Footy Tragic

In Lieu of Kristian’s new article on the TAC Cup and U/18s, we promised something a bit different as a captains article from here-on. So this is it… Pretty much, we will provide you with the raw stats (and a poll of course!), whilst also providing the video of us discussing it on last night’s show (the captains bit goes for only a few minutes). The issue this week is, I bought the wrong DVDs, so it won’t let me chop the captains bit out for you… doh! So here is the full video for you to check out… BUT, if you just want the Captains talk, it’s only 4:40 into the video.

VTS 01 1ep7 from Steve Greenwood on Vimeo.

• Dane Swan
  • Never played Gold Coast
  • Averaging 117 DT and 114 SC from past 5 games
• Scott Pendlebury
  • Never played Gold Coast
  • Average of 109 DT and 133 SC in his last 5 games
  • Typically it is the classy players that carve up GCFC
• Dale Thomas
  • Never played Gold Coast
  • Average of 115 DT and 121 SC in his last 5 games
• Gary Ablett
  • Averages of 117 DT and 114 SC in his past 5 vs Collingwood
  • Would still have to be a concern this week against Pies
• Sam Mitchell
  • Averages of 105 DT and 101 SC in his past 5 vs Melb
  • Last time they met he scored 110 DT and 96 SC
• Dean Cox
  • Averages of 92.8 DT and 89.2 SC in his past 5 vs Fremantle
  • BUT, no Sandi: This year at Subi: 117 DT and 130 SC
• Adam Goodes
  • Averages of 114 DT and 123 SC in his past 5 vs WBD

Words of warning:

• Chris Judd
  • Averages 87 DT and 90 SC against Essendon.
  • Scored 79 DT and 84 SC against them earlier this year
• Matthew Boyd
  • Averages of 102 DT and 94 SC in his past 5 vs Sydney
  • Last 5 at SCG: 73 DT & 74.5 SC
  • Last time they met he scored 134 DT and 124 SC
• Geelong players
  • Up against Richmond, however the form lines of Chappy, Stevie J and Selwood are a little tricky to predict at the moment – personally I would avoid.
  • Richmond 3^rd lowest team for DT points conceded

KRISTIAN’S TOP 3 DREAM TEAM PICKS:

1. Dane Swan

2. Scott Pendlebury

3. Dale Thomas

KRISTIAN’S TOP 3 SUPER COACH PICKS:

1. Scott Pendlebury

2. Dale Thomas

3. Dane Swan

Hey All,

Please see below for the video of Footy Tragic Episode 6! We run through all the teams, captain options and boys on the bubble, as well as checking out who the best midfield options are for the rest of the year. We also discuss what to do with Zac Smith… Plus much more!

Remember too, you can go here for the big-screen version!

Enjoy!

Cheers

The team at Footy Tragic

FT ep6 from Steve Greenwood on Vimeo.

Hey All,

Please see below for the video of Footy Tragic Episode 5! We run through all the teams, captain options and boys on the bubble, as well as checking out who the best defence options are for the rest of the year. We also check out the bargain basement options to you this week, as well as putting up a very special sales-pitch for you! Plus much more!

Remember too, you can go here for the big-screen version!

Enjoy!

Cheers

The team at Footy Tragic

FT ep5 from Steve Greenwood on Vimeo.

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Don’t forget to Join our Footy Tragic DT league! Click Here!

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Structuring Gold Coast

Following on from Kristian’s brilliant article on Tuesday, I’m going to write a mediocre to solid article on how you can structure Gold Coast players into your Dream Team and Super Coach this year. It’s a unique opportunity we have this year (until next year when GWS will present us with the same opportunity) to have so many bargain basement players making up the nucleus of an AFL team.  Gold Coast have only eight players priced over $200K, so even if they are completely injury free that leaves 14 spots for the cheapies to fill each week (call it 12 if you want to get technical with the sub rule).

With so many of these ‘rookie priced’ players in the one team there’s obviously a of games to share around. Some of these faces are familiar to the AFL system, such as Daniel Harris, Sam Iles and Danny Stanley, while many are new to the system like David Swallow, Josh Toy and this rugby bloke that doesn’t get very much press.

EXPERIENCED PLAYERS

I’m sure everyone has played around with different ways of structuring Gold Coast players into your side. I suppose first and foremost, the early value with Gold Coast is going to be in these rookie priced players. With their byes being in Rounds 1 and 9 it’s hard to justify spending big dollars early on one of their poached players, when they are probably more suited to being upgrade targets in Round 10. The two exceptions that stick out to me would be Josh Fraser as a cheap ruck option, or Gary Ablett in Super Coach.

In Dream Team it’s a little bit harder to justify GAJ early because he’s not poles apart from those around him. Swan had him covered last year, Boyd and Montagna are decent bets to score more points than him in the first nine rounds (consider they’ll have played eight games to Ablett’s seven) so you can get those points from other sources. In Super Coach, however, Ablett can score at such a phenomenal rate that even with the attractiveness of Suns rookies and the unattractiveness of their early byes, you still know he’s every chance to pull down a couple of early 150+ games. His SC game is a bit closer to unparalleled than his DT game is (and I do realise that Goddard outscored him in SC last year, but not many others get in his ball park).

As far as starting squads go, this will be the thoughts a lot of people are already having, and hopefully along with those thoughts you’ll be looking at the reverse effect of the Suns having two early byes – they’ve got a clear run home, which makes the likes of GAJ, Harbrow and Bock viable trade targets later on, if they’re looking good (and uninjured!)

AGGRESSIVE ROOKIE STRATEGY

At this time of year this is what it’s all about with GC. Most of us are shuffling around our combination of Suns rookies to try and figure out the best ways to generate cash (and points when they’re covering other players byes for you). I’ve been playing with really aggressive strategies in this nature, having up to nine Suns in my team. I quite like the options in backs and midfield particularly.

As we touched on in the pilot for our TV show, it can be considered an advantage that GC have a bye in Round 1, because you can go hard at their rookies in your starting squad and have no fear if you have three of their midfielders filing your bench, because you know that your starting six will be playing (unless we experience some Liam Anthony shenanigans again – I’m still dirty on Dean Laidley for that).

The advantage with a strategy that goes very heavily after Suns rookies is that you’ll generate a lot of early cash. You’ll be starting to trade some rookies down a little before their second bye, so you can start to minimise your overall GC ratio in your team to improve your bench coverage for Round 9. The disadvantage is that if all doesn’t go to plan early you can leave yourself exposed. By having too many eggs in the one basket you risk donuts for Round 9.

Another thing I like with a heavy loading on the ones likely to get early games at GC is that inevitably a few of their bodies will start to tire as the season wears on. When they need to go and have a spell in the reserves they can only be replaced by more Suns kids at a bargain price! Personally I’m hoping all their gun kids don’t get early games so we can still look at them as downgrade options too.

GENTLER ROOKIE STRATEGY

You might not like the idea of investing so heavily into one side. At the end of the day you might feel you can pick 3-4 rookies in the one position that aren’t Suns players that will be good early money makers for your team. In the forwards for example you might find that having guys like Gamble, A.Krakouer, Richardson and Mzungu doesn’t leave you with much room for Suns rookies too. If you spread the Suns out, with maybe 1-2 across each position, you’re looking to be a bit more precise with your selections.

The aggressive strategy might mean picking three of Harris, Swallow, Iles, McKenzie or Caddy in your midfield and hoping that all three stick, but if they don’t, at least you have less chance of missing a big breakout. A gentler strategy, where you pick one, maybe two Suns players in a position means you slightly increase your chances of missing someone going bang! If you go with only Harris, for example, and Swallow comes out and averages 80 off the bat it would be a big miss. It’s probably much of a muchness, but I consider it more important to NOT miss the big ones than it is to get them. Everyone had Barlow last year – imagine being the poor few blokes without him though.

By not going so hard at the Suns rookies you’re setting yourself up for better coverage when their second bye comes around. As I mentioned before, with the Round 1 bye being an advantage in a way, it doesn’t give you any favours in regards to their Round 9 bye – you’ll have to have already traded out quite a few to remove yourself from this risk.

IN SUMMARY

Their points have to come from somewhere, but you know that not everyone can share them around. The Suns kids can’t all be scoring 60+ so if you go aggressive, you may have a few failures in there. If you go passive, you might miss a few gems (or waste trades getting them in).

Basically the aggressive approach is like watching an episode of Family Guy. If you tell enough jokes in quick succession, you’re bound to draw laughs, but you might also have some failures. You throw enough shit at the wall and some of it will stick. A passive approach is like Arrested Development. There might not be the sheer volume of jokes, but every joke is an absolute winner. If you’re not paying enough attention though, you could miss out on some of the gold…

NAB Cup squads

ADELAIDE, MELBOURNE and PORT ADELAIDE

AAMI Stadium, Friday February 11

All times are local

Match one: Adelaide v Melbourne, 7:15
Match two: Melbourne v Port Adelaide, 8:20
Match three: Adelaide v Port Adelaide, 9:25

ADELAIDE
1. Richard Tambling, 2. Brad Moran, 3. Brent Reilly, 4. Kurt Tippett, 5. Scott Thompson, 6. Jack Gunston, 7. Nathan Van Berlo, 8. Myke Cook, 9. Rory Sloane, 10. Matthew Jaensch, 11. Michael Doughty, 12. Daniel Talia, 13. Taylor Walker, 15. Brad Symes, 16. Phil Davis, 18. Graham Johncock, 20. Ivan Maric,21. Chris Knights, 22. Andrew Otten, 23. Jared Petrenko, 24. Sam Jacobs, 25. Ben Rutten, 26. Richard Douglas, 27. Scott Stevens, 28. Luke Thompson, 29. James Sellar, 32. Patrick Dangerfield, 33. Brodie Smith, 35. Shaun McKernan, 36. Brodie Martin, 37. Ian Callinan, 38. Tony Armstrong, 40. Jason Porplyzia, 45. Ricky Henderson, 47. Matthew Wright

MELBOURNE
3. Clint Bartram, 4. Jack Watts, 6. Matthew Bate, 7. Jamie Bennell, 9. Jack Trengove, 10. Cale Morton, 12. Colin Sylvia, 14. Lynden Dunn, 16. Jack Grimes, 18. Brad Green, 19. Addam Maric, 20. Colin Garland, 21. Lucas Cook, 22. Brent Moloney, 24. Liam Jurrah, 27. Jared Rivers, 28. Joel MacDonald, 30. Tom McNamara, 31. Tom Scully, 34. Stefan Martin, 36. Aaron Davey, 38. Jeremy Howe, 39. Neville Jetta, 40. Mark Jamar, 42. Jake Spencer, 43. Tom McDonald, 44. Rohan Bail, 46. Sam Blease, 47. James Strauss, 49. Daniel Nicholson, 50. Michael Evans, 52. Cameron Johnston

PORT ADELAIDE
1. Domenic Cassisi, 2. Cameron Hitchcock, 4. Daniel Motlop, 5. Matthew Broadbent, 6. Danyle Pearce, 7. Marlon Motlop, 11. Mitchell Banner, 12. Jackson Trengove, 13. Cameron O’Shea, 14. Paul Stewart, 17. Robbie Gray, 18. Kane Cornes, 19. Nick Salter, 20. Dean Brogan, 21. Matt Thomas, 24. Matthew Westhoff, 27. Alipate Carlile, 29. Jasper Pittard, 30. Troy Chaplin, 31. Danny Meyer, 32. John Butcher, 33. Brett Ebert, 34. Jarrad Redden, 35. Chad Cornes,
36. Michael Pettigrew, 37. Daniel Bass, 39. Justin Westhoff, 40. Aaron Young, 42. Thomas Jonas, 43. Daniel Stewart, 44. Tom Logan, 45. Callum Hay, 46. Daniel Webb, 47. Jarrad Irons, 48. Mitchell Curnow

WEST COAST, HAWTHORN and FREMANTLE

Patersons Stadium, Sunday February 13

All times are local

Match one: West Coast v Hawthorn, 4.45pm
Match two: Hawthorn v Fremantle, 5.50pm
Match three: West Coast v Fremanrtle, 6.55pm

West Coast Eagles
1. Mitch Brown, 3. Andrew Gaff, 5. Brad Ebert, 6. Mark Nicoski, 7. Chris Masten, 9. Nic Naitanui, 10. Scott Selwood, 11. Matt Priddis, 12. Brad Sheppard, 14. Koby Stevens, 15. Tom Swift, 16. Eric Mackenzie, 17. Josh Kennedy, 18. Bradd Dalziell, 19. Tim Houlihan, 20. Dean Cox, 21. Quinten Lynch, 22. Ryan Neates, 23. Darren Glass, 24. Matt Rosa, 25. Shannon Hurn, 26. Sam Butler, 27. Jack Darling, 28. Ashley Smith, 29. Scott Lycett, 31. Will Schofield, 32. Andrew Embley, 33. Jordan Jones, 36. Callum Wilson, 38. Brett Jones, 39. Lewis Broome, 40. Anton Hamp, 41. Andrew Strijk, 43. Ashton Hams, 44. Gerrick Weedon, 45. Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls, 47. Lewis Stevenson

FREMANTLE
3. Byron Schammer, 6. Greg Broughton, 8. Nick Suban, 9. Adam McPhee, 10. Rhys Palmer, 12. Jon Griffin, 13. Tendai Mzungu, 14. Antoni Grover, 15. Ryan Crowley, 16. David Mundy, 18. Luke McPharlin, 20. Viv Michie, 22.  John Anthony, 23. Chris Mayne, 24. Dylan Roberton, 25. Josh Mellington, 26. Kepler Bradley, 27. Justin Bollenhagen, 28. Peter Faulks, 29. Matthew Pavlich, 30. Zac Clarke, 31. Aaron Sandilands, 34. Nick Lower, 36. Alex Silvagni, 37. Michael Johnson, 41. Paul Duffield, 44. Jesse Crichton, 46. Clancee Pearce, 47. Jay van Berlo

HAWTHORN
1. Max Bailey, 9. Shaun Burgoyne, 13. Kyle Cheney, 16. Isaac Smith, 20. David Hale, 21. Shane Savage, 22. Travis Tuck, 24. Ben Stratton, 25. Ryan Schoenmakers, 26. Liam Shiels, 28. Paul Puopolo, 29. Tom Murphy, 31. Matthew Suckling, 32. Riley Milne, 33. Cyril Rioli, 35. Sam Grimley, 36. Jordan Lisle, 37. Brendan Whitecross, 38. Mitch Hallahan, 40. Jordan Williams, 41. Taylor Duryea, 42. Angus Litherland, 43. Will Sierakowski, 44. Sam Menegola, 45. Tom Schneider, 46. Derick Wanganeen, 47. Luke Breust, 49. Jack Mahony, 50. Nathan Ahmat-Watkins

CARLTON, RICHMOND and COLLINGWOOD

Etihad Stadium, Saturday February 12

All times are local

Match one: Carlton v Richmond, 7.15pm
Match two: Richmond v Collingwood, 8.20pm
Match three: Carlton v Collingwood, 9.25pm

CARLTON
1. Andrew Walker, 2. Jordan Russell, 3. Marc Murphy, 4. Bryce Gibbs, 6. Kade Simpson, 9. Kane Lucas, 10. Matthew Watson, 11. Rob Warnock, 12. Mitchell Robinson, 13. Chris Yarran, 15. Jeremy Laidler, 17. Setanta O’hAilpin, 18. Paul Bower, 19. Eddie Betts, 22. Shaun Hampson, 26. Andrew McInnes, 27. Dennis Armfield, 28. Jaryd Cachia, 29. Heath Scotland, 30. Jarrad Waite, 31. Marcus Davies, 32. Bret Thornton, 34. Nick Duigan, 35. Ed Curnow, 36. Rohan Kerr, 39. Wayde Twomey, 40. Michael Jamison, 41. Levi Casboult, 42. Zach Tuohy, 45. Aaron Joseph, 46. David Ellard, 47. Mitchell Carter

RICHMOND
2. Will Thursfield, 10. Shane Edwards, 12. David Astbury, 13. Brad Miller, 18. Alex Rance, 19. Daniel Connors, 20. Mitch Morton, 21. Shane Tuck, 22. Ben Nason, 26. Robin Nahas, 28. Jake King, 29. Tyrone Vickery, 30. Reece Conca, 31. Jake Batchelor, 32. Brad Helbig, 33. David Gourdis, 34. Andrew Browne, 35. Matthew White, 36. Dean MacDonald, 39. Tom Derickx, 40. Kel Moore, 42. Jamie O’Reilly, 43. Matt Dea, 44. Troy Taylor, 46. Jeromey Webberley, 47. Ben Jakobi, 48. Dylan Grimes, 49. Pat Contin, 51. Nick Westhoff, 52. Mitch Keddell

COLLINGWOOD
1. Leon Davis, 2. Chris Tarrant, 7. Andrew Krakouer, 8. Harry O’Brien, 10. Scott Pendlebury, 11. Jarryd Blair, 12. Luke Ball, 13. Dale Thomas, 15. Leigh Brown, 17. Dayne Beams, 18. Darren Jolly, 19. Cameron Wood, 20. Ben Reid, 21. Sharrod Wellingham, 22. Steele Sidebottom, 23. Lachlan Keefe, 25. Tom Young, 26. Ben Johnson, 27. Simon Buckley, 28. Ben Sinclair, 30. Brent Macaffer, 31. Chris Dawes, 34. Alan Toovey, 35. Alex Fasolo, 37. Kirk Ugle, 38. Scott Reed, 39. Heath Shaw, 40. Paul Seedsman, 43. Trent Stubbs, 45. Tom Hunter, 47. Jack Perham, 48. Jye Bolton