Chris Dawes – Deck of Dream Team 2013

Name: Chris Dawes
Club: Melbourne
Position: Forward
Assistant Coach 2013 Price: $337,700
Bye Round: 12
2012 Average: 65.5
2012 Games Played: 20
Predicted Average: 75

Why Should I Pick Him?

Ok, so this isn’t going to be easy to convince you.  The guy is coming off of his worst season since he became a regular.  However, the one key thing that he has going for him is that he has changed clubs.  We all know that this can change the fortunes of some players and if this doesn’t change the fortunes of Chris Dawes it won’t just be his DT Career that will be over.

With both Jamar and Mitch Clark in the team, Dawes will be spending a lot less time as a backup ruckman and much more time as a permanent forward.  Whilst at Collingwood he was the second option up forward, which may not change as much at Melbourne with Clark in the forward line, however at Collingwood there were a lot of other options that were kicking goals like Swanny, Pendles and Daisy just to name a few.  Over the past 3 years he has been averaging over 1.5 goals a game, however, last year that dropped right down to 0.7 per game.  So if he can lift that back to where it was that will find some of those missing points.  I am convinced that it was the amount of ruck work that he did that did affect his scoring.  The other change is that over those years when he was scoring 1.5 goals a game he was also averaging less than a hit out per game and last year was nearly 4 hitouts a game.

 

His previous years his scores were 66, 67 and 72.  So he isn’t going to be a superstar, but he is a solid consistent scorer.  I think that a move away from the ruck will mean that his marking will be closer to goals.  His marking stats have remained stable over the last 3 years, it is where abouts on the ground that he was getting them that was the issue.

Why Shouldn’t I Pick Him?

At Collingwood there were plenty of options up forward.  At Melbourne, there won’t be that many other options and hence he will attract one of the better defenders.  This is going to make it much harder for him to get the ball, and to be honest, he had a fair bit of trouble finding the footy last year.  For that reason alone you shouldn’t pick the guy.  It seemed like every time the ball came towards him it turned into a piece of soap and it just slipped through his fingers all the time!

Once again he will be the second string forward whilst Mitch is up in the forward line, so he won’t be the first targetted when the ball comes out of hte midfield…. oh, there is another issue.  He was on a top side in Collingwood where there was plenty of ball coming into the foward line and high quality players delivering it lace out.  Now he is at Melbourne, a side that is far from the top and they don’t have the same level of quality players delivering the footy.  So the supply will certainly be restricted, this won’t help his scoring potential.

Deck of DT Rating: Jack.  There is a hell of a lot of risk with Dawes.  At the price of $337k you can pick up a guy like Alan Didak.  I think that he has more upside than Dawes.  Having said that, if you are looking at Midprice Mayhem then you could consider Dawes.  If he can stay put up forward and get plenty of looks at the ball then he could just pay off.  A big risk though!  Certainly keep a close eye on his role during the NAB Cup and then make an assessment of what you think he is capable of.

Follow Me On Twitter: @pkd73 and let me know what you think of Chris Dawes.  Make sure you use #DeckofDT in your tweets about the Deck.