The Friday Scramble: Round 2 (Early Bye 1)

There it is, the first round of Fantasy for the year is in the books. There were some wins and there were some losses. We hit a few 6’s and we also got clean bowled.  Now we have 4 teams on the bye along with injuries and under performers…. time to Scramble!

One week doesn’t make a season.

We have heard from guys like Selby and also Holmesy’s Heroes that you don’t have to be in the top 10 in the first week to win the car. Often the ultimate winner are ranked lowly after that first week. And this just reinforces that this game is all about trading and not all about your opening squad.

I think over the last few days and hours before lockouts I made a number of changes to both my AFL Fantasy and Supercoach teams. So when I actually looked at my teams on Sunday afternoon I thought…. How did you get into my team, I don’t recall putting you there. Now that doesn’t mean they were bad selections, it just shows how chaotic those last days are!  But thankfully they weren’t too bad.

So, where to now.  We have to take stock and work out our plan of attack.  Here are my thoughts on what we need to do first.

• Gulden fix up.  The first thing that I will be doing is fixing up Gulden.  He is a lot of money to have inactive.  However, there is a few ways that you can tackle this.  You can take someone that has a bye in that same week that Gulden has which is round 3 because ultimately that is where you would have been anyway right?  Or you could, if you are light on this week on byes, you could bring in someone on the bye this week. That way you are freeing yourself up to do whatever comes up next week. The third option is to simply downgrade and carry cash into next week. To be honest, for me it is either get someone that was on Gulden’s original bye week or downgrade and carry that cash.
• Rookie Patch Ups. This game is a trading game. So making sure we have the cash we need to do our upgrades is critical. Getting those correct rookies is so important.  And in AF where their prices change each game you need to make those changes straight away to make sure you maximise your return.  In Supercoach we don’t get a price change until after their third game. So for those players that didn’t play opening round you could wait a week but as I said above, we don’t know what issues we will face next week.
• Underperformer fixes.  Here I am talking about guys like Archie Roberts, Lachie Blakiston,  Miles Bergman and Todd Marshall. Whilst their BE’s aren’t out of control, if you have the ability to move them on to someone better then jump on and do it now before they may lose more money. With the news that Todd is ok and will play you could keep him if you wanted to.

Just on the Gulden issue don’t get hung up on having to select someone that hasn’t got a bye coming. Remember that Gulden had a bye coming in round 3 so if you to were bring someone in that has a bye in round 3 you are really just in exactly the same position that you would have been in had he remained healthy.

Can you do a double downgrade and take heaps of cash in to round 3? Yes you can, ordinarily we say no but given you may want to get in a Houston or a Daicos off their bye having heaps of cash will certainly help you.

But….. Warning…  If you make a solid plan and effectively lock in a trade for next week remember there is always the chance that we get a couple more injuries or similar next week which will force your hand. This is partly why you should focus on getting those rookies that you missed now rather than possibly waiting on them next week. This is particularly important in Supercoach where you might wait a week to see a second game before their price rise.

Byes Byes and more bloody Byes

Yes, we are just in round 2 for the year and we are already at some byes!!  Can you believe that out of 25 rounds (incl opening) there are 9 rounds that don’t have every team playing (this includes opening round). For Fantasy it is 8 of 24 rounds we are missing players. That is a third of the season!  Anyway, not much we can do about it.

This week we are missing our players from Brisbane, Carlton, Collingwood and Geelong. So move them to the bench as best you can. Remember these guys don’t get locked out until the start of the very last gam of the round so you can move them around and use them as a loophole until then. But if you are planning to do this make sure you set your team up for it before the start of the round, don’t wait until it is too late and you are limited in what you can do.

Things To Remember

• Cash Generation is King! Get those Rookies Right
• Don’t put off what you can do today. As I said above, don’t just assume you can do a move next week. We know that anything can happen and all the best laid plans can go astray.
• Set your team up for the weekend before game 1. Get your loops sorted early if you plan to use them.

One week down and 23 more to go. Remember you don’t win the car in the first week and many of the past winners have been in the 20k ranks after round 1. Have a great weekend of footy and see you all back here 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.