Footy Tragic

Falling premiums will likely be the theme for the next few weeks, because let’s face it, we’re right in the middle of the first wave of gun players who started slowly and have bottomed out in price (or are about to). Also, it’s pretty feasible that back lines could need a bit of tweaking this week with the amount of common personnel likely to miss – Cheney, Petrenko, Raines etc.

Well by this stage you’re hopefully in a position where you’ve got some cash or can free up some cash to make the move on a fitter looking Luke Hodge. We all know what Hodgey is capable of, but he’s not really shown much of that this year. It’s all to do with his limited pre-season (I was silly enough to start with him, thinking the tough bugger could play through anything, but there’s no substitution for a strong pre-season) and the horrid run of injuries the Hawks have had.

Lacking match fitness, Hodgey has struggled a bit in the early stages to drive the Hawks out of defence. On top of this he has been greatly affected by the absence of pretty much the whole Hawthorn backline. All of their injuries have meant that he’s been forced into a more accountable and defensive role, which doesn’t allow him to get loose or chop off the front of a contest.

Stephen Gilham and Brent Guerra are possible inclusions this week, so that should free Hodge up a bit to play in a more attacking role back there. The Hawks obviously love getting the ball to him because he’s such a beautiful user, plus he’s the master of getting into the right spots to block off opposition entries.

I don’t think you really need too much convincing about Hodgey, but just to really drive the point home check out their run over the next few weeks: Carlton, Essendon, Fremantle and Melbourne. That’s a pretty favourable DT draw and I can see Hodge going ballistic and getting his price back to where it started this year (for the same reason, keep an eye on Buddy too!). His best DT match-up is Carlton, as he averages 101.8 points over his career against them and the other three teams don’t fill me with much confidence in trying to curb his influence.

He showed last week with a 100 vs. West Coast that he is on his way back to his best, so if you haven’t got Hodge I’d give it some serious thought over the next couple of weeks because he’s just about at his cheapest. He’s probably likely to go slightly down in price this week, but it shouldn’t be too much. From there I anticipate it will be onwards and upwards.

Quick note to those looking for the ‘Selection’ video broadcast – it will be posted tomorrow morning (Friday 24th) at 8am. Cheers

It may seem like a bit of a cop out to do a falling premium in the forwards again, but considering a lot of people will be looking to trade out Skipworth, it’s at least topical. I wasn’t going to go in this direction with another forward, but each week I want to try and talk about a player that I think will be a good decision based on where the most popular trade target will be.

The first debate with getting rid of Skipworth will be discussed on the video blog in it’s new time of Friday morning – upgrade him or downgrade him? I’ll go with an upgrade for this discussion, because personally that’s what I’ll be looking to do. The downgrade targets are pretty ordinary, in my opinion.

Boomer started off ridiculously slow this year, hovering around 60-70 in the first three games, so his price dropped significantly and his rolling average (his last three games, which affects his price change) was so damaged that he still went marginally down in price after a return to form last weekend with a 131.

With a champ like Boomer, you can generally expect to see him bounce back and I reckon he, in particular, is one of the more timeless classics in the league. He’s a guy who isn’t particularly affected by his advancing years. He went a long way to showing this on the weekend against Essendon.

With Richmond coming up this weekend you’d be disappointed with anything less than 100, so it’s pretty reasonable to predict that this will be the lowest his price gets this season. He generally has a field day against them. He averages 101.6 vs. the Tigers over the last seven years and his worst score against them over that time is 92.

But don’t just consider this week. Boomer is a guy who has averaged 90+ over the past three years (though never before that…bit like Richo, he got better with age!) so obviously you’re buying him for the long term, I was just emphasising the good timing of getting him now – a Skippy sized hole in most DT forward lines, a great match up for him this week and the possibility that he’s bottomed out in price.

Skippy to Harvey as a straight swap might not be achievable for a lot of DT’ers. You’ll need a little over $120K in the kitty already. Annoyingly I’m $4K short again. Everyone’s situation will be unique, but as a general rule I wouldn’t be forcing Boomer into your side with a double trade if you’re already down to 16 or even 17 trades. Ideally you wouldn’t want to be down to 14 or 15 trades after Round 5 just because you felt you couldn’t miss Boomer now. It’s just a pity Skippy didn’t make the money we would’ve been originally hoping for.

I know this is going a little off track for the POTW article, but if you are struggling with trades already and you do have Skippy, so long as you have decent cover on your bench for now I’d keep an eye on Daniel Giansiracusa’s next few games. Another gun who has had a slow start, but I would be pretty keen to get. He’ll still fall in value over his next game or two, so Gia might just fall into your price range if you’re patient.

Be sure to check out last night’s webcast with special guest Darian Kuzma. View it here

Round 4 is always the best time to start talking about Nick Riewoldt. Obviously we know he’s a DT gun, but if you’ve got him and you’re worried by his price drop, here’s some stats to alleviate your fears. If you haven’t got him, here is exactly why he should be on your radar to trade in over the next few weeks.

Riewoldt’s a notoriously slow starter, which is why I typically don’t start with him. You can generally bank on getting him at a cheaper price a few weeks into the season. So far that has gone to plan this season, but only because he copped a knock in Round 1, so he had a low score of 39 in that game.

His two games since then have been 93 and 102, which is back towards the scores we have come to expect from him. His break-even score for this week is still quite high (around the 130 mark) so he could be in line for another slight drop in price, which would have him only a little above $400K.

With that said, he is playing against Fremantle this week. They look shocking so far this year and St.Nick has a great record against them (last five vs. Freo 126, 152, 107, 107 and 119). OK, so maybe he’s a chance to go up in price this week, but the two weeks following are against two sides he hasn’t performed well against recently (average of 63.4 in his last five against Port and 82.6 vs. Bulldogs). Here’s hoping that form continues because his price will be super low come Round 7 and 8!

If you have a look at Riewoldt’s stats he goes BANG at about the half way point of the season. In somewhat of a coincidence you can even pinpoint Round 13 as the point where he generally explodes. However, his form can be a little patchy leading up to that point of the season.

If we’re to look at past form, you can get him well underpriced for roughly a 3-4 week window around Round 7-10. The reason I’m writing this now, rather than then is that it’s important to always keep him in mind, because he could easily buck the trend and go psycho with his scoring at any stage, but do bare in mind he has two sides coming up that have contained him a bit better than most over the last few years.

His season average in 2008 was 99.4, but in the last ten games he averaged 118.0. There’s a similar correlation over the two years before that with his season average in 2006 and 2007 being 96.7 and 99.3 respectively, but his last ten games in those season being 104.9 and 108.5. So he’s usually better by ten points per game in the second half of the year. The fact that you can get him underpriced means that you’re paying for him based on an average around the mid 90′s, but if your timing is right you get a player who averaged almost 120 on the run home last year.

Monitor him closely, because it’s absolutely critical that you don’t miss the Riewoldt train. It’s a week-to-week proposition trying to figure out if he has hit his basement price, but you’ll obviously get a huge advantage if you can get him at his cheapest. Now that we’ve seen the first movement in prices I know I’ll be more interested in Riewoldt’s scores than any other player I plan on trading in.

OK, so this week the ‘Player of the Week’ column is a bit redundant because we’re already locked out for Round 3. Once again, I want to stray away from the obvious options, because there’s enough information about those guys, so as I was watching Thursday Night Football I was getting a little frustrated that a guy I wanted all pre season but didn’t have the stones to pull the trigger on scored a neat 78.

I’ll be up front, I don’t rate Shannon Cox a whole heap as a footy player. I reckon he runs himself into trouble, has suspect disposal and he can be shown up defensively. He could also use a bit of intensity out there…but right now I’m starting to review the player, not the Dream Teamer. The beauty of it is, so long as Mick Malthouse keeps picking him, none of this matters for Dream Team!

I do rate him as a Dream Teamer. He plays pretty loose and knows where to go to be a link in the play. When Collingwood chip the ball around to find the right avenue to attack I find that Cox is invariably one of the guys getting involved. For this reason, he’ll generally have a pretty solid ratio of marks : possessions. 4-5 marks per game is a handy 12-15 points for a guy you can generally depend on for 20 possessions.

Given that he’s been showing a bit of consistency in hovering around that 20 touch game, you’ve got a solid base for a 75 point game for a guy priced as a 60 point player. Bear in mind that he received a 20% discount this year, so he actually averaged 73.2 last year, but is priced much cheaper than that.

His average across the first three games this season is 79.7, so he is on the way. He won’t end up being a keeper, so the plan would be to trade him out later, but his current price is cheap enough when you combine it with the sort of points you can project from him to help you get another premium. If he can keep up that pace he would get you within about $50K of upgrading to an under performing premium by mid way through the season.

The risk with Cox isn’t in his scoring ability as far as I’m concerned. It’s his job security. I dare say that he’d be somewhere in the vicinity of the 18^th-22^nd player picked for the Pies side each week. The situation I most worry about Cox losing his spot in the team is if the Pies ever get smashed off the park and Malthouse cites intensity as an issue. He could easily be made a scapegoat in a situation like that.

We’ve now had three weeks to look at Cox and his price hasn’t gone up drastically so far, so you haven’t missed the boat with him. Personally, I’m pretty happy with my pre season prediction regarding his scoring ability (and equally unhappy with not actually taking him). If he can keep his spot in the side until at least Round 10-12, he’ll have scored you some solid points in that time and made enough cash. The bonus is that he’s eligible as a forward and a defender, so consider him at either end of the ground if your structure can fit a mid priced player.

Catch last night’s video discussion here:

I’m going to try and make these Player of the Week articles as relevant as possible, so I’ll cover a fairly universal dilemma this week – what to do with Andrew Raines? The guy that I’m going to put under the spotlight is Melbourne youngster Ricky Petterd.

He’s similarly priced to Raines and has a good DT game. When he burst onto the scene in early 2007 picking up plenty of touches across the half back line and backing into a contest with a rampaging Barry Hall leading out, I took notice. This kid has balls. Unfortunately his 2007 season ended prematurely when he punctured his lung and was frightfully close to losing his life! Up to that game he was averaging a slick 70.25 – his season average dropped to 62.5 because the injury happened early in the game, so he’d only scored four points.

He couldn’t get on the park in 2008, oddly playing only in Round 1 and Round 22, battling the dreaded OP for much of the year. He’s obviously got a bit of an injury history, but around this sort of price range you’re unlikely to find as natural a Dream Teamer as him. While it is a worry, you don’t move high into the rankings by not taking any risks. From all reports his pre-season was great. He suffered a heavy knock out at Cranbourne against the Bulldogs, which a couple of us Footy Tragics witnessed, but he pulled up fine from it.

He’s generally played across the half back line in his dozen games for the Dees, which can be a bit of a DT heaven, especially since the ball is down their end of the ground a lot. However, Petterd played in a new role in Round 1 against the Roos across the half forward line. His game as a defender is encouraging enough, but I quite liked his role and what it could do for his scoring capability.

With a pretty bare cupboard as far as forwards go down at Melbourne, they were looking to play through the mid sized Petterd quite a bit. He was presenting well and took a team high nine marks. Even when playing back, Petterd has produced pretty good numbers in the marks column so far in his short career. 3 points + his next stat. I like the sound of that. He kicked a couple of goals and ended up with a 93. Certainly not a score I’d be turning my nose at for a $200K defender.

He’s now showed pretty good signs at both ends of the ground, so if things don’t pan out too well up forward, Dean Bailey could always swing him back again where he has also looked promising so far.

Of the options around that price range, he’s the one most likely to keep up some sort of respectable average – I don’t think it’s too much to suggest he could be a 70 average this year. That would make you about $100K, which would go a long way to later trade him in for a keeper.

For what it’s worth, if you have solid enough cover on the bench, it might pay to hold off on your Raines trade until next week, since there will be no price increases this week. If you have a Petrenko, Rance or Cheney already on your bench their score should give you enough to get by, as you get a free look at Petterd’s role again this week. It’s something to consider anyway, but as the week has gone on, personally I’m more and more keen to make the trade, especially with Spangher also out of my back line. Now all I’ve got to do is find an extra $4,900 to get him. Anyone want to give me a loan?!

Note: Remember to check out last evening’s webcast.

I had a hard time deciding whom I’d write about for my first article on this site. I think a lot of the genuine premiums come down to personal preference – everyone has their favourites that they won’t go without. There’s plenty of talk about rookies and cash cows at this time of year, so I thought I’d go for an often neglected category by profiling a guy on the edge of premium status, but not quite there yet.

This is a very important class of player to really nail. Any guy that you start with who ends up being a premium at any less than premium price obviously puts you at a huge advantage.

Why not go for my biggest man crush and write about Joel Selwood? A price point of $404K might not be everyone’s cup of tea (well, maybe he’s priced as a lower end premium, but let’s say he can go elite). For an extra $30-$40K you’re getting a genuine premium like Kane Cornes or Scott Thompson, for $30-$40K less you can get someone with arguably as much improvement as what you’d be looking for from Selwood (10 points per game).

Personally I have confidence that Selwood will continue his meteoric rise into 2009 and become one of the Dream Team’s genuine premium mids. I’ll go through the reasons why I think he can rise again and how this works with Geelong already having the top three scoring mids from last year!

Selwood puts points in a lot of different categories. He’s a very even DT’er, except that he’s deficient in goal scoring. The fact that he’s so young and already putting up such good numbers in pretty much all stat categories says to me that he only needs marginal improvements in each category to get those extra PPG that you’ll need from him. With his well-rounded game, I’m pretty confident that he will.

For the first half of last year he was quite inconsistent as a DT’er. His scoring worm looks almost like a perfect zigzag from Round 1-13, but he really hit his stride from Round 14 onwards. Given his relative lack of experience, I’m not at all discouraged by his yo-yo like scores in the early rounds. His second half of the year showed a transition into a mature player (only a month after his 20^th birthday, mind you) where he averaged 103.4 and had only one sub 90 score (a 72 against DT killers Sydney).

Obviously there will be a lingering question mark as to whether or not there are enough points in the Geelong midfield to sustain another 100+ DT average. In the time he averaged 103.4 Geelong’s midfield was pretty much close to full strength, so he has scored these points in a loaded midfield. Ablett missed three games from Round 16-18, but in that time Selwood scored 94, 95 and 115, which is pretty consistent to the rest of his purple patch. I will admit though, that Ablett’s scoring was down during Selwood’s run of form, (94.5 for GAJ from Round 14-22). Furthermore, there’s been a bit of chatter this pre season about Bartel and Corey playing a bit more across the half back line in 2009. So even if you are concerned about a team able to have four 100+ mids, I’d consider the likelihood that Geelong are going to be keen to continue giving Selwood more responsibility.

With plenty of class and a penchant for racking up some junk time stats – something we all love – I see no reason why he can’t maintain the average that he put up at the end of last year in that same star studded midfield. If you’ve got any doubt, check out his NAB Cup Grand Final (for the record, I was all over him like a rash before that game!)