byes!

So we have reached the first of our early bye rounds which sees our two newest clubs have a week off being the Gold Coast Suns and the GWS Giants. Now the Giants surely need a rest after that gruelling two games, and to be fair, if the Suns were going to have a random week off despite not having played round 0, it would be this one given they had to make the longest trek in AFL which is Queensland to Perth and back.  So good on them, they can put their feet up and relax.  But…. what does it mean for us?

Well, in the Classic formats of the game we are playing best 18 rounds for rounds 2, 3 and 4 and in the Draft formats of the game you will need to consult your rules and regulations for your leagues as all will be different given they all have different squad sizes etc. But all the leagues I am in are playing a version of the best 18 this week which is scaled appropriately for their team sizes.

So. How can we use this early bye round to our advantage I hear you say.  Well.  There are a few strategies we can put in place to get a bit of an edge on the competition and it will also help you with your trading plans this week also.

Firstly, with a best 18 you don’t have to worry so much about having the right rookie on the field. As long as they are making you money it wont’ really matter if you have them on the bench (unless they crack 80+) because they will still be making you money but you will probably have their score dropping out anyway. This is a huge bonus and really helps with the rookie roulette that we play this time of year.

Loopholing becomes so much easier. In round 1 we wanted to have green dots everywhere so we can generate some cash. In the past we would have picked one red dot on the ruck bench to allow us to do some looping, but with teams on the bye for the next three weeks it means we can use those guys to be our loop options quite safely and help us maximise points.

During this time, those guys that have the bye but also an injury can be come more attractive to keep in your team. For example a two week injury can become one given they are on the bye for the other one which certainly helps. There hasn’t been too much of this evident yet but hey, any silver lining will do.

Opening Round hasn’t left us alone just yet

For those playing SuperCoach or Real Dreamteam, just beware that those players who played in round 0 will have price rises after this week’s game (not GWS of course as they are on a bye) since this will be their third appearance this season. So if you want to trade out a Perryman then this would be the week to do it before he could potentially drop in value.

For AFL Fantasy it isn’t as big a deal, but for those in round 0 that score from that week is already one week closer to rolling out and will have less impact, but it won’t completely roll out of their cycle until after their bye anyway.

What trades should we be making?

For most of the players we only have one week worth of data at the moment so it can be a bit brutal to want to move on someone off of one week. The main reason I would be looking to do that would be if their role is completely different to what we expected and now they won’t have the access to easy points we thought they would.  Another valid call would be to fix up those rookies. In SuperCoach and Real Dreamteam I would advocate for waiting one more week to see what they do, but in AFL Fantasy you kind of have to jump on the guys that are going well after that first week or you will miss out on the majority of their good price rises. Similarly you want to jump off those that had the vest or didn’t perform because they will drop quickly.

Of course with the rookies there is always going to be some big fluctuations so don’t be concerned when they have wild swings in their output over the opening weeks. By the time we get to Gather round we should have a much better picture of how the ongoing scoring is going to be for those guys and it will be easier to choose who we should be putting on field each week.

My order of things to do would be
Role Issues
MidPricer under performance
Rookie fix ups.

I say the rookie fix ups last because they are likely to be more erratic but if a mid pricer has far worse scoring than we thought then they have a lot more cash to lose and will be harder to replace with someone of a similar price the more money they lose.

Things to Remember

• Check out Fry’s awesome rookie article from yesterday to help you navigate the rookie roulette
• Remember that the players on bye won’t be locked into position until the final game of the round has begun
• When key players are coming back into the side after preseason injuries we will see some of the ‘stars’ of Round 1 start to drop in points. Case in point is likely to be Ned Long who may suffer when Jordon De Goey returns which is slated for this week.

The game is supposed to get easier now since we have limited moves we can make each week. Just make sure you don’t jump at shadows and make calculated and well researched moves with your trades. Enjoy the footy and see 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.