If you’ve been saving up trades for the Preliminary Finals you’ve done well to get this far with them in tact, especially after the debacle of Round 19 (and let’s never speak of that round again). By this stage you have to look really closely at the run home your trade in target has. This combined with current form is the key to finding the right trade in target. 

I’m not gonna lie, I ran out of trades many weeks ago, so my crude attempt to find you a super sweet bargain is a bit half arsed. Not to worry, I looked through about 10-15 unique-ish midfielders around the $375K-$425K mark and picked what I reckon looks to be the best of the lot. 

murphy Marc Murphy is part of Carlton’s Fab 4 (that consists of three people) and the good news for guys that aren’t Chris Judd is that they’re not likely to get the #1 tagger. Murphy is a beautiful accumulator of the ball and he uses it well, to boot. Not that it matters how well he uses it, but hey, if you’re Bryce Gibbs and you’ve got Andrew Carrazzo and Murph free, who are you gonna pass the ball too? Every little bit helps. 

He’s got an average of 109.2 over the last five weeks, so he ticks the box for current form. A few of those have been tough games as well. Even though Sydney aren’t the DT killers they once were, they’ve still claimed a few scalps this season. Collingwood and Geelong don’t concede too many points either and he posted 111 and 97 against them respectively. 

As for his run home, well, the great news is that he plays Melbourne, who after winning on the weekend will not be taking any chances to lose their priority pick in the remaining two games. To make sure they don’t win as if they’re going to pay proper respect to their gun mids. They’ll probably stick Michael Newton on him or something. Anything less than 120 would be a disappointment, that’s how much I expect Murph to chop this weekend. 

For the final game and the all important DT Grand Final week he’s up against Adelaide, his second best DT opponent in the league. He averages 95.8 against them across his career, so it’s a good match up. Shirley usually goes to Judd (and be wary Judd owners because Shirley generally does well on him and has never let him score a ton against the Crows, not even in his WC days) so you’re more likely going to see Murph going head to head with someone like Thompson or Edwards. Maybe Doughty will get a job on him, but whatever the Crows have tried in the past hasn’t really hampered his scoring against them. 

His ripping form and solid run home makes it an ideal trade if you’re looking to bolster your mids for these all important last couple of weeks (I hope it’s the midfield you’re looking to trade into).