The Friday Scramble: Round 9

Another week, more carnage.  It is just becoming the norm now isn’t it!  But, let’s be honest, if we didn’t have carnage and this game was so easy then it wouldn’t be much fun would it?  We would all have the same team and we couldn’t brag about how good our team is or whinge about how bad it is.  So, all we have to do is toughen up and get on with it.

Something I have noticed quite a bit in the DT community this week is a lot of Bye round talk.  People are now starting to look ahead to rounds 11-13 and plan what they are going to do.  Is it too late to be doing this?  Well yes and no.  We will have a look at this a bit later on.

The other thing we have to consider this week is more of our Rooks starting to be too fat to fit through the barn door whilst there are some fresh calves being born in the middle of that herd that we need to consider.

No… Not Swanny!

Like a few other people on this site, I traded in Swanny when Ablett went down with his knee injury.  Well, now that Gaz is  ready to resume and give us that awesome midfield that we want to have with both of them, we are struck down with more from the DT Gods who decide that we can only have the one fit at any given time and they have taken away Swanny from us.

Now we all know that Collingwood have said it is a 2 week injury which means he returns for round 11 against the Dees.  Now given that the Dee’s aren’t travelling that well at the minute and the Pies have the Bye in round 12, there is just no logical reason as to why they would risk their star man in that game.  They will give him the extra two weeks to recover and then bring him back in round 13 to face the West Coast Eagles which will be a much tougher game than the Queens Birthday game.

Personally I am going to keep Swan at the moment and just ride out the 4 weeks.  I made the Ablett trade and don’t want to use another one here where it is a guy that I want to get back.  There are a lot of theories out there and you need to make your own call given your team’s structure.  I will be bringing back GAJ by downgrading and upgrading so will still have a 4 Premo midfield without Swan.  You need to also read Warnie’s article from Monday about what to do with Swanny called Swanny and Me.

No… Not Murph!

The other major injury that we suffered this week was to Mark Murphy who was crunched by Rodney Dangerfield. (look that reference up kids who don’t know him and you will find some of the funniest movies of all time, start with Caddyshack).  Our choices with Murph are far more simple.  He is out for 10 weeks and that mkes your decision for you… TRADE.  So if you don’t have Ablett, that is easy.  Swap them.  But you may also want to consider other names lik Stanton, Thompson, Boyd, Pendles or Mitchell.  Whichever way you go, make sure it is a guy that you are going to keep and that he fits into your bye round structure.

The one thing that does help us out of this (if you don’t have Murph at least) is that in Ratten’s Press Conference on Thursday he categorically stated that Mitch Robinson will be asked to play in the midfield and will be told to go for it!  YEEE HAAAWWWW

 Bye? Who’s leaving? 

Something that everyone needs to think about from here until the end of round 13 is the Byes and what they are going to do with your team and as a result I will touch on them over the next couple of weeks to hopefully help you successfully negotiate this time.

Firstly you need to assess your team and see where the Donuts will be hiding amongst those 3 rounds.  To do this we have had a couple of guys send in to DTTalk their Bye Planner for everyone to use so check it out.  This tool will really show you what to expect come bye time.

The next thing you need to do is have a look at who you are playing in those weeks (if a league win is your focus).  See what their teams are like and if you think you can beat them easily or if you won’t be in the ballpark against them.  This will also help you decide on your strategy.  I.E. if you are playing the top team who are dominating in R11, it might be worth planning on having most of your donuts that week to give yourself a better chance of winning in R12 and 13.

If you are planning to trade your way through the Bye rounds then you need to be considered and calculating about this.  Make sure that when you are making trades during that period that you only have to trade once.  That is, don’t trade a guy in that you plan to trade out again either during or after the byes.  This is a classical waste of a trade.  What you want to do is trade for advantage. 

For Example.  If you have a R12 bye player like Marty Clarke.  After Round 11 is completed you trade him out to avoid the donut in R12.  You should be trading him to someone that has a R11 bye and hence will not hurt you any further going forward.  So you might choose someone like Lake or Hargrave.  But if you pick someone like Suckling then all you are doing is moving that donut from R12 to R13 which may be ok for you, but wouldn’t be ideal. 

 Can I get a Grain of Salt with that Please?

Whilst we are continually telling you all to keep your ears open on a Friday afternoon right up until lockout for the absolute latest info that may help your team to a win.  Remember to take it on advisement and really consider the source and how much you trust them. 

The other thing to do is to not make a Knee Jerk Reaction (unless you are the great Sunday Knee Jerker Adzman) of course but to put a plan in place to cover any potential issue unless it has been categorically stated that they are out and the best source for that is the AFL’s main man Patrick Keane who delivers this news to us on a Friday.

Let’s look at last week, there were massive rumours swirling around on Friday about Mitch Robinson and Jason Porplyzia being out for the weekends games.  As we know now this wasn’t true and Mitch himself actually tweeted about it on Saturday confirming that he was playing.  But if you took these rumours to be gospel you may have benched them in favour of a lesser quality player.  I say, don’t do that, but do make sure that you have an emergency ready to go for these guys just in case it is true. 

So the moral of the story is, take all of these rumours with a grain of salt (am I showing my age here with these ye olde world sayings?) and just plan for them, don’t react to them.

Do a Final Check of your Team

I have heard a few stories lately of people playing with the Reverse Changes button and forgetting that their Captain reset to the previous weeks captain.  Just a gentle reminder to always do a final sweep of your team before lockout to make sure that everything is exactly as you want it.

Things to Remember

• Trade out Murphy – Even though Ratts said on Thurs he will be back after their bye in R13, don’t believe him!  He will be out for much longer than that.
• Make a decision on Swanny – He is a chance to play R11 but will play R13.  So you don’t have to trade him.  Warnie hold strong!!  Don’t Trade!!
• Trade in Zorko – Like The Horse a few weeks ago, this is another guy that you must have.  Most of us had him in our inital teams til he hurt himself and we have just been waiting for him to get back out there so we could pick him up.
• Check out the Stock Market – Make sure you read Aki’s DT Stock Market later today before finalising your trades.  He will have all the info on when to buy and when to sell.
• Laugh at anyone that traded in Merrett – So at my last check there were 1376 teams that had traded him in!  Seriously??  So if you know one of those peolple please go and laugh at them because they are surely trying to be funny! (I know that no one reading this site would have him).
• BLOODY HEPPELL! – Yes, I have Heppell and so does my son Josh and we are both annoyed!  Make sure you put him on the bench and someone scoring on the field.

Some great games this week.  Sit back and enjoy the games and ignore your DT score… Yeah Right!  It seems as though the Par score these days is nudging the 2200 mark, so hopefully you will be up around there somewhere.

And a massive hint for all you tipsters out there.  If you are going to have to miss going to a game of footy for a family show or something similar, make sure you back your side to have a win no matter how bad they are….  for those that follow me on Twitter @pkd73 you would all know that it happened to me last weekend!!!

Good luck and catch you all next Friday!