Friday Fantasy Fill Up – Rd. 7

Welcome to a Friday arvo column that hopefully helps you get set for the weekend ahead. I’ll be looking at the key points/questions that have popped up during the week with some quick fire opinions, plus a look at how the mighty Warne Dawgs are looking ahead of the coming round.

Don’t miss:

• Calvin’s Captains
• Fry’s Cash Cows
• Dunny’s Thursday Scramble
• Weekend Wash Up
• Teams live stream
• Weekly podcast

The Touk issue

I’m in this position along with around 20k others… so what do we do with Touk Miller?

My first instict is to move to a premium. Everyone will be different, but Touk sits at M2 for me under the assumption that he was going to be a top 8 (with the benefit of the nice bye… nerd alert)… which means I would like to be moving to a guy I want to call a big dog.

Marcus Bontempelli is who I wanted. Yep, he had 148 last week and that sits there making it look like a chase. I wanted Bont at the start of the year and couldn’t fit him in (Macrae was my pick over him – hindsight would say Bont was the better answer… but probably no Dogs is the most correct answer). I like him as an option – my Brownlow investment probably has something to do with it as well.

Of the other big dog midfielders, I couldn’t go to Clayton Oliver (can’t pay that much, coming off two ‘low’ 100s), Rory Laird (I have him, but with that ‘calf’ issue, it’s risky now) … but maybe Sam Walsh is a play. Roy is keen. I don’t massively have a reason to say no, but something tells me I don’t love it. I don’t know why? Anti-Carlton bias?!

Obviously a trade to a premium in another line can be a way to go. Use it as your opportunity to get Nick Daicos. That nearly costs $100k. Crazy. Or do you hit up Jordan Dawson or Stephen Coniglio? The latter would be my pick due to that midfield role. It’s real. It’s good.

Saving a few dollars on Tom Stewart is a consideration for me. Zak Butters is another. Both present a heap of value. More on my thoughts below. If you don’t have Will Day (or traded him out for the suspension), just get him back. That cash saved will definitely be used next week – or even this week – to help to fix these teams where rookies are dropping like flies…

How to deal with the Rory Laird ‘injury’

On Thursday afternoon, we heard that Rory Laird left the track early with a calf issue.

Josh Money reported afterwards that he wouldn’t have scans… so it can’t be too bad, but that doesn’t mean he won’t miss. It shounds like they will give him until the captain’s run on Saturday. The tricky thing is that the Crows play the last game of the round (Sunday 4:40pm)… and we may not know until 3:40pm when final teams are lodged.

Hopefully the Crows are good to us with information.

Here’s what Nicks had to say…

“There was no risk taken with that one, he seemed in pretty good spirits when he was heading off, but we’ll have to wait and see. We’ll do what we can to have him right, but there’s a bigger part to our season as well. We have an incredibly tough run coming up – maybe one (game) out is better than three or four.”

Anyway – gut feel is to hold him … at hopefully it’s a week. That said, you would hope to have decent enough cover and the trades you are making are making your team better (ie. premium already coming in – best case from a rookie). Trading him isn’t out of the question IMO. But I would want to be doing that with plenty of knowledge as well as time and options to be getting who you wanted. You don’t want to be stuck just getting what’s left on Sunday for example.

Warne Dawgs – Round 7

Bit of a shorter/sharper edition this week (life getting in the way … and had to respond to an egg troll on Twitter – what a peanut).

So – my team is cooked. Touk and Roberts in last week, both out this week. After trades I’ll be down to ‘5’ rookies on field (maybe I should call that ‘6’ with Sheezel’s score last week). A big help is Green and Day returning.

The biggest issue is that I am down to two green dots on the bench. I’ll discuss that more in the video.

Bont was my first choice to bring in, but I’m also looking at the value play to at least have some coin to try to fix another position next week. Rather than getting the players I want, I might have to get the underpriced guy (which is a good strategy) that isn’t exactly who I want – or have question marks over.

As I recorded the video for this week … I talked myself into Zak Butters (I feel like Roy is in my ear). I don’t hate it, but I can see it be an issue… the key is the $188k I have left over to fix one of the 15 other issues in my squad. I could go with Tom Stewart, but he will be a target next week.

ROUND 7 TRADES

Touk Miller (M2) > Zak Butters (F4)
Matt Robert (F6) > Alex Cincotta (M8)
Cash left: $188,000

ROUND 7 CAPTAINS

Rowan Marshall VC
Tim English C

Click here to watch the YouTube team update video.

Lockout times

All times AEST

Friday 28 April

St Kilda v Port Adelaide (MRVL) – 7:50pm

Saturday 29 April

Brisbane v Fremantle (G) – 1:45pm
Sydney v GWS (SCG) – 2:10pm
Western Bulldogs v Hawthorn (MVRL) – 4:35pm
Melbourne v North Melbourne (MCG) – 7:25pm
West Coast v Carlton (OS) – 7:30pm

Sunday 30 April

Essendon v Geelong (MCG) – 1:10pm
Richmond v Gold Coast (MRVL) – 3:20pm
Adelaide v Collingwood (AO) – 4:40pm

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