The Thursday Scramble: Round 12 – Bye Week 1

Don’t say we didn’t warn you.  The Bye’s are here! And as always just as the byes arrive we get some injuries and poor performances. But hey, we wouldn’t have it any other way right?  Let’s Scramble!

Best 18 here we come!

For the next 5 weeks now we are in the best 18 position which means we can ‘hide’ some of our underperforming scores without impacting our overall score each week. But don’t let your competitive scores fool you.  Whilst we need to make sure each week that we have our best 18 on field we also still need to pay attention to the other rest of our squads because as we come out of the byes your bottom few players will be the difference in your score compared to others.

Obviously this week is a bit of a treading water week. Everyone that we are going to trade in this week is going to either be on the bye this week or in one of the subsequent four weeks. So you need to make sure you manage that.  This week most people will have the strategy of doing some downgrades to build cash to go bang next week.  And with some great rookies around the place this week it is a good opportunity to do this. But the opposite argument to this over the byes that we have been used to before is that it is still another 4 games until the last week of the byes unlike previously when it was just three rounds a few years ago, so trading into someone this week that has that R16 bye isn’t as bad as it previously had been.

The other thing, which I am considering in SuperCoach is trading into a player that is on the bye this week with one of my other bye week players. They are going to be missing anyway, so upgrading when I already have 22 players available is something I consider to be a good option.

Fresh Meat!

Like any good farm, we have culled some of our cows and to be a good sustainable farm we need to introduce some new cash cows and our prayers have been answered as we now have a fresh set of mid season draft players entering the game this week. Last year we were blessed with Tom McCarthy, don’t expect that to happen again but hey, you never know.  With it being best 18 at the moment, if you trade into one of them you are kind of hedging your bets, you get the cash from a bottom price player and if they hit a big score then you get the bonus of the additional points.  It’s a win-win!

For the Supercoaches amongst us, this is where things can deviate a little. With the SuperCoach players not having a price movement until they play their third game, it is always worth just waiting a couple of weeks to make sure that they are going to get that third game before trading into them. More than once we have seen teams trade into someone early only for that player to be banished to the 2’s the week after never to be seen again.

Injuries and poor performances

It always happens, we get some issues with some of our ‘safe’ players as we reach the bye period. This year is no different.  So, what do you do with them? Do you hold or do you trade?  Clearly this is going to be team dependant and also game dependant. You are more likely to hold players in SuperCoach given the limited trades with most players in that game now around the 16-19 trades left and still a handful of rookies to upgrade and get off field.

Rankine – This is a tricky one, the consensus seems to be that he is going to be missing three weeks which includes this week’s bye, but we also note that the initial injury report had him out for an undetermined amount of time. Those words scare me!  If you have a fantastic team you can hold, but in AF, I would be very tempted to move him on as his BE is also up given that he didn’t get to play out the full game.  Guarantee though, as soon as he comes back, he will be a must have given the role he has picked up recently.

Whitfield – How annoying was that! A late out on a Sunday when there are only two games anyway and most of our bench have played and there aren’t many options left to move him to if you had a trade you could still use. He is listed as a test and even though I think it is highly likely he doesn’t play this week before their bye in R12, I would hold him as I think he will be back in R13.

Zorko – I heard reports that he will be out for a few more weeks yet and if you have held, that is enough for me to say we should be trading him. Any soft tissue injury that lingers is always an issue.

Rachele – It looked to all of us as a no brainer that he would move into the midfield as soon as Rankine went off last week, but alas, no CBAs for Josh. Having said that, there is no reason that he doesn’t get back in there in the coming weeks on the whim of Nicks. For the reason we have seen him do it before and that I would rather be getting rookies off the field, I will probably be holding him, but if the opportunity arises and I have no rookies left on field then I will be moving him if that CBA issue isn’t fixed.

Grundy – Now his score wasn’t awful. But I will be far from surprised to see him get a Managed next to his name in the outs in coming weeks and I even think that could happen tonight as he looks tired and has battled hard. Realistically, for us, it is the best time to do it while we have best 18. Given he is so highly owned, you shouldn’t have a big drop in rank because of it as everyone will have the same problems.

Things to Remember

• Crows, Roos, Suns and Power players are on the bye, get them off field.
• Bye players don’t lock out until the start of the final game of the round, so they can be very handy loop and C options for you right up until the last minute.
• Just the one Friday night game this week with also only 2 games on Sunday because of the byes.

There we have it, after this week we are officially half way through the season, so make sure you are putting your team in the best position you can for the run home to League premiership glory.

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.