Footy Tragic

View Bay City Retards’ Team
Round 11 Score: 2,173
Current Overall Ranking: 42,216
Trades Left: 6
Remaining Salary Cap: $132,700

Dear Bay City Retards,

Thank you for submitting your team. I note from your e-mail to us that your main objective in 2010 is private league glory. I also note that you are currently on track for a top four finish.

I’ve mentioned many times previously the importance of finishing the home and away season inside the top four. There are two key reasons why this is so very important to your team’s ultimate success:

1. The double chance gives you two opportunities to make the preliminary final;
2. If you are good enough to win in week one of the finals, you earn the right to a one week break which means you can save your remaining trades for the preliminary final and grand final.

Regular readers of this column will be well aware that I like to preserve trades for later in the season, rather than burn them by Round 17 or 18 gunning for the major prize. As a result of this tactic, I have had a great deal of success in very competitive private leagues over the past few years.

My main objective in 2010 was to have a serious crack at winning the car, but with an overall ranking of 445 after Round 11, I’m running out of time to make my move. As each week passes by I start thinking more and more about turning my attention to private league glory. Fortunately, I’ve kept plenty of golden trades up my sleeve!

After not recommending any trades in my last two Submit Your Team articles, I thought this week would be my chance to recommend the must have mid season cash cow of 2010. However you have already bought in Jordan Gysberts so once again my recommendation is to hold fire.

Your current team has a solid core, but it is seriously lacking in on field depth. You simply cannot afford to enter a DT finals campaign with the likes of Webberley, Banfield and Hitchcock in your starting 22.

To help you with your private league finals campaign, I’m going to give you the names of the players currently in your squad of 30 who should be in your starting 22 in Round 19. These players are: Goddard, Hodge, Waters, Malceski, Fisher, Bower, Ablett, Bartel, Barlow, Thompson, Cox, Chapman, Didak, O’Keefe, Brown, Byrnes, Podsiadly and Murphy. I’ve identified 18 keepers, your job is to find at least another three keepers (your lack of trades may prevent you from finding another four) by DT finals week 1.

Mid priced players such as Kennelly, McKenzie, Banfield, Duncan, McEvoy etc. should be offloaded to free up cash which will allow you to make the required upgrades. You don’t have enough trades to dump all of these players, but at least two and possibly three of these players need to go.

If you are unsure when is the correct time to pull the trigger on some of these players, please feel free to post the question on our site.

Good luck!