The Thursday Scramble: Round 11

It’s all been fun and games up until now, but now we are not only faced with the bye rounds starting next week but we also now have a number of key injuries to deal with!  But we love this game? Right?  Let’s Scramble!

Men Down!

Not just one, but we have now seen 5 really popular players go down within a week.  Towards the back end of last week we had Jayden Short and Tom De Koning be not named due to injuries and then on the weekend we had Jason Horne-Francis, Jack Macrae and Finn Callaghan all suffer injuries during the game which is likely to keep each of them out for multiple weeks.

Now this isn’t an ideal situation as we are at the byes after this week and we need every warm body we can muster up to be on the field for us.  However, remember that we do have best 18 over that period so you can hide one of them each week on field as long as you have enough blokes to play 18.

The only one of those 5 that seems likely to get up for this week is De Koning.  Short is now listed as 1-2 with a calf while the others are all a minimum of 4 weeks away which is a bad sign for us.  So what are our options and what should we do?

Option 1 is to carry them. You would possibly cop a donut this week depending on how many of them you have. After that you might be thinking, that’s ok, it is best 18 so I can carry them and I won’t cop a donut. But you also won’t cop a great score either. If you have all your cash invested in these guys, then you are going to be playing someone that is much cheaper on field meaning their scoring power will be significantly reduced. You will also be limiting your options to bring people on the field.

Option 2 is to trade two this week and then any others next week.  And what this will allow you to do is to restructure your team and set it up better for the byes.  If you are like me you haven’t done much bye planning this year due to the different structure of the byes. So you can use this opportunity to sell these guys and then bring in players that give you a better chance of climbing the rankings during the 5 week bye period.  It also means that you can get these guys when they come back into their teams later in the byes at hopefully a cheaper price. Particularly JHF given his injury happened so early, he will be cheap after a couple of games back so you can do a little price arbitrage and save some money.

Which order should you trade them out assuming you have more than two of them (like me). Well to me that is going to be dictated to you by what cover you have.  I am real thin on the midfield bench so Callaghan is my priority.  If you have a Simpson on your bench up forward then he is a more than capable cover for you.  The other factor is how long they will be out.  I would say Short (pending your bench cover of course) is the one that would go last given he is listed at just the 1-2 and not the 4+ weeks the other guys are looking like.

Bye Talk

I’ve been talking about them for a few weeks now and next week they arrive.  And just following on from above where you may have more than two of the guys that now have longer term injuries, remember that next week you will get 3 trades to use leading into round 12. So this means that even if you have one of these injuries still to deal with, you will have two other trades that you can use to sort your team out.

Remember, anyone you trade in this week and next week will still have a bye to come, it is only when we get past 12 that we start picking up those bye free players. And of course, I am sure you all have your plans ready as to who you are going to trade in and trade out in this period.  If you don’t then it is very much worth just having a play even if it just in a spreadsheet to see what moves you might want to take.

Things to Remember

• I am expecting that the Cats will put a lot more time into Bailey Dale than the Bombers did last week. So don’t expect another huge score.
• Don’t be afraid to pick up a mid pricer with a low BE with a good run over the early byes in the lead up to round 12. This will let you upgrade them when they have their bye a few weeks later with more cash on their heads. It is a time you an be aggressive with best 18 because if they fail they won’t impact your score.
• It worked last week, but don’t get too cute with your VC / C looping.  Taking someone on the Sunday as your VC can be full of danger. If you are going to do that, make absolutely certain you have a couple of options after that game if they fail.

Enjoy the last round with 9 games in it for a while and set that team up ready for the bye period (extended as it is this year).

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.