The Thursday Scramble: Round 10

Tough week for coaches with some injuries and our first set of impactful late withdrawals.  Must be time to Scramble!

It wasn’t Geelong?

Can you believe that the first real meaningful late withdrawals weren’t from Geelong?  Did you get caught out by not only the Wanganeen-Milera late out but then also copped the Grlj late out as well? Yeah I know a few people who did. Thankfully I dodged this bullet. But don’t feel bad, there was just nothing much you could do when Grlj was a late out because everyone else had already played.

This season the risk of a late out hasn’t been as bad because we have had all of these green dots sitting on our bench. But it does hurt when we lose one of our bench players on a Sunday afternoon. Hey, that’s the game.  Just roll with the punches and move on. You certainly weren’t alone in that donut. But it does show us the value of a healthy bench and as we progress through the season there is always that temptation to bring in a non-playing basement player just to get the cash and when your other bench guy is a late out it leaves you very exposed.

Fly to Darwin / Managed / Corkie / Strain / Three weeks out!

What a ride it was for the NAS owners this week. We were told he was in Darwin ready to go and then was managed. But we now find out that he has a calf strain and is going to miss multiple weeks. This sounds like a Geelong move (jeez I’ve bashed them a bit early on here haven’t I) but then again we could just say it is a Ross the Boss move.

No matter what it is, owners will be without him now for a few weeks.  And with the Bye’s getting involved there it just makes things harder! So it is pretty simple that you need to trade him out. It is just too long to hold. This goes for not only AFL Fantasy but also in SuperCoach. We just can’t carry him when we are already going to be down on players in ac couple of weeks and to have a premium also missing it just spells disaster. His bye is round 16 so it is likely he will be back before then but it is highly likely he will miss the first bye week and possibly the second.

So what to do? Well given there isn’t much on the rookie front that you can downgrade to in the backline because, let’s be honest, if there was we would have already been planning to downgrade a tapped out rookie. So you should really look to ensure that you are bringing in a premium for him. And when you do that make sure that you are keeping that bye structure in your mind. Look to maximise the value from the cash you get from him and bring in a premium on the rise.

I would be targeting the defender that helps your bye structure and will be a top 6 defender. This is really a chance for you to do some fix ups with that bye structure so take it and make the most of it.

Is Bont really a must have?

Yes Bont is cheap. Yes Bont scored well last week (watching that first hand he was simply everywhere and awesome). But…. are we still concerned about Bont having a rest with that knee/ankle/leg issue which really hasn’t been fully defined as yet?

The way he has played last week it really doesn’t look like he is in too much discomfort and he played 84% TOG against the Power.  His Bye is coming up in round 16 which is still 6 games away and there aren’t really any ‘easy’ games in that run either. So the Dogs will be looking to play Bont in all of those. Add to that they don’t leave Melbourne until after their bye too! I think at worst he may get an ‘in game’ rest if a game is over by three quarter time. And that is just the risk we take.

But with that price and the scoring he has been putting up you are likely going to fall behind the rest of the comp if you don’t have him in your side. I will be looking to get him in.

Rookie Crisis

It had to come to an end at some point, we had rookie after rookie coming into the game but now we are starting to run out which means it is getting harder to do those downgrades each week. But so far we do know of two coming through this week and with a new Carlton coach who knows what is going to happen there. So just be patient and don’t trade into a player that you don’t think is going to be there in a week or two because it is over the byes that those red dot rookies can really punish your side. Nothing worse than having 21 players not on a bye but only about 17 of them are guaranteed a game.

Things to Remember

• Yet again we have two Friday night games so that be aware of that. And the word is that as the fixture announcements for the rest of the season start to come in it is highly likely this will become a regular feature.
• Taggers are definitely back and we have seen more carnage from them over recent weeks.
• Role changes. We have seen over recent weeks players have some role changes like McKercher and Rachele. Don’t be afraid to move on from them if you don’t like the new role.

Here’s to a big scoring week and hopefully no late outs! Have a great weekend of footy and catch you all next Thursday for some more thoughts as we will be just one round away from some more position additions (and god my team needs some) and also just one week until the dreaded R12 bye!

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.