The Thursday Scramble: Round 14. Bye Week 3

Well we are over half way through the season and this week marks the half way point of the bye period.  And it is only fitting that my team only half resemble a football team!  This is where we start to get a few more teams coming off the bye and realistically apart from the guys we have in round 16 already that are on the bye you shouldn’t really have any trouble with that week.  But, there is plenty of trouble afoot so Let’s Scramble!

The Eye of the Storm

There was plenty of talk that last week was the easy bye round (Tell my DT Shiva draft team that, I have 6 Saints!) with just the two teams on the bye, but realistically those teams have some fairly popular players in them so it wasn’t as easy as we thought.   However, I think this week is really the eye of the storm where things are a little calmer.  With Collingwood, Gold Coast, Sydney and Richmond all on the bye there are probably less relevant players this week than there was last week. Pretty much any Tiger you have is a rookie since most have already traded out the injured Short. Sydney really only have Warner and Heeney as their key players that people would own. Gold Coast have a few in Rowell, Anderson and Humphrey as their most owned and then Collingwood with Nick and Josh Daicos.

Now yes, I hear you, there are more than those guys that are owned, but they are the most heavily owned Non-Rookies. Other players will be scattered here and there but not a solid concentration of ownership.

If you are holding guys like Bice, Roberts, Trainor and even Long. This is the time that you should be looking at cashing them in.  I have also heard a number of theories around cashing in some of your premiums that are looking like dropping cash.

But what I would strongly suggest is to start preparing yourself for round 16 by getting rid of all your rookies that are in that round.  We will be without Brisbane (Zorko, Neale, Ashcroft, Ashcroft), Geelong (Smith, Holmes), GWS (Whitfield, Green, Greene, Ash) and Essendon (Merrett, Martin, Caldwell). But the big problem in that round also is the number of Essendon Rookies that people are running with simply because Essendon had to play them thanks to all their injuries and these guys were getting games.

With that in mind I would strongly suggest that you start to move some of them out this week. Many would have probably 3 or maybe 4 of them along with a Levi Ashcroft and you can’t trade out 4 or 5 guys in the one week so start doing it now.

If you don’t have those problems then keep getting rid of your red dots and upgrading your side. But I assure you, there is a huge chance you will have some problems as we have seen this year (as we have in previous seasons) even the most reliable rookie isn’t safe from the coaches axe during this period and of course we get injuries and late outs (obviously I’m looking at you here Chris Scott).

Nothing is a given during bye rounds.

But isn’t Side Swapping Bad?

Generally yes it is, and in the Limited Trade formats it is certainly something we should be trying to avoid, however, where we have all these trades in AFL Fantasy and some premiums that aren’t performing and will drop in value you can certainly play the breakeven game with them.  Just like last week where I said you don’t have to jump on a player just because they have come off their bye, you can wait, this week I am saying you don’t have to hold a player just because they are a premium. With 5 bye rounds and three trades each week the risks are a little lower.

Things to Remember

• Make sure you have moved your Blue Dots off to the bench before tonight’s game
• Make sure you have set a VC and C before tonights game. Nothing worse than leaving it on someone from last week who was a blue dot but is playing tonight.
• Never trust Geelong’s team sheet.

Have a great round folks. Just the 7 games for the next three weeks before we make a run home to the Fantasy Finals.  Speaking of which, there are only 7 more rounds before most Fantasy Finals will start!  Enjoy 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.