The Thursday Scramble: Round 7

That was a looong weekend wasn’t it, particularly when you had a player that was rubbish early in the round it meant you had to look at their score for the rest of the weekend.  I certainly had that with a couple of guys on Sunday with Touk and Sheezel.  I dodged a few bullets early in the season but one eventually had to catch me. This is all part of the game right?  Let’s Scramble!

What do we do when a Trade Fails?

Unfortunately this week we had the situation where a few of our trades failed like bringing in Touk Miller and Matt Roberts both of whom suffered knee injuries and will now miss a decent chunk of time. There isn’t much you can do about this other than just look to make the most of the bad situation. And to make matters worse if you had Touk is that he also lost money so there was the double whammy of a poor score and the loss in value making it harder to do a complete side swap.

But you can take advantage of this situation (just like most situations in this game) and use his failure to improve your side. You can use your money from Touk and go to someone a bit cheaper potentially and then put the left over cash on another trade next week (because your other trade is Roberts down to another rookie right?) This way you are building a bit of a war chest to be able to make a bigger strike next week.  Alternatively you can downgrade Roberts and put that cash on Miller’s head and get him up to someone a bit higher.  Warnie, Cal and Roy talked through some options this week but my favorite options were Bont and Walsh in the mids or use some DPP action and get yourself Tommy Stewart in defence.  But realistically there are a heap of options. My advice is to at least make sure that the guy you are bringing in for Miller is on a low BE so you are at least getting yourself some value.

The other one that was a bit of a fail on the weekend was Chayce Jones as he was a very popular pick but just didn’t deliver the points.  Our old mate John (@sinceubeengawn) has asked if he should jump off Jones as soon as he jumped on.  I think the answer here is yes. He is back at the Adelaide Oval this week but it is up against the Pies which is a concern as they don’t give up much in points and that role of Jones on the wing is one that can be a concern too.  Michael Pilley did ask about going Jones to go to Day.  I tick this off every day of the week (see what I did there). Mainly because of the role.  Day’s role is much more scoring friendly than Jones.

The Byes… Nerd Alert…. The Byes….

Yes, I know that Calvin things that only nerds are thinking about the byes, but let’s be honest they aren’t too far away and that is why many (myself included) brought in Touk as he was not only scoring well but he has that stand alone bye. The other one that is a great option with that is Tom Stewart. But in terms of the other players you should now start to have one eye on what bye the guys you are bringing in are on because it will come around very fast and we have a limited number of trades that we can use between now and then.  The first bye round is round in round 12 so including this week there are only 5 complete rounds to go until we hit that point.

Questions

Billy Elsum tells us that their season is cooked as they are currently at 30k in rank and how can they have some fun from here.  But realistically your season isn’t completely over, you can come back from here but I agree it is a long road.  If you want to have a bit of fun from here and try and win something you can try and set your team up to win one of the bye rounds perhaps or of course go for a league victory (afterall there is only one car to win). But mostly I would say pit yourself against Calvin and see if you can finish with a higher rank than the Fillet-o-Fish loving Pirate.

Nathan Youngman asked if “Sheezall she wrote” or does he get another week. I am in the hold camp here. We can allow him a bit of a hiccup as he was banged up last week and did cop his first tag this week. The only thing that does concern me is the return of Aaron Hall and what this does to Sheezel’s game. Let’s see how he goes this week and if it is another poor score then we can certainly look at cutting him loose as you probably have much bigger issues than him in your sides.

Nicholas Peters asked me “can you get rid of Cowan and Wilmot and hold Roberts as a red dot”. This is a strategy that many of you will know that I don’t mind at all.  Let’s be honest, Roberts isn’t going to lose any more money and as a result then he can stay. But if you believe that Cowan and Wilmot won’t make their Break Evens then they should be the first to go as they are a live threat to lose you some value this week in a season where we can least afford for that to happen.

@CraigStewy1985 asks for some Mid Price Stepping Stones.  I guess there are a number of guys that can fill this bill. But what I want to say here is that just be careful about using these stepping stones who look like they are a slam dunk as they may be turtles that will sink as you step on them.  Just ask all those that brought Jones in this week! I would much prefer that you round up the cash as best you can to get to a top contender. If you really need to use a stepping stone try and find the one that has the lowest of the low BE’s so that if they do fail you minimise any damage you may suffer.  If any of you readers do have a great stepping stone option for Craig then let him know in the comments below.

Things to Remember

• Not every trade is going to work out. Just be prepared to call a steaming pile what it is and cut a bad trade loose and move forward.
• You don’t have to spend all of your salary cap each week. If you can find some value in your trade and save some money for next week’s upgrade that can be a very helpful thing to do.
• Have your Captain Loopholes prepared in advance. Don’t wait until your VC score to move someone on or off field to use as your C as it may be too late by the time you realise. Have your team set up ready to go assuming you do use your VC. In a panic with minutes to go before a lockout this can be a godsend.

Back to a normal round for the first time this season this week I think with the 5 games on the Saturday. Personally I don’t like that and prefer a game on the Thursday at least to reduce the chances of overlaps on a Saturday when people are often out or at local sports etc. But enjoy your weekend and be ready to go for the opening bounce tomorrow night.  Catch you all again next Thursday for more Scrambling!