Footy Tragic
Gold Coast Kids: Karmichael Hunt
Dear Footy Tragics,
While not exactly a “kid”, another Gold Coast player worth serious consideration in 2011 is Karmichael Hunt.
Hunt was born in New Zealand on 17 November 1986, so he will be 24 years of age by Round 1 of 2011. Hunt stands at 186cms and has slimmed down to 86kgs after his six month stint playing Rugby Union in France for Biarritz Olympique.
Hunt commenced his decorated NRL career in 2004 as a 17 year old, playing for the Brisbane Broncos. Hunt was one of the stars of the NRL, representing the Queensland state of origin team and the Australian test team (which he chose over New Zealand) on numerous occasions.
Turning our attention to Aussie Rules, Karmichael Hunt has played 8 games of VFL football for the Gold Coast this year, kicking 3 goals and being named in the best twice. Hunt is best suited to playing on a half back flank or in the back pocket, which allows him to run in a straight line and best utilise his very strong tackling ability.
I don’t expect Hunt to regularly rack up 20 plus possessions for the Gold Coast Suns in 2011, but I do expect him to average 5 – 6 tackles per game. This equates to approximately 20 DT points in tackles alone, meaning Hunt needs to only pick up 10 possessions and a few marks to generate a DT score of approximately 60 points per game.
Given the fact Hunt will most likely be available to select as a dirt cheap defender and he is likely to play most games for the Suns in 2011, he is worth very serious consideration.
Good luck!
5 Comments on Gold Coast Kids: Karmichael Hunt
No doubt K.Hunt will be popular next year, due to his profile, but (and these words may come back to bite me) there will surely be better value at rookie prices in the Backline. Indeed, is it even guaranteed that the Big K.Hunt will be at rookie price?
The more interesting burning question for me on next season’s comp is how they handle the bye. Has anyone heard anything definitive from anyone about this?
And do we have a preferred method of handling it? More Trades? More Subs?
I believe that the suggestion that looks to be the most likely is giving every team an extra bench player in each position, plus extra cap room to allow for it… This would work well I think, although no option will be perfect. I don’t think more trades is the best way, as you are simply losing a player for one game – a time frame in which you would prefer to just bench them rather than offload them. Even three or four extra bench spots and an extra $800k would suffice… It will bring much more strategy into the game as to which teams you load up on, as well as balancing your squad around all 17 teams. For example, you don’t want too many players who will be having a bye in the last four weeks of the year (DT finals). But you are right – it will certainly be interesting!
The other thing which we will follow with interest is the pricing of players. There is no way they can make all the GC17 kids $89k… My (uninformed) prediction is that they will be priced depending on their VFL stats (or TAC stats – help me out here Dan, do GC17 kids partake in the TAC cup?), perhaps with a bit of a discount. Whilst if Virtual Sports follow their own rules of years past, only those kids picked in the first round of the draft will have an inflated price… however, all these changes are likely to change some rules in the process… We will see…
Nah Toby, they only play VFL or if they don’t make their VFL side they play in local QLD comps. They only played TAC Cup last year.
I would love to see them keep the cap the same, but increase the benches. It’s too easy for spuds to go well with cookie cutter teams. As if they’d add a degree of difficulty though. Unfortunately they’re only going to make the game easier and easier.
I agree with Dan – This year there are alot of teams that have both Ablett and Swan due to the larger salary cap – It would be much better if teams could not afford to get the best players in each possition and have to play more rookies & mid priced players.
If there is an extended bench maybe there should be a limit of 1-2 GC players per position. We don’t want all teams to have a bench full of GC17 players.
Just in: Freo has travelled to Tassie WITHOUT Sandilands, Pavlich, Mundy, Hayden, McPhee, Morabito and Hill!!!
Yikes… that’s gonna hurt a few sides!
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