Dear Footy Tragics,

With four weeks of exposed form behind us, dreamteam coaches around the country now have a clear picture of which players have been quality selections and which players have been dud selections. Everyone is now talking about which players they are going to trade in or out of their squad, which is why I’m going to take a closer look at trading this week.

Ideally, prior to Round 1, you should have placed each of your 30 players into one of the following three categories:

Premiums - Price range $350,000 plus;

Mid Priced Value Picks - Price range $180,000 - $350,000;

Cash Cows - Price range under $180,000.

The reason why we need to categorise our players into one of the above sections, is so we can set our expectations accordingly. When we set our expectations too high, it will inevitably lead to disappointment. A disappointed dreamteam coach is usually very quick to wield the axe on an underperforming player, simply because: “player X is killing me, he has to go”. These rash decisions are usually based on emotion rather than logic and many trades are wasted as a result.

We should expect our premiums (or keepers) to average at least 85 points per game. This figure is on the conservative side and more suitable when talking premium forwards or premium defenders. If you have loaded up in your midfield with elite premium midfielders such as Dane Swan or Gary Ablett, an average of 110 points per game should be expected.

Carlton Blues Training Session

If you forked out $470,000 on Bryce Gibbs or $453,400 on Joel Selwood, you have every right to be feeling slightly bemused by their relatively slow starts to the season. However, any thought of trading them out now would be madness. Gibbs and Selwood are both high quality midfielders in their fourth season of AFL footy. I expect both of them to fire up sooner rather than later. As the old saying goes “form is temporary, class is permanent”.

We should expect our mid priced value picks to average between 70 - 80 points per game, with anything more considered a bonus. Players such as Nick Malceski and Hayden Ballantyne have been excellent selections in 2010. However, after just 38 points and 29 points respectively in Round 4, many dreamteam coaches are preparing to wield the axe. I’m sure most coaches would have taken an average of 85 points per game from Malceski and 68 points per game from Ballantyne pre season.

When analysing mid priced value picks, we must take the good with the bad. I don’t believe any coach has the right to praise Malceski one week after scoring 119 points in Round 3 and then crucify him for scoring 38 points the next week. Overall, Malceski and Ballantyne have been great thus far, so put that axe away and show some faith.

Last, but certainly not least are our all important cash cows. Our cash cows are every bit as important as our premiums such as Jonathan Brown and Matthew Pavlich and they are often where the game (or car) is won or lost. First year AFL players such as Alex Silvagni, Ben Nason, Tom Scully, Jack Trengove, Dustin Martin, Ryan Bastinac, Mitch Duncan, Cameron Hitchcock and Carl Peterson have gone from being unknown 18 - 22 year old kids to core components of nearly 100,000 dreamteams in the space of just six months!

As expected, these first year players have some very good weeks, along with some average weeks. This should come as no surprise as the only thing consistent with first year players is their inconsistency. Unfortunately many dreamteam coaches act more like slayers than coaches as they wield that mighty axe after just one average game.

We should expect our cash cows to average between 55 - 65 points per game, with anything more considered a very nice bonus.

The worst thing a dreamteam coach can do is fritter away those all important trades due to a lack of patience. Before clicking that button to confirm one of your golden trades, ask yourself this all important question: “Am I making the right decision, or can I give my player one more week to redeem himself?”

Good luck!