There comes a time early in the season, in just about every team, where you regret a few pre-season decisions – you’ve taken a punt on a player who never improved, or you blew your budget to lock in a premium who has so far done less than the player you have sitting on your bench… So round five onwards seems to be the time where you begin to ditch these failed experiments and leaky premiums for greener pastures – you look at players who are averaging 110 points (who you nearly had in your team before round one) and you wish you had enough money to afford them. But then you look a little bit down the list at players already well below their starting price, the players whom other coaches are wishing they didn’t start in their teams. But unlike your dud player, these other players have dropped for a variety of other reasons – an early injury in one game, a really hard tag in another, or possibly the team around them just got off to a really slow start. But the beauty of these players is that you know they are going to come good again – they averaged well over 100 last year, and if it weren’t for a couple of poor games to start 2010, they would be averaging 100 again now. These premium players, who may have already dropped in excess of $50,000 are the types you should be targeting right now – you will be getting them at bargain basement price, and often you are well aware of what you are going to get out of them for the remainder of the season. So this week I will look at two falling premium forwards; Alan Didak and Steve Johnson – historically they are both DT stars, but so far in 2010 they haven’t been any better than average – but lucky for you, I believe things are about to change!

Alan Didak:

Didak started the season with a price of marginally over $450k, but after four weeks he has already lost his owners $59k, meaning he is currently priced at the very affordable $392,400. The reason behind his early season plummet is taggers – whilst in round one against the Dogs Didak player well, scoring a very good 111 points, in round two it was form that was the issue – like most of the Pies, he just couldn’t get into the game (This was when they narrowly defeated the resilient Demons). Weeks three and four, Clint Jones and Gary Moss followed him around the ground, each doing a fair job at curtailing his influence, a fact that could certainly read as either good or bad – good because it is not a form issue behind his low scoring, bad because it is proving that he is the main target of taggers in the Pies lineup. Fortunately though, Didak does have some fairly good support around him to potentially take the pressure off – all of Pendlebury, Swan, Davis and Thomas have the potential to cop the opposition’s number one tagger for the game. If we shoot back 12 months to Didak’s 2009 season, we can see that he didn’t really hit his straps until his 6th game of the season – 127 points against Melbourne. From then until round 22, Didak averaged 110 points, and only dropped below 90 points twice. So he is certainly capable of having some big games, and plenty of them in a row. The fact that Collingwood is only now starting to hit their straps is also an encouraging factor – against both Melbourne and St.Kilda they were very flat and the entire team scored appropriately – so it was not just Dids who copped a low score. Also, his game was actually not too bad – he was well held, but he did show signs that he is not far off his dominant form. So whilst he is often the subject of tagger’s attention, he has proven in the past that he has the workrate (and the team around him) to combat this.

As it stands, Didak has probably one more week until he hits his lowest price – he has a breakeven of 134 points, so at the very best he is still likely to drop down some more – 100 points will see him slashed a further $15,000 or so. At this price, Didak is worth the gamble – he is a great DT player and has the runs on the board to prove it. His team is currently coming out of a rut and into some form which should help carry his average upwards.

Key Stats 2010:

Kick : handball ratio – 1.4 : 1

Average Marks per game: 2.5

Average Goals per game: 1.75

Average Disposals per game: 21.75

Breakeven: 134

Average Dream Team Points: 84

Price: $392,400

Key Stats 2009:

Kick : handball ratio – 2.4 : 1

Average Marks per game: 5.1

Average Goals per game: 1

Average Disposals per game: 25.5

Average Dream Team Points: 103

Steve Johnson:

Stevie J is a notoriously slow starter to the season. In 2008 he averaged 71 points in the first four rounds before averaging 93 for the season, and in 2009 a dry patch from rounds 3 and 6 saw his price drop when he averaged 87 points. Again in 2010, the average for his first four games has been 86 points, forcing his price to drop by $45,000. But his 103 points (thanks to a bag of six goals) in round four is proof that he is coming back into form. Johnson’s issue has not so much been taggers (although he was well held by Broughton in round 3) as it has been fitness. As many coaches would know, Johnson’s 2009 season was cut short at the business end thanks to ongoing issues with his hip – it caused him to miss six of the last nine games and then a large portion of the pre-season. Like many of his teammates, Johnson was put on a very low-grade training program in the off-season to ensure he came into the season well rested. Whilst these sorts of programs can prove effective at preventing injuries, the side-effect is that it will generally take a few weeks for players to get satisfactory match fitness up. Now, Johnson’s few weeks of regaining fitness appear to be up and his six goals on the weekend have gone a long way to proving he is back in touch. The only worry is that he spent very little time venturing upfield to win ball in the midfield – whilst one can assume that this is again related to his fitness, there is the worry that perhaps his hip is hindering more than Geelong would care to let on and therefore there is a chance he could be bound to the forward line for the majority of the year so as to make sure he does not re-injure the hip. When he is up and going, Johnson is brilliant to watch, and scores you plenty of DT points. I am pretty confident that his form (and DT points) will return as his fitness continues to build (and Geelong get on a bit of a role), however a part of me does throw caution to the wind – I am still a bit worried that his hip issue that Geelong say ‘disappeared’ in the off-season may come back to bite both him and the coaches that pick him up in the bottom… Perhaps just be sure to have a trade up your sleeve for the business end of the season…

Key Stats 2010:

Kick : handball ratio – 1.77 : 1

Average Marks per game: 4.75

Average Goals per game: 2.75

Average Disposals per game: 18.75

Breakeven: 118

Average Dream Team Points: 86.25

Price: $391,900

Key Stats 2009:

Kick : handball ratio – 2.5 : 1

Average Marks per game: 6.2

Average Goals per game: 2.22

Average Disposals per game: 20

Average Dream Team Points: 99