Footy Tragic

Friday:

North Melbourne vs Carlton: 

This game proved that there is no such thing as fairytales in football as Carlton hung on over an inaccurate Kangaroos outfit, who were trying to honour their retiring ex-captain, Adam Simpson. The game was even throughout, which is often a great thing from a DT perspective, meaning that all players are fighting the game out for the full four quarters, rather than taking their foot off the pedal or giving up! For Carlton, Bryce Gibbs was prolific – he has really built himself up to an awesome footballer this year, and his anticipated continuation of form in 2010 is going to be ‘delicious’ as one commentator might say! Carlton has a good run home to the finals, so any of their midfielders are certainly worth looking at! For North, Drew Petrie impressed me the most – he played almost the full game as a forward, which is a first for the year – this is fantastic, as it heightens his scoring potential. Also, Petrie is a great forward – this is the position that put him on the scene in 2008 – hopefully this move becomes a permanent one!

Get on: Bryce Gibbs - Unbelievably, he is still under $400,000, and if this game is anything to go by, he looks like he will fly home through the finals campaign.

Get off: Andrew Walker - Any hopes of him being a late season smokey were crushed with an average return game. Instead, hopefully he can just work on a low starting price for 2010.

Injury: Leigh Harding - Injured his hammy after a good start to the game - will miss 2 -  3 weeks - an awkward time-frame around this time of year! 

Saturday:

Western Bulldogs vs Fremantle: 

Whilst the Dogs still crushed Freo, it would have been nice if they had pushed themselves for the full four quarters, rather than slacking off in the second half and costing us valuable DT points! That said, allowing Freo back into the game did allow us who had stocked up on the baby-dockers to gain some bonus pointage! Whilst the game-winner was Jason Akermanis, the two players who shone that we may want in our Dream Teams were Daniel Cross and Brennan Stack. Cross continued his prolific second half to the season, and again I will tell you that you want him in your team – he is never tagged, gets plenty of his own ball and tackles ferociously! Stack is an interesting one – he is an $86K forward playing his second game – I was less than impressed by his debut, but this game more than made up for it! He played the role formally occupied by Higgins, and may well be able to do the same in your DT if you need to make some cash on the bench! He is by far the best forward rookie at base-price available. For Freo, Broughton was again the star – he reminded all of us who may have forgotten why we love the little man with another DT ton! Also in the much-love category was Big Pav – he had another fantastic game, reminding us why we persisted with him through injury!

Get on: Matthew Pavlich – Due to an injury two games ago, Pav’s two large scores this past fortnight have not increased his price. He is a BARGAIN if this form continues! Check out Dan’s round 17 “Player Of The Week” for more info!

Get off: Paul Duffield - I love the man with the golden locks - but he proved today that he cannot cope with a tag! Lets hope this doesn’t reoccur this season!

Injury: None 

Geelong vs Adelaide: 

Geelong must be bored of thrashing teams, so are now practising having close games - this is now their third in about a month! Paul Chapman was the star of this show, booting a personal best six goals, including one of the sealers! He has played a great season, and touch-wood, has not broken down yet! Another star who turned it on for the Cats was Bartel – whilst in seasons of late, 121 points from Jimmy may not have been too out of the ordinary, but due to his recent form, this was definitely worth getting excited about! It is great to see the Brownlow medallist back into some form and back in the midfield after some recent games played deep in defence! In more good news, Stevie J returned to the field after a month on the sidelines, although did look to aggravate his sore hip – hopefully it is nothing severe and he plays out the year ok! For Adelaide, it was their forward line that fired as expected, with Geelong missing their two key defenders. Whilst neither the birdman, nor Tippett scored 100s, they certainly looked imposing and kicked four goals each! Also into some form is Simon Goodwin – his past two weeks have been great since he moved back to the midfield rather than off half back. Although he does exceed the Footy Tragic rule of no players over 28 years old, it is hard to resist an old DT favourite from years past!

Get on: Jimmy Bartel – So so cheap for what he can give you – if he fires over the next month, your finals campaign with be strengthened greatly!

Get off: Matthew Stokes - I will be interested to see if he is able to keep his spot as the Cats decide on their best 22 in the next fortnight. He adds something unique to the team when playing well, but this hasn’t been the case for a while now.

Injury: I’m concerned about Steve Johnson, but I’m sure we’ll hear more about him through the week! 

Sydney vs St.Kilda: 

Well it was Sydney as we know and hate them in this match at the SCG - they were back to their suffocating best, sucking the life out of St.Kilda’s game with stoppage after stoppage after stoppage! Despite the amount of stoppage work, it was amazingly the outside mids who came out on top, with Montagna, Ray and DalSanto leading the possessions for the Saints. And as expected, the life was sucked out of Lenny Hayes and Nick Riewoldt as they both came up against their most consistent nemeses – Brett Kirk and Craig Bolton – Both of whom had great games shutting their opponents down. For Sydney, only one player scored over 90, and that was Ed Barlow – he could also be the main reason that none of his mates got many touches – every possession he had seemed to be a 60-metre torp, skipping right over the midfield every time! Disappointing from this game was the scores reached by the ruckmen – for the first time in 2009, Mike Pyke outscored Mr.Consistent, Darren Jolly, and Ben McEvoy finished the game as the most dominant ruckman – a good sign however for the Saints’ future!

Get on: Adam Schneider - It is this time of year that you need to start pulling rabbits out of hats, and this is certainly one of them! Whilst he has never been a fantastic DT player, his past month (since the birth of his first child) has been fantastic! He has averaged over 90 points in the last 5 games to coincide with more midfield time! Consider as a great smokey!

Get off: Robert Eddy - Good kid, and will be very good when he gains some weight, but right now he falls over at every contest - will lose his spot in the next fortnight.

Injury: Craig Bird looked to badly hurt his shoulder – will need scans. Darren Jolley had a slight hamstring strain, yet played out the match. Steven King dislocated his shoulder and will probably miss a week. Ryan O’Keefe took a big bump to his ribs – will need scans to determine damage! Be warned – Saints will rest players not 100%, and Sydney will shelve those not 100% due to now not being able to make finals. 

Collingwood vs Brisbane: 

By half time, this game had everything going for it to suggest that Jono Brown was going to kick 10 goals and win the game for the Lions – Presti was unconscious not long after the first bounce, Leigh Brown then moved onto him, and he had already scored 95 points by half time! However, Collingwood fought hard and came out very deserving victors! Dane Swan had another ridiculous amount of disposals, proving that I was stupid to replace him as captain! Travis Cloke was also brilliant, switching from the forward line to ruck – as much as this would be an amazing role move, Fraser should be back next week, so he was only being used as a stop-gap. I still really like Cloke as a forward option. Despite his inconsistencies, he has been averaging nearly 100 points over the past five weeks (albeit, that includes two scores of 59!). Pendlebury is now well-and-truly back, especially impressing those supercoach players who got him for a steal a fortnight ago! For Brisbane, Brown was the star, yet in the second half didn’t have a lot of mates! Tom Rockliff debuted for the club, but didn’t do a lot to impress in his first game – but Voss has been good with giving game time to the kids this year, so hopefully he will get another chance to prove himself. In the end, the main lesson learnt from this game was that Collingwood is the real deal – they have some legitimate stars in their lineup, all of which will be great in your team in their easy run home to the finals!

Get on: Scott Pendlebury – A great consistent performer, only cheap due to his injury a month ago. With Collingwood’s plethora of stars in their team, it is not a given that he will be tagged every week.

Get off: James Polkinghorn – One of those players to have a great pre-season, only to not do a lot once the real season hits. Still young, so will improve – just not this year.

Injury: Presti went down with concussion, but returned late in the match. Should be ok for this week (“Thank God” say all DT coaches out there!) 

Sunday:

Melbourne vs Richmond: 

Definitely a better game than expected, with Melbourne dominating the possession count, yet just falling short in the finale. Jordie McMahon can at least assure himself a spot in the team next week with his goal after the siren! Although they did not come out victors, it was some of the Melbourne youth that impressed the most – most notably, Jack Grimes and Ricky Petterd. It would be a bitter taste for those who delisted Grimes last week due to the ambiguity of his injury (i.e fellow Footy Tragic panellist Ben!), but he bounced back beautifully, with a quick goal in the last quarter pushing his score up over the ton! I mentioned a few weeks ago to hang on to Petterd – and this was why! He played the flanks and midfield really well and is a great inside/outside player able to win his own ball and kick a goal or two! Now those who still own him face that terrible decision – on the field or on the bench?? As a quick end-note, it was great to see Deledio bounce back into some form, scoring two hundreds over the past fortnight! Keep going Brett!! Keep going!!

Get on: Brett Deledio – Could this the moment we’ve been waiting for? One of the most disappointing pick-ups this year after a break-out 2008. He has really pulled the finger out this past fortnight – hopefully the ball has dropped and this form can continue!

Get off: Trent Cotchin – Will be a star, but needs a full pre-season for this to happen. Lock him in for 2010, but avoid for the remaining rounds of 2009.

Injury: Stafan Martin looked to hurt his knee, but should be ok… needs scans before we know the issue. 

Port Adelaide vs Hawthorn: 

Probably the best game of the round saw two teams aspiring for finals battle it out at AAMI stadium. For Port, I was impressed with the fact they really played like a team, with each player doing their bit, all the way from Matt Thomas to Travis Boak – and whilst they each were at opposing ends of the DT scoring, they were both as important to the cause as each other – Boak was brilliant across the whole field, pulling in a career best disposal count, whereas Thomas instead used his hip and shoulders rather than boot and hand to contribute to the game. Helping Port’s cause was the re-emergence of Shaun Burgoyne, who undoubtedly helps them with his slick disposal. For Hawks, Lance Franklin helped lose the game with an incredibly inaccurate 2.7 – with some misses coming from directly in front! Hodge was great for the first half, but looked either tired or sore in the second half as he had little effect on the contest. The worry with Hawthorn is now that they are a very slim chance of making finals, do they now start booking the boys in for surgery? If so, it could hurt many DT finals campaigns!

Get on: Shaun Burgoyne – Significantly unique and terribly underpriced! If you have his mate, Steven Salopek, maybe he could be a straight swap!

Get off: Xavier Ellis - The kid’s looking really sore - he will be one of the earlier benched players I predict, and if this happens, you don’t want him in your squad!

Injury: None 

West Coast vs Essendon: 

What I don’t quite understand is why the groundsmen at Subiaco oval always smear butter all over the Sherrins before the first bounce! It certainly makes for a terrible contest! Jokes aside, this was a match displaying not a lot of skills, and hence was mainly played between the arcs (The 50m line was generally where the ball was turned over). Mark LeCras was the star for the winners – his career has come along in leaps and bounds the past 24 months and he is continuing to get better! The media questioned his placement in the centre square in last weeks game, but more than anything this is just the media showing how much they don’t know or rate this year’s All-Australian small forward. I remember when he tore the Saints a new hole at the end of the 2008 season playing as a midfielder in the last quarter! Another kid starting to progress is Tom Swift – honestly, I have not enjoyed his 2009 season, but he is starting to show the right signs, validating the early draft selection used on him by the Eagles. His game was still not spectacular, but definitely the best of his career as he starts to get used to the pace of AFL. For Essendon, only a few impressed – Jobe Watson’s clearance and tackle work was a standout, as was Angus Monfries’ first half. But it wasn’t enough to get them over the line, or even close to a more determined Eagles outfit.

Get on: Mark LeCras – If your seventh forward spot is taken up by a rookie (such as Sidebotton, etc), this could be a good side swap to assure a higher score come finals time. He is priced under $300,000 and has plenty of upside!

Get off: Scott Lucas – Has gone from decoy forward to defender… Somehow I think he is not the preferred option in the team. He was good whilst he lasted in 2009, but this may be the last chance to trade him out before he leaks too much cash!

Injury: None

Expert: Dan
Team: Hank Scorpio EDT
Round 18 Score: 2,104
Overall Ranking: 3,567
Trades Remaining: 0
Remaining Salary Cap: $4,500
Team Changes This Week:
In: Ryan O’Keefe
Out: Shaun Higgins

Expert: Toby
Team: Fiora’s Hardnuts
Round 18 Score: 2,092
Overall Ranking: 149
Trades Remaining: 1
Remaining Salary Cap: $12,400
Team Changes This Week: None

Expert: Ben
Team: The Redbacks
Round 18 Score: 1,997
Overall Ranking: 4,920
Trades Remaining: 1
Remaining Salary Cap: $103,400
Team Changes This Week: None

OK, it’s getting tough going late in the season, but those of you who have structured their team specifically to go for a league win should still have a few trades left. There’s also a decent chance you’ve been struck down like the Bulldogs forward line. Shaun Higgins is out for a few weeks, so it’s a tough call to make. Bob Murphy isn’t too common, but given that we were singing his praises on here a couple of weeks ago he might be a little more common for Footy Tragics. 

This is the last week of the DT H&A season, so you already know that you’ll be without Higgins for the first week of finals given that he has a 2-3 week diagnosis. If he only misses two games then you’ll have him back for the second week of finals, but will that be too late? If you need the points for to secure a finals spot this week, or even an all important Top 4 berth then it wouldn’t be unwise to make the move on him. 

Matthew Pavlich is a pretty common player, but so is everyone else that’s any good around Higgo’s price range. Hopefully this will be relevant to some of you, rather than excitedly clicking on this morning’s article and being disappointed because Pav is already in your team! 

First of all, last week was his return from injury and significantly that injury occurred against Collingwood when he was only on 16 points, so it has driven his price right down. He’s dropped almost $30K in his last couple of games as a result. Once again, he’s got a fairly high break even. Not unachievable, but I’d be surprised if he reached the 133 he requires to go up in price this week. With that said, you can usually expect Pav to be in the ball park of that figure. 

He’s got a lovely run home from a DT perspective. This week will be pretty tough against the Bulldogs, especially if Brian Lake goes to him. The beauty with Pav though is that he can use his amazing endurance to move up the ground and take marks around the wing. I don’t reckon the Bulldogs defenders will mind too much if Freo’s only decent inside 50 target is taking marks up the ground, because there’ll be no one for him to deliver to with confidence. Still…should be good for his DT points even if it removes all of Freo’s attack from their forward 50. 

After this week though he plays Port, Melbourne and Essendon. The way those first two teams are going you might as well remove the comma between the two teams and line him up against Port Melbourne of the VFL. Those two games should be an orgy of points for a gun like Pav. As for Essendon, they’re Pav’s favourite team to play against. His highest average against any one particular team is against Essendon. 

The one downer in his draw is that all important Grand Final week for DT sees him up against Geelong down at the Cattery. It’s not all doom and gloom though. His last five games against Geelong have seen him average 105.6. I won’t stuff you around and post only numbers skewed in his favour though…be warned, he’s never scored a ton at Skilled Stadium. 

Just a few quick names around his price, just in case you already have Pav but desperately need to trade out Higgo/Murphy I also considered writing about:

Leon Davis – form has been much better since Didak has been getting more attention.

Brett Deledio – disappointing this year, but at the end of the day averaging 90.

Aaron Davey – I’ve got him, has been frustrating, but can pull off big scores

Buddyyyyyy – the swagger is back (I’ve already written about him, so I can’t feature him again)

Travis Cloke – smokey, has scored three convincing tons in his last five games.

PART 1:

View Fiora’s Hardnuts’ Team
Round 17 Score: 2,324
Current Overall Ranking: 117
Trades Left: 1
Remaining Salary Cap: $12,400

Dear Fiora’s Hardnuts,

Thank you for submitting your team.

This week, I’m analysing our Dreamteam expert Toby’s team. Toby is absolutely flying at the moment and he is currently sitting in 117^th place overall, 993 points behind the leader.

It’s fair to say that behind the scenes here at footytragic.com, there is a healthy competition going on between Toby, Dan and myself. While I had the boys covered in 2008, finishing 19^th overall, Toby has given Dan and I, a massive touch up this season (check our “Live Scores” tab for all our current rankings).

My article this week will take an in depth analysis at what Toby has done in 2009, which has taken him to 117^th overall.

HITS:

• Sam Gilbert – came in for Andrew Raines prior to Round 2 – I must give Toby full credit here, because he was talking up Sam Gilbert in the lead up to Round 1. While Gilbert was impressive in the pre – season, I was far from sold on him. Gilbert had shown some natural talent in his 39 games prior to this season, but at a price of $221,900 and an average of 50 points per game in 2008, he didn’t appeal to me. As a 194cm, 84 kg defender, I couldn’t see Gilbert averaging more than 70 points per game. What’s more, I wasn’t 100% convinced about his job security in a strong St. Kilda team.

Sam Gilbert has now played 16 of a possible 17 games in 2009, with an average of 92 points per game. It’s time to concede that Toby was right and I was wrong. Having said that, I’m now wondering why Toby waited until Round 2 to get Gilbert in!

• Greg Broughton – came in for Nick Suban prior to Round 10 – While Broughton is not exactly unique (he is in 51,807 teams), getting him into your team prior to Round 10 was timing at its best. Round 10 was Broughton’s 3^rd game and he scored 105 points. Broughton has not missed a game since and he is averaging 89 points from his 10 matches this year.

• Dane Swan – came in for Mark Coughlan prior to Round 10 – Once again, not unique but perfect timing. Swan averaged 114 points per game in the first 9 rounds, and has averaged 134 points per game since you bought him in prior to Round 10.

• Lenny Hayes – came in for Luke Ball prior to Round 16 – This was a gutsy move given your trade situation. To make this move with your 2^nd last trade took courage and it looks like it will pay handsome dividends. Hayes has scored 134 and 99 in the 2 weeks since you bought him in, while Luke Ball looks no closer to a return to AFL action.

MISSES:

• Andrew Raines – picked up prior to Round 1 – Plenty of teams fell for this trap this year. Raines has managed just 3 games in 2009, at an average of 50 points per game. Due to a combination of injuries and poor form, Raines has been a massive let down in 2009.

• Sam Butler – picked up prior to Round 1 – Once again, plenty of teams fell for this trap. Butler has averaged just 54 points per game in his 11 matches this year. While you did cut your losses early by dumping Butler for Daniel Rich prior to Round 2, this trade could have been avoided had you picked up Rich from the start.

As for your final trade, best to hold until one of your premiums picks up a season ending injury.

In conclusion, while Toby’s team has been excellent this year (and much better than mine), I’m sure he would love an extra 2 trades in his kitty (refer to the misses above). While hindsight is a wonderful thing, these 2 trades could be the difference between a top 100 finish, as opposed to a top 10 finish.

Good luck!

PART 2 (NEW):

Hidden gem Week 2: Luke Shuey – West Coast – Midfield – $86,600

Luke Shuey was drafted by the Eagles with pick 18 in the 2008 National Draft. Shuey was recruited from the Oakleigh Chargers as a 184cm, 86kg inside midfielder.

Shuey is noted for his bash and crash style of play, much like a Nathan Jones or Luke Ball. In addition, Shuey is also highly regarded for his ball winning ability. In the 2008 Under 18 National Championships, Shuey averaged 18 disposals, 3 marks and 3 tackles in his 4 games. To cap off his carnival, Shuey was named Vic Metro’s Best and Fairest player.

Another thing I like about Shuey is his endurance. Shuey ran a 14.4 beep test (4^th overall), at the 2008 Draft Camp. What’s more, Shuey ran the 20 metre sprint in 2.92 seconds (9^th overall).

To sum up, Shuey has: good pace, endurance, courage, skills, size and ball winning ability. All the attributes needed to be a successful AFL player.

While Shuey’s 2009 season has been decimated by injury (groin and leg), he will be fit and ready for the start of the Eagles 2010 pre – season campaign. At a bargain price and with two pre – seasons under his belt, Shuey could be a great buy for 2010!

Please feel free to post a comment, we welcome all feedback.

Please also advise if you’ll be considering Luke Shuey in your dreamteam in 2010.

Thanks and good luck!