The Friday Scramble: Round 11 (MBR 1)

It’s that feeling you get when something you really don’t want is coming like a 2 day visit from your Mother-In-Law, a trip to the dentist or getting to the bar after your tee shot didn’t make it past the ladies tee…. you know it is coming and you just want to crawl into a hole until it is over.  In our case in the DT world, it is the Multi Bye Rounds.  For the next 3 weeks we have 6 teams worth of players just sitting around doing nothing in our squads and I for one think it could have been handled better!

We know that the AFL players need a week off in the middle of the season and we accept that.  The AFL have trialled a few different ways of handling this in the past and I think this method is the worst.  It affects TV, Fantasy Sports and just life in general really!  My view is that why didn’t they go back to the traditional Split Round that we used to have.  They could have had 5 games one week and then 4 games the next.  This would have gotten all the pain over in 2 weeks instead of 3 whilst still satisfying the need for 4 games for CH7 each week.  Most importantly it would have meant that in DT we would have just had one loooong round with a partial lockout in effect for a week.  Simple!  So Andy and Adrian, if you want to give me a call to thrash it out, just get in contact with my people, ok!

However, now that my litte rant is over, we can get back to business.  We, as DT coaches, now have to navigate our way through this minefield and hopefully come out the other end with the following items:

1. A couple of league wins – If you can snag 2 or more wins during this period you have done well!
2. Trades – I think the common convention is that if you can come out of the MBR’s with 9-11 trades left then you are in a good position for the rest of the year.
3. A reasonable Overall Ranking.  This is going to require a bit of luck.  There will be those going for the car that will trade heavily to cover all donuts, but that should only affect the top couple of hundred, if you are outside that race, you should be able to hold steady as everyone else should be using the same strategy as you.
4. No more LTI’s – these have killed us this year and hopefully your team doesn’t suffer any of these through the next 3 weeks as covering our bye donuts is hard enough!
5. Your Sanity and avoiding a drinking problem! – These 3 weeks will really test us and if you can get through and still be sane and not have spent 3 weeks with a bottle you are doing really well!

 Can I Interest You In A Trade?

Well unless you are one of Sheed’s Martians or have been under a rock or had no Internet to read this site during the week, I hope the answer is NO!

We have discussed many of the issues for and against trading this week and for me there are only a couple of reasons that you should be trading and  couple of golden rules if you are going to do it.

Firstly, an LTI is really the best excuse for pulling the trigger this week.  The only one of these we have is Heath Scotland who copped an injured calf against Port on Sat night (to be honest I didn’t notice anything specific happen when I was there!).  They say he will be out for about 4.  Given his age I would possibly push that a week.  If it weren’t multi bye rounds or if you are just dismissing the MBR’s then you could possibly keep him, but I really can’t see him back before rd15 at the earliest, and with that sort of time out he should be traded. 

The question I have had on Twitter this week from @camfell and @RowanPotter is who to trade him for.  If I had him the first thing I would do is look at my bye situation.  Don’t be fooled into thinking that you have to trade him for another R13 bye, you could use this to your advantage and trade in a player from another bye week that would play in R13 when you already have Lids, Goddard, Birchall/Suckling, Morris, Ellis all out.  This might help you in that week.  As for who?  Well that is the tough bit.  I would look at the first 4 on that list if you were trading bye for bye.  Other than them it does tend to get a bit thin and you are restricted to guys like Dempsey or dare I say it… Broughton.  If you have a Mid Def sitting in your Midfield you could swap them and trade in a Midfielder, this would be your best option.

Another reason that you may trade is the situation of The Horse. With him not playing this week you really have 2 donuts over the next three weeks.  So if you can upgrade him to a premo then this wouldn’t be a bad thing to do.  What that would do for you is drop 2 donuts down to 1.

So armed with those thought I think that trading this week isn’t a blanket ban, but you need to be improving or tending to an injury to do it.  Have a read of @jimbobholder ‘s article from yesterday Good Trade Bad Trade for some more opinions on trading this week.

 Rookie Wrangle!

At this stage of the season we should still have some Cows in the paddock, but the herd should be thinning.  Any Rookies that you bring in now should be ones that you are planning on keeping for the rest of the year.  They will be the guys that sit in your last spot on your bench.

However, with the MBR’s we are forced to have to rely on some of these guys.  However, don’t be shattered when they don’t play, get a vest or are just about as good at scoring as your pimpley faced mate with the high pants on a Friday night at the local club.  As Chook mentioned on  Wednesday the amount of talent coming through the rookie ranks is about as much as you will find left in that same nightclub at about 4am as the place is starting to think about closing.  So as you are planning your downgrades over the next few weeks please keep this in mind and don’t just grab the next hot thing because when you wake up the next morning you may find that in the cold light of day they are not someone you want to spend the rest of the season with!

Similarly, don’t just bring a guy in because you think that they are a sure thing to get a game.  I know that I along with many others have been burnt by Spurr.  I know that many people have been thinking about getting in Couch or Mitchell (sydney variety) before they have even played a game.  I saw a tweet from a wise old mate of mine @Jackavis1 yesterday that said the whispers in Sydney are that Mitchell won’t play this year.  So just beware!

Things to Remember

1. Bench the Bye Players – If you ahve been playing around with the Reverse Trades button during the week make sure you have reset things to bench your Adel, Bris, GWS, North, WCE and Dogs players.
2. Make Ablett Captain – After the Irish Pirate had a bit of a week off last week and left his first mate in charge (only reason that he could have gotten anything wrong) he has told us to go Ablett, so ye shall follow… besides I don’t think I have any other guys I trust with the C after last week’s debacle.
3. Don’t be scared of a donut – What is there to be scared of… they are small soft and tasty aren’t they?  But if you eat more than 4 you could find yourself in trouble.
4. Be Careful with Melb or Coll players – Given they play Monday we won’t know their final teams from squads on SATURDAY night.  So if you are taking a punt on somoene on the extended benches in that game just know you can’t make any changes if they don’t make the cut.
5. Reintroduce yourself to the Mrs. – Lets face it, this is the start of 3 boring weeks where there are only 6 games instead of 9!  So it would be a great time to earn some brownie points to be used as the season cranks up again in a few weeks.

All I can say is at least we don’t have any of those agonising decisions to make as to who to play on the ground and who to leave on the bench!  Best of luck during the bye rounds, unless you happen to be playing me of course!  Next week will be a massive week as we start to look at unloading any of our remaining cows who have a bye in R12 or 13 and swapping in guys that have already had their bye week.

Catch you all on the weekend @pkd73  I will let you know of anything DT relevant that I hear up until lockout!