Everyone loves a bit of hindsight. “If only I picked Hunter over Macrae… I should’ve fielded Greaves over Haynes last week…” We’ve all said something like that before, but what if you actually had these powers? So what if you could actually go back and change things? Well, here we go.
If you picked the following team at the start of the year and made appropriate trades, you would have won AFL Fantasy by 5210 points. 5 thousand. Along the way, you would pick up the round prize every week for the highest scoring team and have a team value over $2mil more than the actual highest, at $20.7mil. Not to mention a cool $679k still in the bank.
ROUND 1 TEAM
Before I get on with the team, here are some takeaways:
- Coronaball made it a harder challenge to plan around, but overall, consistent players were the go. The team never had someone miss for a “managed” out, only long term injuries causing forced trades.
- Rookies are vital. Apart from early rounds, almost every week the team had everyone on the bench playing. This allowed for maximum cash generation, and cover for when things go wrong. Of course, with hindsight you can field rookies over premiums, but even without the benefits are huge with a full bench.
- Chase value. The premise of this team is basically inflating the team salary to a point where you can do whatever trades you please. Chasing cheaper options who will make buckets of cash like L.McDonald, Z.Bailey, D.Butler, B.Bewley are all key factors to this team succeeding. Most of the time they were only 50-100k more than a fattened rookie and when trading, were only 50k off an uber premo themselves.
- Premiums on bench. Towards the final month, it got to the point where I had 2-3 premiums on the bench. Not because rookies were outscoring them, but because I could afford it. This allowed for off games, or bad matchups and tags, as you could just bench them for a better matchup.
- Sideways trading actually works. Only 10 genuine upgrades happened over the year, opposed to 24 sideways trades. The others being 14 rookie downgrades. You often get criticise for doing too much sideways trading, but the strategy works. Obviously hindsight makes it easier to say this, but it has merit.
!DOWNLOAD THE SPREADSHEET VIA THIS LINK TO VIEW A MORE EXPANDED BREAKDOWN!
| RD | SCORE (ACTUAL TOP) | CAPTAIN | TOTAL SCORE | LEADING BY | TEAM VALUE (REM SALARY) | TRADES |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2019 (1794) | Grundy 114 | 2019 | 225 | $12,968,000 ($32,000) | |
| 2 | 1986 (1883) | Goldstein 127 | 4005 | 452 | $13,192,000 ($324,000) | S.Sturt > L.Vandermeer S.Naismith > M.Pittonet B.Grundy > T.Goldstein |
| 3 | 1947 (1862) | Sidebottom 126 | 5952 | 600 | $14,200,000 ($142,000) | T.Brown > S.Simpson T.Goldstein > B.Grundy |
| 4 | 1891 (1844) | Neale 123 | 7843 | 846 | $15,127,000 ($153,000) | S.Sidebottom > L.Whitfield A.Gaff > J.Lyons B.Smith (WB) > J.Lloyd |
| 5 | 1943 (1774) | Gawn 131 | 9786 | 1283 | $16,014,000 ($62,000) | J.Brander > W.Day J.Howe > C.Oliver M.Rowell > H.Greenwood |
| 6 | 1892 (1861) | Whitfield 108 | 11678 | 1454 | $16,388,000 ($268,000) | J.McInerney > I.Rankine C.Wingard > J.Sicily |
| 7 | 1916 (1883) | Grundy 119 | 13594 | 1669 | $16,781,000 ($65,000) | A.Saad > Z.Bailey B.Starcevich > A.McPherson |
| 8 | 2001 (1932) | Oliver 125 | 15595 | 2027 | $17,425,000 ($479,000) | C.Taylor > J.Macrae C.Budarick > C.Serong A.Corr > S.McAdam |
| 9 | 2017 (1919) | Whitfield 119 | 17612 | 2323 | $17,981,000 ($411,000) | M.Pittonet > D.Cameron B.Bewley > M.Duncan L.Vandermeer > L.McDonald |
| 10 | 2039 (1887) | Oliver 131 | 19651 | 2551 | $18,454,000 ($410,000) | M.Gawn > R.Marshall S.Simpson > M.Crouch J.Sicily > R.Laird |
| 11 | 2268 (2047) | Laird 139 | 21916 | 3047 | $19,000,000 ($155,000) | S.Docherty > M.Bontempelli N.Anderson > A.Brayshaw (FRE) D.Butler > T.Hawkins |
| 12 | 2152 (2049) | Bontempelli 145 | 24068 | 3265 | $19,604,000 ($51,000) | D.Cameron > S.Draper R.Marshall > R.O'Brien C.Serong > T.Mitchell |
| 13 | 2177 (2048) | Merrett 125 | 26245 | 3658 | $19,874,000 ($54,000) | I.Rankine > J.Riccardi M.King > Z.Merrett A.McPherson > D.Greaves |
| 14 | 2127 (2120) | Merrett 122 | 28372 | 3842 | $19,866,000 ($325,000) | J.Simpkin > K.Langford M.Pickett > T.Rivers Z.Bailey > J.Crisp |
| 15 | 2114 (1883) | Crisp 121 | 30486 | 4174 | $19,974,000 ($630,000) | L.McDonald > T.Stewart W.Day > D.Rich A.Brayshaw (FRE) > B.Acres |
| 16 | 2196 (2046) | Crouch 125 | 32685 | 4511 | $20,219,000 ($495,000) | J.Lyons > L.Hunter J.Ridley > T.Rockliff N.Haynes > C.Daniel |
| 17 | 2208 (1998) | Daniel 128 | 34893 | 4902 | $20,446,000 ($610,000) | M.Duncan > Jp.Kennedy J.Riccardi > T.Lynch (ADE) T.Hawkins > T.Liberatore |
| 18 | 2308 (2138) | Adams 120 | 37201 | 5210 | $20,664,000 ($679,000) | T.Rivers > D.Houston S.McAdam > J.Gunston C.Oliver > J.Simpkin |
So, there you have it. A team 5210 points ahead. As mentioned earlier, sideways trading carried this team through.
TRADE BREAKDOWN
Sideways: 24
Upgrades: 10
Downgrades: 14
Having only 10 genuine upgrades you would think would make it hard to have six $500k+ players on the bench, but those sideways trades from rookies to value picks made the difference.
Only 4 players were not traded out of the team, Neale, Adams, Grundy, Petracca, outlining the amazing seasons they had. Simpkin was brought back in for the final round, so he can somewhat count. Overall, 76 different players were used.
FINAL TEAM
Ah, hindsight is a wonderful thing.
– Baked Beams ✌️
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