The Thursday Scramble: Round 13 – Bye Week 2

One down, Four to go. And of course, it wouldn’t be the bye rounds without more injuries! Nothing surer than losing one of our locks in the bye rounds.  There is nothing left to do but Scramble!

This is the easy one right?

So just the two teams on the bye this week which supposedly makes this the easy bye. But of course there are things to we need to navigate to get through this round.

Of course we have the Giants and the Tigers on the bye. There aren’t really any Tigers we are going to have in our teams apart from the rookies and realistically they are all in a position that you could trade them if you wanted to. We know that the key is to have 18 premiums on field and you should be able to comfortably do that without any Tigers.  Now as for the Giants, yes we will be missing a few like Whitfield, Ash, Greene and Callaghan.

But, let’s add to that the other issues we have.  Sam Flanders is the main issue that most of the competition have this week as many of us were planning on holding him throughout the rest of the season. We are also missing Izak Rankine who was going to be a very popular trade in this week and now we are also missing him too. So, this is where the game starts to get interesting as people need to start looking at different players. This is where all those people that say “but everyone has the same team” start to come unstuck.

So who to go to? Well this is also an issue because traditionally we only like to trade in people that have come off their byes. But no doubt everyone has Harry Sheezel and this leaves Christian Petracca as the other one so if you don’t have him then bring him in. However, after that things get pretty thin.  Are you game enough to take the Horney One? Jason Horne-Francis. It could be a risk as he hasn’t been the most consistent this season. In SuperCoach, I would be staying away. However, in AFL Fantasy I would be willing to take a chance on him as he has a reasonable BE and he also has a reasonable matchup against the Eagles. Beyond him, Touk Miller is another option, however the concern that I (and many others) have is that we are now going to see the big three Suns in the middle with Petracca, Anderson and Rowell which means we are simply unaware of what this is going to do Miller’s points.

The main players that I would be targeting from this week would be Petracca, Sheezel, Dawson, LDU, Xerri (although wait a bit on him due to BE), Anderson and Rowell. Now yes, I have probably forgotten someone here but they are the ones that would be at the top of my list.

Can we break the rules?

Well I think we can. Back in the day when we had the 6 teams on byes we used to not want to take someone that had their bye still to come, and broadly that is the rules that we still want to live by. However, this season we have the 5 week bye period and we have a max of 4 teams on the bye at any given time. The reason that this would allow us to break the rules is twofold. Firstly, with just the 4 teams (apart from this week’s 2) on the bye we still have plenty of players to choose from. Secondly, after this first week of byes, we only have 4 teams to choose from if we are going to only take people that have had their bye and the way it has worked out, the players that we most likely to want we probably already have, or there is no one that is of any interest to us in that group of players.

Last week I traded in Bailey Smith, yes I knew he would have a bye coming, but I also knew I wanted him in my finished team and he was attainable for me. Those points that he will get me before he has his bye would more than outweigh the other players that I could have taken. Plus, being the first bye week it was get someone on their bye that week or with one later.  Whilst it can be a good play to downgrade and save money to attack next week, don’t forget it is a points game and cash in the bank doesn’t earn you any points!

Alert! Alert! Alert!

This is one of those things where the AFL are just simply taking the p155. I mean, for a game on Saturday, teams have to name their final squad on a Thursday night. For Sunday games they have to name their final team on a Friday night after a squad on Thursday. So it makes sense for a Monday game that we would get a squad on Friday and a final trimmed team on the Saturday.  But no, Old mate Dillon says, nope, you can wait til Sunday night for any names whatsoever.  I mean, does he not realise that Fantasy footy carries this sport and if not for fantasy footy, no one apart from hopeful Eagles fans and absolute die hard Bombers fans would have watched that wind swept abomination last Sunday night or if not for us then the viewership of the blockbuster Dreamtime at the G game with Richmond and Essendon would have had no viewers.

What is the point of this rant? Well it is to make you aware that if you are counting on any fringe players from Collingwood or Melbourne we won’t have a definitive answer on whether they are playing or not until Sunday.

Now AI tried to tell me that teams are out tonight with the squad trimmed on Sunday and if that is the case then fantastic, but I simply don’t trust it. One of the articles it linked was one from this very website written by Warnie but it was from 2023, so not sure what sort of Crystal ball the Dawg has but hey, who knows.

Things To Remember

• Our aim is to keep upgrading our teams rather than just side swapping (Yes looking at you here Xavier Ellis). But given the spread of byes it is a little more palatable but not ideal.
• Don’t forget those team announcement times. Just don’t rely on a fringe player from Monday’s game. Thankfully with it being just two teams on the bye we should be ok.
• Keep a watch on those later byes and make sure you have enough playing.

Thanks for reading my ranting and raving again this week folks. My main message is keep upgrade cadence going (shoutout to the SupercoachCoach guys who were amongst the first to use that term) and to keep an eye looking forward to the tricky last couple of bye rounds.  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.