Footy Tragic

Friday:

Fremantle vs Hawthorn: 

One of my favourite matches of the round saw the reigning premiers knock off perennial under-achievers… obvious result yeah? Well strangely not according to tipsters! Tipping aside, this game really put Pavlich into Dream Team calculations for me – the whole year he hasn’t won me over in his move to the midfield – strangely, I thought it would decrease his scoring capacity due to the foreseeable lack of marks. However, he was in blistering form in this game, throwing himself into every contest, going head-to-head with tackle-happy Brad Sewell. It was a fantastic dual, and any coaches wanting a new mid or forward would be silly to look past these two! Pavlich really looked like a man on a mission, and now in a team winning a few more games, he could be a very exciting addition to your team at just under $400,000. I am also really liking Paul Duffield, who is constantly used as a go-to man in the Freo midfield – but is not yet at a stage where he will be tagged – definitely consider him! For Hawks, Mitchell continued to play very wide of the contests (strangely), and McGlynn looked confident, and is yet to rise in price! Be wary though of his downside when senior Hawks start coming back into the team – See Travis Tuck’s 36! Another quick positive was Broughton from Freo – played a really strong, courageous game, constantly throwing himself into contests! Get on this week before his price sky-rockets!!!

Get on: Matthew Pavlich – As I said above, the Freo skipper looked like he is really getting into his new midfield role, and I can only see his scores rising!

Get off: Travis Tuck – Those who bought him round one were definitely taking a risk – and knew why – we are starting to see his downside as he is limited for chances.

Injury: David Mundy – Looked sore in the second half and spent considerable time on the pine – should be fine for this week. 

Saturday:

Melbourne vs. Western Bulldogs:

The Doggies should be signing Aker to as many years as he wants as he carried them over the line against cellar dwellers, Melbourne. However, it should be stated, Melbourne are much better than the team who many seem to picture in their place – they are definitely making big strides! All coaches were looking at two things in this game – would Shaun Higgins play? And is Jack Grimes going to back up his 109 from last week? The first question brought only disappointment through it’s answer, however, Jack Grimes answered many fantasy coaches prayers as he scored a respectable 95! He didn’t only score well, but played well too, meaning that his place in the side should definitely be kept (unless Melbourne want to annoyingly rest him as they did Bennell)! For the Dogs, Cooney didn’t really back up his BOG from last week, but he is still looking better for the run! Gilbee still looks great when not tagged… but I still worry that he is still going to come out with the odd 30! He is definitely a good backline target though!

Get on: Jack Grimes – I think every other 264,143 coaches are going to get him, so why shouldn’t you!? He looks good, and has a reasonable mix of outside/inside game.

Get off: Brad Miller – I wouldn’t want him having a set shot for my life! He is too inconsistent, and even a good game breeds an average score!

Injury: Robert Murphy – really disappointing, as he was just getting back some form – he has done a Hammy, and Bulldogs officials reckon it is a 2 – 3 week injury. 

Geelong vs North Melbourne: 

It must be nice as a football club to have your opposition forfeit before the first bounce, as North submitted Wells and Rawlings before the first bounce. And then Chappy withdrew from the Geelong team – definitely the lowlight of my weekend, and eventually what cost me my league game! Grrrr… Anyway, back on topic, Geelong simply smashed the Kangaroos, and had the DT scores to prove it! Stevie J moved to the midfield, scoring 124, without scoring a goal (I almost hope Ablett never comes back!!), and Bartel scored 139 – a game filled with 5 tackles, 34 possessions and 3 goals! Unreal! Even Scarlett broke the 100 (junk time people – so don’t get too excited!). For the Roos, not a single player broke the 100 mark, but it was H Mac who got the closest with 97 – he played a really good game, being the dominant big-man on the ground by quite a long stretch – though it wasn’t enough to carry the Kangas home… obviously! Also of note was the debuts of both Wright and Grima – Grima played as a dour defender, so is of no interest, however, Wright looked quite classy as promised, scoring a good goal when they were quite hard to get! It will be good to see him against easier competition in Freo.

Get on: Steve Johnson – He’s now screaming away in price, but there’s still time! He is a fantastic player, and with so much average opposition in the league this year, he is sure to give you plenty of massive scores!

Get off: Michael Firrito – Yeah, his move to the middle was good while it lasted, but good opposition generally find him out.

Injury: Darren Milburn – Injured his ankle early – the Cats are never going to risk anyone so may miss a week… but I doubt he will be out long… 

Brisbane vs Adelaide: 

Oh, what a boring match! Although apparently Adelaide are playing attacking football now!? Anyway, is it becoming very apparent that Adelaide players are not ones who you want in your dream team – they handball WAY too much, yet don’t over-possess it like Geelong or St.Kilda. I miss the days when they played kick-to-kick! That being said, they will still have a player or two get massive numbers, but it never seems to be consistently! For Brisbane, Justin Sherman played the game of his life – it was like in 2006, when he was one of the stand-out young players in the comp… but does anyone remember what he went on to do next? NOTHING!! I may be wrong here, but do not get sucked in until you are SURE this will be consistent… which may never come, unfortunately! Speaking of inconsistency, Travis Johnstone was next best on ground, showing great poise and skills… bemusing! Whilst it was players far from DT royalty leading the list, it was those popular choices at the bottom – Jono Brown didn’t back up his past two weeks, Power was well held, Scotty Thompson went home at half time (and made us wonder what has happened to him!) And Petrenko… well… don’t even get me started on Petrenko!

Get on: Jason Porplyzia – he is no premium, but is a reliable mid-priced option! If your life depended on someone kicking a goal, he would be your man!

Get off: Brent Reilly – A popular pre-season smokey hasn’t rewarded his coaches even once! Cut your losses…

Injury: Joel Patful – Broke his jaw and could be out for up to a month. Merrett injured his ankle, although finished the match and Brissie officials say he will line up against the Saints. 

Sydney vs West Coast: 

The 2005/2006 Grand Final rematch is always a good one, and you can always rely on the stars from back then to bring out their A-games, hence big scores from Bolton, Goodes, O’Keefe, Cox and Lynch! Some of these names are really good to see at the top of the list again, especially O’Keefe, who has been terribly out of form for the first part of this year, but is now starting to string some good games together! Josh Kennedy is really looking good – well, at least better than Hansen! He is probably too expensive for the risk at putting him into your team, however, if he keeps this up, he is definitely worth considering (but you would want to do it this week before his price rises!) Cockie owners would be happy at themselves for taking the punt, as he is looking quite good, and barring injury or suspension, should play most games for the rest of the year!

Get on: Ryan O’Keefe – I say this with a lot of trepidation in my voice – he is a BIG risk, but is looking back in form! At his current price, he could be too hard to pass up for those who know what he is capable of!

Get off: Mark Nicoski – I don’t know how he keeps his spot, but the Eagles are starting to disallow his attacking nature (for their own sake), causing less disposals.

Injury: None 

Sunday:

Port Adelaide vs Richmond: 

The battle for the league’s most inconsistent performer was won by Port, thanks to veteran full-forward, Warren Tredrea! And as I predicted last week, Travis Boak picked up the slack left by Salopek and K Cornes (who played, but barely!), gathering 25 disposals and 9 tackles… it must be said though, that he wasn’t particularly effective, but it’s Dream Team, so WHO CARES!? For Richmond, the sound of Mark Coughlan’s 111 was music to the ears for all the coaches who picked him up last week! He looked really good, and was Richmond’s best player! There wasn’t particularly any other standouts for either team, however, on a disappointing note, Nathan Krakouer scored in the 40s for the 2^nd week in a row, pulling his price back $25,000! I personally am very tempted to trade him, however, it must be said, Richmond don’t tend to leak too many points to the opposition rebounding defenders, due to their game plan. So we can hope he will rebound back (no pun intended) next week against Sydney.

Get on: Travis Boak – like last week, I feel his scoring potential was always massive, but without a couple of Power’s more senior members, it is even greater!

Get off: Nathan Krakouer – despite my reasoning above, I think his time is up – ideally, you would have traded him last week, but remember, you have still made $85,000 out of him!

Injury: Kane Cornes – In hindsight, probably shouldn’t have played and was in the wars all match… still, we hope he is back next week! 

Collingwood vs Carlton: 

What was anticipated to be one of the big matches of the round ended up being a training drill for Carlton. They were on top all day, with Chris Judd the best of ground by a county mile! He is looking so much better than the past couple of years, and a player who was once more just a supercoach star, has also become a consistent DT one too! Speaking of Elite DT players, Dane Swan was well down on what is generally expected of him, and his price will be one to watch over the next couple of weeks as it begins to drop – he has amazing scoring potential, and you NEED him in your team! A couple of players who will one day be elite played their second games – each with varying effect – Steele Sidebottom had a reasonable match without setting the world on fire (yet!), doing his bit for the team – he should get better with some more support around him. Chris Yarran was the other second gamer – like last week, he was clean when the ball was in his hands, but it just didn’t make it to him enough! We know he will eventually be a big scorer, but potentially it may not be this season, especially with Eddie Betts in such dominating form!

Get on: Chris Judd – he is playing his inside and outside games to perfection and is a thrill to watch! The key member of the Blues midfield – if they’re winning games, its been in his hands a lot!

Get off: Anthony Corrie – read my comments from last week – just doesn’t match it with the intensity of the game.

Injury: Collingwood… Hopefully they will start coming back in the coming weeks, but as it sits, they’re not going to win many games without their stars! 

St.Kilda vs Essendon: 

As a Saints supporter, this was the match I’ve been the most worried about all season – and my fear was supported by a fantastic showing by the Dons. But still, it was the Saints perseverance that got them the game! And as I have said plenty of times before – the one thing you can be assured about with the Saints is that it is always going to be the same few players performing week in, week out – in fact, I base my team around that! And those players are Brendon Goddard, Nick Riewoldt and Lenny Hayes – then the support cast of Montagna and Sam Fisher. For Essendon, Jobe Watson was great, as his score suggests, and much to the surprise of Essendon supporters, he was generally quite accurate with his disposal! It was pretty obvious that any player with speed was going to be the ones to score large in this game, as proven by the scores of Lovett, Dempsey, Dyson and Winderlich. This is often the case against the Saints, as they often have trouble containing faster players.

Get on: Lenny Hayes – Brilliant again… I just wish I had him! And please note, he was tagged, yet still reached 147 points! And don’t be surprised by this!

Get off: Bachar Houli – Scored respectably, however, the quality was very low, making me wonder about his position in the side when the likes of McVeigh, Welsh and Prismall, etc come off the injury list…

Injury: Paddy Ryder – Spent the last quarter on the bench having his hammy worked on… probably fine – they didn’t use ice, which is generally used if they’re concerned.

Check out this week’s selection video here

Expert: Dan
Team: Hank Scorpio EDT
Round 8 Score: 1,878
Overall Ranking: 5,834
Trades Remaining: 13
Remaining Salary Cap: $30,100
Team Changes This Week: None

Expert: Toby
Team: Fiora’s Hardnuts
Round 8 Score: 1,838
Overall Ranking: 997
Trades Remaining: 13
Remaining Salary Cap: $153,400
Team Changes This Week:
In: Stevie Johnston, Steele Sidebottom
Out: Hayden Skipworth, Ryan Houlihan

Expert: Ben
Team: The Redbacks
Round 8 Score: 1,927
Overall Ranking: 5,891
Trades Remaining: 12
Remaining Salary Cap: $63,600
Team Changes This Week:
In: Jack Grimes, Stevie Johnston
Out: Luke Hodge, Jack Ziebell

I’m guessing by now everyone has holes everywhere, but given how common Rance is, I’m going to have a look at Jack Grimes this week. OK, now first of all, going Rance to Grimes would be a pretty ugly sideways trade, but depending on your trade situation it might make a bit of sense. Rance isn’t the only concern in the backline, so covering for 0′s might be high on the agenda this week.

Grimes is a good option for a couple of reasons. As I discussed on the selection video a couple of weeks ago, I’m not a big fan of trading guys in around the $200K price range, however value is value. Grimes is a natural ball magnet, has a game well suited to DT and plays in a position where the ball will be a lot – the Melbourne backline.

He was a huge ball winner in juniors, which is largely what you’d have to consider when looking at him given that he hasn’t played a heap of footy over the last couple of years. The good news is that he showed last week that he appears ready to translate his same game to AFL level. He’s not particularly noted for his disposal, but hey, for Dream Team I can live with that. A kick is still worth three points and any turnover means the ball is coming back to where he’s standing.

The Demons will be keen to get a lot of games into him, because leadership is something that was mentioned from the time he was drafted – certainly a player they’ll be building their future around, so job security shouldn’t be an issue if he can keep his body right. His injuries over the last couple of years have been back related, so we can only hope that he’s worked his way through them completely.

I can certainly see Rance to Grimes being a pretty popular move this week, given the timing of Rance’s injury and Grimes’ massive first game of 2009 (109 points). As I mentioned earlier, it’s a very sideways trade, which could be deemed a waste (conventional wisdom would say you either downgrade Rance to a rookie priced player or try and upgrade him to a keeper if you can spare the cash). It’s an ugly situation, but Rance was looking pretty close to maxing out in price at exactly $200,000. Grimes is pretty close, priced at $186,400, but he’s got a fair bit more scoring potential than what Rance had pre-injury anyway.

It wouldn’t be beyond comprehension for Grimes to go up about $100K and all going well if he gets to that point, he might give you enough cash for an upgrade to a keeper, or just turn out to be a handy reserve for your backline. Let’s face it, the backline isn’t exactly swimming with potential rookie trade-in targets (unless Matthew Broadbent makes his debut for Port soon – one to definitely keep an eye on!). So as reactive as trading Grimes in may look, I think he provides a bit of flexibility in what you can do with him for the rest of the year.

At the end of the day, if you’re in trouble with 0′s this week and your backline is a particularly pressing need AND you don’t have much cash, Grimes would make sense to trade in.

View Antwerp Specials’ Team
Current Overall Ranking: 34,256
Trades Left: 9
Remaining Salary Cap: $111,500

Dear Antwerp Specials 

Thank you for submitting your team. 

My main concern is your lack of trades remaining. With 15 rounds remaining, you only have 9 trades left! I like to use golfing parlance to determine how many trades you should keep up your sleeve throughout the year. In an ideal world, you should aim to stay “on par” i.e. retain 1 trade for every week remaining in the season. With the recent spate of injuries to key dreamteam players over the last 4 weeks, I could accept 2 over the card, but definitely not 6 over the card! 

My advice now will be structured towards helping you nurse your current squad through to Round 22, with 1 trade up your sleeve for the Grand Final. That gives you 8 trades to use over the next 14 weeks. I have broken this down into 3 phases for you. 

Phase 1 – From Rounds 8 – 14, aim to use a maximum of 3 trades. If this means playing with 21 for a couple of weeks, swallow your pride & cop it on the chin. However, never go in with 20 players or less because you are virtually conceding defeat when you are down by 2 or more soldiers. If one of your premium players picks up a 2 – 3 week injury during this period, keep him. 

Phase 2 – From Rounds 15 – 18, aim to use a maximum of 2 trades. This is where things will get tough because some of your cheap youngsters will be dropped from their respective sides. On top of this, there is always the ever-present threat of injuries. During this phase, keep any premium players who pick up a 1 – 2 week injury. 

Phase 3 – Rounds 19 – 22 – Finals time! Assuming you follow my advice above, you should now be back on “par”, with 4 trades up your sleeve. Aim to use 1 trade per week from here on. 

Now, it’s time to look at your current squad of 30 players. The only players in your squad who are unlikely to play AFL football in 2009 are Ayce Cordy & Scott Gumbleton. However, this doesn’t mean you should automatically trade them. With Cordy, my advice is to leave him because the 4^th ruck spot is pretty much useless. 

With Gumbleton, hold fire until a suitable replacement bobs up. The most likely replacement would be either Steele Sidebottom from Collingwood or Chris Yarran from Carlton. Both of these boys were very impressive in their Round 7 debuts. Have another look at them in Round 8, before inserting one of them into your side prior to Round 9. Please refer to my Submit Your Team article 2 weeks ago, for a more comprehensive analysis of both Sidebottom & Yarran. Looking back, I’m quite chuffed with myself for pumping both of these boys up 1 ½ weeks before they debuted! Needless to say, neither Sidebottom nor Yarran let me down, as they were both very impressive! 

As for Ryan Houlihan, I expect him to be back into the Carlton side sooner rather than later. Gavin Urquhart & Shaun Higgins are due to return this week also. 

PROPOSED ACTION THIS WEEK: 

NO trades. Time to take a deep breath & hold fire! 

In conclusion, let’s aim to get back to “even par” by Round 19, or at the very worst, “2 over”. Although you found the water & notched up a few “double bogeys” on the front nine, do not despair. The season is only 7 rounds old. You have 4 weeks to steady the ship, before charging home on the back nine. 
 

Good luck!