Footy Tragic

Friday:

Hawthorn vs Adelaide:

The Hawks couldn’t capitalise on a massive first quarter, eventually going down to a finals-bound Adelaide by nearly five goals. Whilst the final margin wasn’t especially close, the game was hard-fought, with several goal-bursts by the crows getting them over the line. One of Adelaide’s saviours was come-back man, Trent Hentschel, who returned for just his third game for the season. He presents great value as a forward for those coaches who have a cheap rookie forward slowing them down as the seventh forward. He will score much higher than most rookies, although his main problem is his body – there are still question marks over whether he will be able to stay on the park. For the Hawks, I have been becoming more and more impressed with Ben McGlynn over the past few weeks – several large scores certainly haven’t done his brand much disservice! He is playing as an attacking tagger who can also switch forward for a couple of goals. Watching the games, he always seems to be hovering around packs across the whole ground.

Get on: Trent Hentschel – He only needs to survive two more games… this IS a big ask, but if he does, a quick trade from a rookie could be the extra 40-50 points you need to get over the line on Grand Final day!

Get off: Michael Osbourne – his inconsistency and injuries can epitomise the Hawks season – I wouldn’t be trading in any Hawks now – their season is over so watch as they rest important players.

Injury: Robert Campbell – Suffered a compound finger dislocation – there is no need to rush him back, so they won’t.

Saturday:

Richmond vs Collingwood:

A blow-out on epic proportions showed Collingwood absolutely smash Richmond across the whole game – nearly making their way to a magical 100-point win. It is great to have a plethora of stars now at Collingwood – a team that used to be known for it’s consistency across the playing group and ability not to rely on several stars. They are now able to boast consistency, whilst also showcasing several of those ‘stars.’ These ‘stars’ include Dane Swan, Alan Didak, Scott Pendlebury, and will be soon to include Dayne Beams, who had another brilliant game. These are the sorts of games we want for our dream team finals campaigns and shows why you should not just load up on players from great teams, but also those who may be looking like dishing out a thrashing come rounds 21 and 22… With that in mind, look out for Saints (North and Melbourne) and Geelong (Doggies and Dockers) for the next fortnight! Also worth noting is that Swan is a LOCK for captain if you are already not sold – Richmond went into this game DETERMINED to stop him, yet again failed miserably!

Get on: Dane Swan – Downgrades aren’t the way to go in the finals – instead, you want the best! And in season 2009, Swan has been far-and-away the best! Get on him to sure up your finals campaign!

Get off: Nathan G Brown – Wasn’t the smokey many hoped he would be for the remaining rounds – will be lucky to make it through the next two rounds without being dropped for having that sickness that seems to be making all the Richmond stars unavailable to play – “Old”…

Injury: Brad Dick – Appeared to injure his shoulder late in the match and sat out most of the fourth quarter.

West Coast vs North Melbourne:

Despite playing two players down for most of the match, the young Eagles showed why they will be a force again in years to come. They were very well led by Adam Selwood who had a brilliant game, using the ball brilliantly and having it on a string all night – fingers crossed he is played more as an attacking midfielder rather than a tagger! Matt Priddis was also great for the home team, winning tonnes of ball from under the packs – he is a DT star and definitely one to consider strongly for either the last two weeks this year, or for season 2010. Another young gun for 2010 will be Tim Houlihan, who has been back in the squad about a month and has taken the game on ferociously – I really like the way he goes about it, and should amount to be a really good player if he keeps it up! For North, Liam Anthony was the star until three-quarter time when he seemed to tire and Captain Brent Harvey took over. With two hard games left, I wouldn’t be considering the Roos players for the next fortnight.

Get on: Adam Selwood – Could be an inspried choice if he can continue playing as an attacking midfielder. Strongly consider!

Get off: Lachie Hansen – One of the bigger DT disappointments of the year – has promised so much yet never consistently delivered. Maybe 2010 could be his year… although we did say that about 2009!

Injury: There were several to come out of the game; Chris Masten’s season is over after he injured his PCL. He will be joined by Mitch Brown who fractured his foot, and possibly Brad Ebert who will need scans to determine the extent of damage to his ribs.

Brisbane vs Western Bulldogs:

Whilst the Doggies showed some great signs that they had turned the corner from their poor form, the Lions looked like they may have turned the corner into some. The Dogs were able to keep the ascendancy for the full four-quarters, despite an attempted late comeback from the Lions and some injuries to key players. Again, it was a pretty even effort from the Dogs, meaning the points were evenly shared – only one player scored over 115, yet only four were below 50. Strangely though, the star for the first three quarters was not a bulldog, but Lion Mitch Clark – he played brilliantly, sitting in the defensive hole, pulling in many opponents’ kicks. But unfortunately, he went backwards in the last quarter, conceding more frees against than disposals. For the Dogs, Brad Johnson was terrific, despite a heavy corkie early in the match, and Jarrod Harbrow was great running off half-back, paying no respect to the lacklustre quality of small forwards the Lions possess. With the Dogs back in form, several of their players could be a massive key to your finals campaign!

Get on: Mitch Clark – was nearly on 100 points by three-quarter time – the footy he is playing is simply brilliant. He’s expensive, but worth every penny!

Get off: Scott Harding – Did stuff-all and allowed Harbrow to run off him all night – his spot is likely in jeopardy.

Injury: Several Dogs stars will need scans during the week to determine how bad their injuries are; Tom Williams has a suspected broken foot, and Brad Johnson should be ok after smashing his hip into the goalpost, but will still need scans.

Geelong vs Sydney:

The game of the round saw Geelong creeping back into some form and Sydney turning back the clock as a dominant force around the stoppages. Whilst all the talk has been about Ablett and his return to form, I want to buck the trend and say that his game was not all too fantastic (by his standards) – I will still be hesitant before making him my Captain again this season! But what I did respect about his game was how much he played it for all his DT coaches – his game was littered with easy possessions out the back and handball receives, and whilst he didn’t do much magic with them, this doesn’t bother us DT coaches – by our votes, this was the perfect game of AFL footy! He had some mates too, with Joel Corey stepping up and Andrew Mackie, who probably had his best game of the season. For the Swans, Adam Goodes continued his good recent form and Ryan O’Keefe battled through his close tag by Ling, still making his way to the ton – a feat rarely seen from one of Ling’s victims!

Get on: Gary Ablett – Whilst he’s not particularly in great form, the signs are there that he is on his way back. He is so cheap for what he offers and is a perfect target from any injured midfielder!

Get off: Matthew Stokes – Another poor game – as soon as he is made to work for his possessions or become accountable, he fades away. One of the major weaknesses in the Geelong line-up.

Injury: Travis Varcoe – injured his AC joint, putting him in doubt for this week.

Sunday:

Melbourne vs Fremantle:

Whilst is wasn’t too hard to expect Melbourne would win this one, it was certainly a surprise as to how much they dominated the match! They were well led by Aaron Davey who moved back into the midfield (his potential is being wasted off the half-back line!) and Matthew Bate who really looks like he is turning out to be quite a player over the past month or so. It would also be very hard to talk about this game and not mention the freak that is Liam Jurrah – he is going to be an absolute superstar sometime soon, if he isn’t already! He kicked four goals, including one of the goals of the year! For Fremantle, it was hard to find a case for many of the players – Pavlich tried hard despite a good tagging job by Dunn. Chris Mayne also looks super talented – it’s just a shame he is ruining his 2010 price with some fantastic games!

Get on: Matthew Pavlich – only for the fact he has a good run home – the Bombers, then Geelong (a team he dominated against earlier in the year). I would much prefer to recommend a Melbourne player, but Carlton and St.Kilda over the next fortnight is hardly tempting!

Get off: Brett Peake – When all else fails, and you can’t think who else to ‘get off,’ Brett Peake is your man!

Injury: None of concern

Port Adelaide vs Carlton:

Port Adelaide just about closed the door on their finals campaign with a poor second half showing to Carlton, with few good players to talk about. My favourite from Port though was Matt Thomas who swapped between tagging and attacking work and found plenty of the ball – he will be worth watching in 2010, especially if named as a defender! Shaun Burgoyne and Chad Cornes were also effective, but didn’t get enough of the ball to claim any DT plaudits. For Carlton, Fev again turned it on, booting six goals, and was brilliantly served by guns Marc Murphy and Bryce Gibbs – two players who are fast becoming the complete midfielder package – they mark, run, kick, tackle, and most importantly, kick goals! Those of us who don’t own them will be keeping our fingers crossed for a slow end to the season, keeping their 2010 prices as low as possible!

Get on:Marc Murphy – I love the way he goes about it, and how dangerous he can be across the whole ground. He loves a goal and is also a great tackler, earning him plenty of bonus DT points throughout his brilliant 30-disposal games!

Get off: Setanta O’hAilpin – Clearly has been reading too much of his own press – was absolutely smashed by Chad Cornes and will likely get some similar treatment from Nathan Bock come DT grand final.

Injury: Josh Carr – Gotta feel sorry for the guy – injured his ankle in the first quarter of his 200^th game. Chance to miss the rest of the season.

St.Kilda vs Essendon:

Part of me wants to state that this match never happened, but alas, it is my job to report what happened from an unbiased position (as hard as that may be!). Finally, the undefeated Saints’ incredible run came to a screeching halt thanks to a brilliant ‘Essendon’ style game – High risk, high reward. They were led by Jobe Watson from under the packs – he absolutely smashed Luke Ball – something not entirely easy to do! Angus Monfries was also pivotal up forward, kicking four majors in an important second quarter! If the Dons can keep this form up, they won’t just make it to the finals, but may influence it too! The same sort of form cannot be spoken about for the Saints – many players looked out of form (from the week off or extra training load perhaps?) – Sam Gilbert, Brendon Goddard, Nick Riewoldt and Zac Dawson looking the most effected. We will keep our fingers crossed that the Saints can bounce back with some massive scores over the next fortnight against North and Melbourne, now that we have all loaded up on many of their stars!

Get on: Jobe Watson – Seems to love playing the Saints as he always has a field-day against them! If his form can continue (and the Bombers continue to win), he could come home with a bang!

Get off: Luke Ball – I love Bally, but with spots tight at the Saints, he may again find himself losing his spot. He failed to even win his own ball – something typically expected of him.

Injury: The Bombers payed the price for their massive upset win with injuries to some key players – Dustin Fletcher (hamstring), Courtenay Dempsey (hamstring) and Paddy Ryder (knee) all looked quite sore and it is being reported that all three could miss the remaining two rounds. They will need scans to determine the full damage.

Expert: Dan
Team: Hank Scorpio EDT
Round 20 Score: 2063
Overall Ranking: 4,669
Trades Remaining: 0
Remaining Salary Cap: $4,500
Team Changes This Week: None

Expert: Toby
Team: Fiora’s Hardnuts
Round 20 Score: 1835
Overall Ranking: 413
Trades Remaining: 0
Remaining Salary Cap: $1,300
Team Changes This Week: None

Expert: Ben
Team: The Redbacks
Round 20 Score: 2068
Overall Ranking: 2,382
Trades Remaining: 0
Remaining Salary Cap: $34,800
Team Changes This Week: None

So a move Toby and I ridiculed Ben for a couple of weeks ago was actually a good call. He traded out Grimes. Well, it’s semi final week in Dream Team and Grimey is out for another 1-2. Call me pessimistic, but with three weeks to go, a history of back injuries and that sort of time frame the teams still in Dreamteam finals might not be able to afford his sort of point scoring sitting idle on the bench.

On top of that, St.Kilda are continuing their DT bastardry by listing all of their players as ‘assess’ on the injury list. If any of Goddard, Gilbert or Fisher don’t get up it’ll cause even more backline headaches right at the business end of our season. Don’t these coaches realise what’s at stake here?

Anyway, all that preamble is why I’ve targeted an underpriced defender this week, because I’ve got a feeling there will only be sporadic joy on Thursday night when teams are announced. If you’re unlucky enough to be light on in defence after team selection, have a good look at Paul Duffield.

I was remarkably close to writing about him a few weeks ago (when I did my Hargrave article). He’s very unique being in only 12,000 teams and after two bad weeks in a row (one in which he had a heavy tag applied to him) he’s dropped immensely in price. He’s actually fifth in averages for a defender this year and when one of those blokes ahead of him is Bowden, who has only played 11 games, you might as well consider him fourth. So for the fourth highest averaging player in any position you’d usually need to fork out a bit of coin.

Well, for the very low price of $323,200 you can drive away with a defender averaging 92.33. That’s almost $20K cheaper than the next defender averaging over 90.

A player’s fixture is pretty important at all times of the year, but it’s absolutely crucial with so few games to go. You wouldn’t want to trade in Lenny Hayes the week he plays Sydney for example! A glance over Duffield’s draw (I’m not even going to recognise Freo as a team…they can henceforth be known as Sandi/Pav/Duff/Broughts’ team) is pretty good reading.

Admittedly he’s not got a great history against Melbourne or Essendon, however he’s only played Melbourne once (back in his rookie year) so there’s no real evidence to suggest he doesn’t do well against them. He’s also only played Essendon twice and his last score against them was a solid 85 last season. Bear in mind that he’s had a massive breakout year this year, so history doesn’t matter as much with breakout players. For that reason I’m expecting him to score well against those two sides.

Round 22 is a much tougher assignment against Geelong, but I’ll back him in. He scored 123 against them earlier this year (his third highest score of 2009) so he’s shown he can find it against the Cats. The one concern I do have is that it’s down at Skilled Stadium, which can suck the DT points out of visiting sides. I’ll counter this with the positive that the ball will be down in Sandi/Pav/Duff/Broughts’ defensive end a hell of a lot. There’s two blokes back there who you know they’ll be getting the ball to at every chance. HINT: the second half of their new team name.

NEW TO FOOTY TRAGIC

• PART 1 – The “Submit Your Team” section as per normal;
• PART 2 -The NEW section where I unearth a hidden gem who I expect to make an impact in 2010. These players are under priced because they have been in the AFL system for 3 years or less (this week I have extended it to 5 years) and are still trying to establish themselves as AFL footballers. I’m looking for the next Andy Otten, Patrick Dangerfield, Mitchell Brown or Taylor Walker.  
  Dear Achy’s Army,

PART 1:

View Achy’s Army’s Team
Round 19 Score: 1,971
Current Overall Ranking: 3,756
Trades Left: 2
Remaining Salary Cap: $117,000

Thank you for submitting your team.

I must say that your team is looking in very good shape at this late stage of the season, with 28 of your 30 players strong chances of playing this week. The only players in your squad who appear certain to miss are Sam Jacobs and Sam Wright. Any team with 22 solid players and 3 emergencies this week is giving themselves every possible chance of progressing to Week 3 of the finals.

Depth in your squad is an often overlooked dreamteam fundamental. Your squad of 30 has depth in spades and I congratulate you for it. As I like to say, “Don’t give me excuses about injuries; give me depth in your squad”.

While I could recommend one upgrade in either your midfield (Ryan Griffen), or your forward line (Ryan Houlihan) using the surplus cash you have available, I don’t think it would be in your best interests. The upside of doing this would be most likely an additional 20 - 30 points this week. However, my advice would be to hold onto your trades, in case one of your premiums gets injured this week or in Round 21.

Having said that, I strongly recommend you do a full analysis of your opponent’s team prior to lockout. If you think you have him covered, definitely save your trades because you will be cooking with gas in Round 21 with $117,000 in the bank and two trades still up your sleeve.

As for the players who scored 0 last week, please note the following:

• Brendon Goddard is expected to return this week from his knee injury. Please note however that I suspect Goddard has got a legitimate knee injury, so he is not 100% certain to return.
• Peter Burgoyne is highly likely to return to AFL action after 28 possessions and 7 tackles in a dominant display for Port Adelaide in the SANFL last week.
• Beau Muston should also return to the Hawthorn line up after a best on ground performance for Box Hill in the VFL last week.
• Nick Riewoldt is certain to return this week from concussion.

PROPOSED ACTION THIS WEEK (WEEK 2 OF FINALS):

No change – save your trades for possible injuries to your premiums.

In conclusion, I love the choice of Mitch Clark as captain. Clark has come of age this year in the absence of Jamie Charman and Matthew Leuenberger in fine style. He’s been so impressive that he’s my smokey for All Australian back up ruckman (behind Aaron Sandilands). I was all over Clark and got him into my side for Dean Cox prior to Round 16. I discussed the possible replacements for Cox in my Round 16 “Submit Your Team” article (scroll below to check it out). For those who followed my advice and went with Clark over Hamish McIntosh, Darren Jolly, Drew Petrie and Kurt Tippett, you have been rewarded handsomely.

Good luck!

PART 2 (NEW):

Hidden gem Week 4: Robert Warnock – Carlton – Ruck – 2009 price $203,600;

2010 price $??? (It’s at the discretion of dreamteam headquarters but I’m hoping $150,000).

This week, I’ve gone searching for another ruckman. While this is the 2^nd week in a row I’ve gone for a 3^rd or 4^th ruck option, I make no apology for doing so. I’ve decided to again steer clear of midfielders, because they are too easy to find.

Traditionally, the rucks have been the most boring part of dreamteam. We all lock in Dean Cox, toss in a Aaron Sandilands, Hamish McIntosh or David Hille and forget about our 3^rd and 4^th rucks. While this strategy worked brilliantly in years gone by, many teams have come unstuck this year with it, including me.

Robert Warnock must surely be the most talked about 21 game player in AFL history. We all know that Carlton tried to move heaven and earth to ensure Warnock wore a navy blue jumper in 2009. The problem is, it’s Round 20 and Warnock still hasn’t played a game for the Blues. In this article, I’m going to tell you a little more about Warnock and try to explain exactly why Carlton were so keen to get him and why you should too.

Robert Warnock was drafted from the Sandringham Dragons by Fremantle with pick 42 in the 2005 National Draft. Warnock spent the entire 2006 season learning his craft at WAFL club West Perth. After 12 AFL matches for Fremantle in 2007 and 9 in 2008, Warnock wanted to return home. Warnock was particularly impressive in 2008 as he showed the footy world what he is capable of.

Carlton came knocking, got the trade done and allegedly signed Warnock on a 4 year, $1.6million contract. Now, let’s face it, nobody knows the capabilities of an AFL footballer better than an AFL club. No club, not even Carlton would offer an unproven player $400,000 per year, unless they were VERY confident that the boy could seriously play. It’s worth noting here that Fremantle also threw the chequebook at Warnock last year, but he rejected their offer.

We’re now approaching Round 20 and Warnock is yet to make his debut for Carlton. Warnock has played the last 3 games for the Northern Bullants in the VFL, but it appears unlikely Brett Ratten will bring him into the Carlton side on the even of the finals, after missing nearly 10 months with a foot / ankle injury. This is ideal from a dreamteam perspective, because it appears likely that we’ll be able to pick up Warnock next year for an absolute steal!

Warnock made the most of his time on the sidelines, adding 10kgs to his developing body. He is now listed as a 22 year old, 206cm, 106kg ruckman. I’m sure all the Carlton fans out there would love to see Matthew Kreuzer and Robert Warnock teaming up in the ruck for Round 1, 2010. With Warnock preparing to enter his 5^th AFL season in 2010, his star is about to shine.

Good luck Robert!

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

Please also advise if you’ll be considering Robert Warnock for your dreamteam in 2010.