The Thursday Scramble: Round 17

Alright. Here we go. The run home is here. We are back to full teams, no more of this bye rubbish! Time to buckle up and finish this season off in style!  Let’s Scramble!

Time to see what we are made of

Ok, Hopefully you have put your teams in a great position over the bye rounds because now is when that is going to show out.  Unfortunately we have had some more issues with our man Brent going down with an injury and seriously, we should have seen this coming right. The poor guy hasn’t been able to stay on the park for big chunks of his career. But for those that have him well it is time to move him on and find someone else. The issue of course is that he isn’t a high value player and unless you have a heap of cash you are going to have to shop down the shallow end of the pool.

For me a great option that has been presented to us thanks to TDK’s injury is RoMar or as our great mate Steve Fizz would say, “The Pride of Portland”.  Marshall is going to have the solo ruck role for at least a month and possibly more as TDK recovers from that punctured lung. For me the great thing about Marshall is that DPP Forward / Ruck eligibility.  If you are like me and still have ZZTop sitting as your R3 then you don’t have any cover if one of the big guys goes down (this is a far bigger issue in SuperCoach with those trades rapidly vanishing). So he is the one that I would be going to.

Other options would be to use some DPP action and get yourself someone down back. You can get yourself a Luke Parker for just under $200k over what Daniels is worth or you could go Daniels to Caleb Daniel for as little as $170k as he has been putting up some big numbers and the Roos do have a great run home.

Whatever you do, make sure it fits your overall team structure.

Can I start trading in Red Dots?

This is about the time of year that we start to run out of cash and we start needing to make some and fast. With the cheapest players in the game at $230k in AF and $99k in SC they are the ones we target to squeeze every last cent we can out of our trades. Often though, these guys don’t play for long and they don’t score too well (if at all). So you really need to look at a few things if you are going to trade one in.

• Do I already have bench cover on this line if I lose a player for a week or two and can’t trade them?
• How is my team set up for DPP? Can I use them to facilitate moves?
• Am I ok if I get stuck with this guy for the rest of the season?

For me, the big thing you can use to your advantage is that second point. If you are going to get someone in that you don’t think is going to play, make sure that they are a DPP at least, this gives you great flexibility and can help you unlock players which means you can use someone like a Hall-Kahan over both your defence and mids as your bench cover.

For me, it is a little early to be trading in red dots, I would rather have someone that has some semblance of security in either scoring or playing to be some bench cover because we know that some of the ones we have may get dropped unexpectedly (isn’t that right Podhajski).  And in SuperCoach, I would definitely advise against.  With most teams running very low on trades and some coaches down to their last one or two, having that player on the bench that is going to provide some points (rather than none) is a far better option.

Things to Remember

• 4 more weeks of matches until the standard leagues reach their finals.
• All players count! Make sure you have your best on field.
• If you roll back your team, double, triple and quadruple check your captains and vice captains. We have heard of too many people of late who haven’t done that and ended up with someone they do not want.

There we have it, we are on to round 17 with a full slate of 9 games so enjoy. Apologies for the shorter column this week, as some of you know, this is one of my busiest times of year at work so I had a bit less time this week. So have a great weekend and I will 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.