The Thursday Scramble: Round 8

Things are about to get interesting now. People trying to upgrade, injuries still happening, which rookie do we trade out first and who do we get?  So much going on, time to Scramble!

When is enough, enough?

This is the question that many a Fantasy and SuperCoach player has asked themselves over and over again. When has my rookie made enough money that it is time to move them on?

Quite simply, there is no one answer to this.  The guide that we all use is generally when their BE reaches or is above their average score, or at least the scoring that they have been achieving of late. However, this year we are in the envious position where we all have a heap of rookies that are still making cash. (I mean, have we ever seen a season where we have so few red dots after a third of the games have been played?).

This year with all of the great cash gen we have going it is tempting to put off that upgrading until your rookies are fully priced. However, there are a couple of issues with doing that:

Firstly, the way things are panning out we are going to have quite a few rookies peaking at the same time. This is an issue as we only have a limited number of trades that we can use each week so if we wait til the last second we are likely to see some rookies start to lose value because we can’t trade them out fast enough.

Secondly, if you wait to start upgrading you will find yourself behind the pack and always that one or two premiums behind. The sooner you can get these upgrades done, the more points (in theory) you will be getting on field and the higher and faster you will climb the ranks.

Lastly, there are some premiums that has wildly high BE’s and they are now starting to get back to the point where they are going to start being at the bottom of their cycle and ideally that is when we want to trade them in, when they are at their cheapest.

I am trying to play the value game as much as I can this year but I also don’t want to get caught behind the other teams with my upgrade cadence.

Friday Night Alert

We are at another of our two game Friday nights this week with the Dockers and the Dogs playing at 6:30pm AEDT and the Power and Crows playing at 7:10pm AEDT. So just beware of these start times and don’t get caught out like Warnie did a couple of weeks back (but as usual he was kissed and it all worked out for him).

Byes!

I am going to mention this topic a number of times over coming weeks but it feels prudent that since I mentioned that it is upgrade season starting now we need to be mindful of the byes.  There are two ways you can attack this.

Firstly you can make all your choices based on the bye someone has which in some cases it may mean you don’t get the best player available that you want but you get someone who isn’t quite as good but they fit into your bye structure. Nothing wrong with this and it will mean that you have a smooth run through the byes.

Second thing you can do is disregard the byes altogether and it may mean that one week you field the bare minimum 18 players and some of them may not be that good. But it would mean that you are getting who you consider to be the best player available into your side that you think will score better. In this scenario, any points that you may lose on that one bye round where you are too heavy (which is likely to be 12) should be negated by the overall number of points that you will score from this player throughout the rest of the season.

Things to Remember

• When looking at a player it isn’t what they have averaged so far, it is what you think they will average for the rest of the year that is most important.
• With very few red dots, make sure you have your loops planned out. It may mean that you have to use someone as a VC that isn’t the best one but the most important part is that it fits your bye structure.
• Don’t forget about the two games on Friday night and the earlier start time.

That’s about it from me this week folks, hope you all have a great weekend of footy and your Fantasy team does well (unless you are playing me of course!). Catch you all next Thursday and Go Power!

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.