For those of you who have saved a few trades for the finals you’ll probably be looking at making your last upgrades this week. Depending on your salary cap situation you might not be able to afford the Swan’s or Ablett’s of this world (well, maybe Luke Ablett) so if your hands are tied financially you don’t have to scroll too far down the highest averages in the midfield to get a gun for under $400K. 

I’m going to have a look at Corey this week, however Pendlebury, Gibbs and Sewell are all in the Top 10 midfield averages and are under $400K. With that said, Sewell hasn’t scored a ton for three in a row and is playing DT killers St.Kilda this week – I would be advising against him this week). 

Corey OK, I got Joel Corey in mid season and apart from three games at a very crucial point in the season he’s been absolutely fantastic. In fact, in 10 of his last 11 games he’s scored a ton (oddly his one sub 100 was against Melbourne). His DT form has been electric and the beauty of Corey is that the opposition just don’t give a stuff about him. 

It’s no slur on Corey’s name that when an opposition coach is shuffling magnets around the attention goes to Ablett, Bartel, Selwood, Johnson and Chappy (if he was playing). By sheer weight of quality at Geelong you just can’t sit someone tight on Joel Corey and DT coaches love it! 

As far as premiums go, he’s probably less likely to bust out a 120+ score. He’s only topped that mark three times this season. However, he’s only had three sub 100 scores all year as well, so obviously he’s good for a safe 100-120 pretty much every week. 

Currently he is as cheap as he’s been all season having dropped $95K this year. The reason for his current dip in price is that 75 he scored against Melbourne. That score is about to go out of his three week rolling average, which prices are based on, so he’s very likely to start moving up in price from this game. 

Furthermore, his run home isn’t too bad. A team’s fixture is always something to have a look at whenever you’re making a trade, but it’s especially relevant this late in the year. In his last four games he’s up against Carlton, Sydney, Bulldogs and Freo. I’m not going to pull any punches. His worst team over his career is Carlton, BUT he has scored 100 and 120 in his last two games against them, so it looks like he’s learning to play them better. 

Even though Sydney have traditionally been the DT devils to play against Corey has never really had huge worries against them. He’s scored four tons in his last five games against them. He generally fares pretty well against the Bulldogs and significantly he murders Freo, along with most other midfielders in the league. The reason this is so significant is that will be GF week in DT. NOTE: Geelong play Freo and St.Kilda play Melbourne in the last round – many DT Grand Finals will be won by the amount of these guys you have beating up on minnows. 

Given the security that he brings to the table and the fact his price has been below $430K on six separate occasions this year I can’t believe he’s still only in 27,000 teams.