Discussion Official 2021 Fantasy Planning Thread

[WaynesWorld19]

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[Shadow89]

As an aside I think almost all rucks are a tad overpriced this year. More stoppages and less game time meant the best rucks spent nearly all game on ground in 2020.

I get where ya coming from, but honestly, Grundy is probably 10 points underpriced given what he's capable of in longer 'endurance' based quarters. McEvoy is the only other one who I think could make a huge improvement, based on his price, but he won't, given how he's only apparently been training in defence all pre-season

 

[Illeagle]

Hickey has averaged 74 combined for the four seasons before last and rarely been the main ruck in that time. He's never had an extended period as the solo ruck (NN, Vardy, Marshall, Longer etc).
If Hickey has all the ruck time he wants (likely imo) he will go higher than 74. 80 seems quite reasonable. Yes he's a rubbish player but so are lots of the other rucks who I think will average 80. He just happens to be 150k cheaper than most of them.

You pick him and then you need to watch him hoping he'll score for you. As an Eagles fan, i know, you don't want to have to be barracking for Tom Hickey.
He's just no good.
The Eagles have NN who's had basically one uninterrupted season in the last 3 or 4, with basically no depth and they still got rid of him. He's a bad player. He's a bad fantasy player, and he's a trap.

 

[PAFC27]

If you start Hickey then you must also start Marshall. My mother would always tell me to cover a Hickey.

 

[JADED]

You pick him and then you need to watch him hoping he'll score for you. As an Eagles fan, i know, you don't want to have to be barracking for Tom Hickey.
He's just no good.
The Eagles have NN who's had basically one uninterrupted season in the last 3 or 4, with basically no depth and they still got rid of him. He's a bad player. He's a bad fantasy player, and he's a trap.

Hickey has tonned up on the odd occasion. I'd say he'll make a bit of money and that's the goal.
No one is picking cheap rucks thinking they'll get lucky and score an R1/2 for basement price.
It's just weighing up a solo ruck vs cheap fwd/def and relying on them to score.

Say you have
Grundy & Cummings,
Or Lloyd and Preuss.
Everyone is compromising somewhere to gain elsewhere so whilst I'll still frown at my 60pt rucks, I just HAVE to remember that those points went to having Lloyd, Merrett, Gaff etc..

FWIW, I have shit rucks (O'Mac & Preuss this week) and a shit fwd line.
If I grow cold on Jeremy Cameron, I'll upgrade to ROB or Grundy (again)
I think ROB will have a massive first 5 weeks, but also feel similar for Cameron, first up against Adelaide and then Geelong's huge run of games at home.

 

[WaynesWorld19]

 

[PAFC27]

View attachment 1055431

That’s significant news. Averaged 80+ as a forward.

 

[WaynesWorld19]

That’s significant news. Averaged 80+ as a forward.

You'd think his motivation levels will be high too, as he tries to send a message to his former club

 

[TedDougChris]

That’s significant news. Averaged 80+ as a forward.

My concern is (and you can have a concern about everyone this time of year) is that - do North panic - if they get a run of losses - and switch Ziebell, Cunnington etc back into the middle if things are going badly... ??

 

[JDWCE]

My concern is (and you can have a concern about everyone this time of year) is that - do North panic - if they get a run of losses - and switch Ziebell, Cunnington etc back into the middle if things are going badly... ??

My concern is that I don't think North's midfield is without depth. I'm struggling to see how Stephenson gets all that mid time when he has weapons closer to goal. North midfield as I see it:

C: Dumont, Cunnington, Polec
R: Goldstein, LDU, Simpkin
I: Anderson, Phillips

I can see Stephenson lining up at HFF and having stints through the middle. Unless he takes a wing spot instead of someone like Polec?

 

[Freo_4eva]

Rocking with Duggan at D2?

Laird, L.Ryan, Duggan, ZWil D1-4

Wowee

 

[Thetrader15]

View attachment 1055440

You'd think his motivation levels will be high too, as he tries to send a message to his former club

$470k just seems too hard to fit him in, even if he is value.

The other option is to go all value at the start of the year, no maxed out players. Then start your upgrades after week 6 and see if you can claw your way back up the rankings.

 

[WaynesWorld19]

$470k just seems too hard to fit him in, even if he is value.

The other option is to go all value at the start of the year, no maxed out players. Then start your upgrades after week 6 and see if you can claw your way back up the rankings.

I'm taking a different approach in SC to that of AFL Fantasy

SC is more MPM with 4 on-field Rookies ....Fantasy more GnR , as prices on the mid-pricers like Stephenson, Cunnington, Hately, and Heppell are too expensive

IMO the Premiums are so overpriced, it's too hard to get to 3-4 Rookies

 

[PAFC27]

Stephenson averaged 80 as a forward pushing high up the flanks. Collected bags of marks in 2019 in the Collingwood kick mark system - a majority of his score was generated this way and through hitting the scoreboard. At North they don’t play kick mark football and Stephenson will allegedly be further from goal. The scoring dries up IMO.

 

[Thetrader15]

Stephenson averaged 80 as a forward pushing high up the flanks. Collected bags of marks in 2018 in the Collingwood kick mark system - a majority of his score was generated this way and through hitting the scoreboard. At North they don’t play kick mark football and Stephenson will allegedly be further from goal. The scoring dries up IMO.

I'm really interested to see what sort of game plan Noble installs with the Roos. It could be great or terrible fantasy wise.

 

[Zevon]

Stephenson averaged 80 as a forward pushing high up the flanks. Collected bags of marks in 2018 in the Collingwood kick mark system - a majority of his score was generated this way and through hitting the scoreboard. At North they don’t play kick mark football and Stephenson will allegedly be further from goal. The scoring dries up IMO.

Yeah I’m happy to take a wait and see approach at his price. If the role and scoring is there in the first 2-3 weeks then I’ll jump on him at a still-value price but starting with him is just too much of risky unknown IMO

 

[Jessbek]

My concern is that I don't think North's midfield is without depth. I'm struggling to see how Stephenson gets all that mid time when he has weapons closer to goal. North midfield as I see it:

C: Dumont, Cunnington, Polec
R: Goldstein, LDU, Simpkin
I: Anderson, Phillips

I can see Stephenson lining up at HFF and having stints through the middle. Unless he takes a wing spot instead of someone like Polec?

Will Phillips be in there?

 

[JDWCE]

Stephenson averaged 80 as a forward pushing high up the flanks. Collected bags of marks in 2018 in the Collingwood kick mark system - a majority of his score was generated this way and through hitting the scoreboard. At North they don’t play kick mark football and Stephenson will allegedly be further from goal. The scoring dries up IMO.

Outside players in lower ranked teams are always going to be the first to feel the pinch as well. Personally think he improves but by how much is the question and there's a lot of other value around those $$'s

Will Phillips be in there?

North board seem bullish on him playing from the get go. But I agree, both he and Powell are no guarantee like a lot of teams are banking on. Might take an injury or two. North still have players like Hall, Scott, L Young .etc. who can run through the middle too.

 

[kozi]

Let’s talk interchange cap. How do we think it will actually effect player scoring? Is the impact going to be significant enough to warrant basing some selections on? Will it have any impact at all? For this discussion let’s assume it’s the former. Granted it’s only 30 less rotations per game however the knock on effects could end up impacting player scoring more than we think.

At the end of the day it all comes down to how coaches want to play it. And when you have crazy cats like Horse and Bevo in the big seat it’s anyones guess how they’ll approach it. My take is there’s two routes, or perhaps a hybrid of both:

1) Most of the 75 are still used on midfielders with forwards/defenders seeing less rotations. This is what the AFL wants as defenders and forwards will be covering a bit less ground, aka staying put more, aka there will be less congestion through the middle. This route surely favours your Whit/Gaff/Duncan types as there’s sure to be more space and less stoppages. Players like Lloyd/Stew/Doch would see an increase, but they’ll also be conserving slightly more energy so maybe less sprinting to the open flanks for the easy +6?

2) Interchanges are spread out similar to what they are now with the best ~18 seeing an increase and the bottom end (rookies) getting shafted. While this means engine room players will have an overall ToG increase, they could have less time on ball. Player X inside mid who normally has 80% ToG as a pure on baller may be bumped to 90%, but may only play 60-70% of his usual time on ball. Maybe some players will just have their usual rotations and the -15 will come at the expense of others? If coaches go down this route do players that can can still score well playing forward become more valuable? Will it mean those uber priced midfielders who score almost all their points on ball start to look slightly overpriced?

No matter how you slice it, the more impact it ends up having the more high endurance and versatile players who can get theirs inside/outside and forward will be favoured. Then there’s the whole argument of whether endurance athletes will be even more favoured at the selection table over skilled players bringing the overall skill level of the comp down, but we’ll leave that to the other boards!

 

[bl4ke]

Surely Collingwood will be the club providing us with some juicy rookies this year. Rantall, Murphy, Kelly, Macrae, Henry, Poulter could all likely get games. I'm particularly keen on the highlighted three.

 

[adonski]

Is Will Phillips worth the cash? Doubt he'll be a Rowell/Walsh type scoring wise. Is it worth paying up the extra cash purely for job security? The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of starting a Downie in his place and pocketing the extra cash.

 

[Thetrader15]

Is Will Phillips worth the cash? Doubt he'll be a Rowell/Walsh type scoring wise. Is it worth paying up the extra cash purely for job security? The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of starting a Downie in his place and pocketing the extra cash.

Great job security, will go about 70. Lock!

 

[FlowersByIrene]

Is Will Phillips worth the cash? Doubt he'll be a Rowell/Walsh type scoring wise. Is it worth paying up the extra cash purely for job security? The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of starting a Downie in his place and pocketing the extra cash.

At this stage he is a body.

 

[happy_eagle]

Wanted to look at the whole "you should have Marshall F1" if you are rolling with Preuss argument to see what strength it holds. The first thing to note is that this only becomes relevant if Preuss goes down or gets dropped for Mumford. So all the discussion below is on the assumption that this happens before Preuss hits a reasonable selling price.

If Preuss goes down early on, there are only three things you can do.
1. Hold Preuss
2. Downgrade Preuss
3. Upgrade Preuss

Hold Preuss
You would only likely be doing this if he had been scoring well prior, and was only going to miss 1 match.

With Marshall F1
Process is quite simple. Swap Marshall with your R3 and play a forward rookie on the ground in the absence of Preuss. You are still playing a rookie on the ground you wouldn't have been playing before, so this just really saves you the use of a trade.

Without Marshall F1
Most coaches would probably trade Preuss in this scenario, but you could realistically sideways trade one of your forwards to a RUC DPP and perform the swap with R3 for that given week. This creates the exact same outcome you would have had with Marshall (an additional rookie on ground), except you needed to burn a trade to get there.

In regards to holding Preuss, I honestly don't mind the ad-hoc without Marshall approach as you aren't committed to taking a potentially lower scoring FWD/RUC until you absolutely need to. The opportunity cost is the use of a trade.

Downgrade Preuss
Cash in Preuss, in order to upgrade somewhere else.

With Marshall F1
You can downgrade Preuss to either a cheap ruck (if they exist) or cheap forward (Marshall to R2). In this scenario you are still ending up with an additional on-field rookie by downgrading Preuss, it is just going to (probably) be in the forward line rather than the ruck. Your net rookie position on ground is not going to improve by downgrading on field players.

Without Marshall F1
This is where you become limited. Unless there is a sideways or cheaper playing ruck you really have no options in downgrading.

Definitely better to have Marshall if you need to downgrade Preuss, although I would question whether downgrading an on field player is a good move in the first place.


Upgrade Preuss
Downgrade someone else, and use the cash to upgrade Preuss

With Marshall F1
You still need to downgrade elsewhere, but Marshall gives the ability to upgrade Preuss to either a Ruck or a Forward. Provides more trade targets.

Without Marshall F1
You still need to downgrade elsewhere, but unless your downgrade created a fwd/ruc dpp link, you will need to upgrade Preuss to a ruck. If this is happening early on in the season, you can rule out Gawn so you will likely be upgrading Preuss to a mid range ruck option of which there seem to be a few this year (OMac, Nank, Draper).

I think the value in mid range rucks this year and the fact you would have options to upgrade Preuss to in the rucks, doesn't make starting with Marshall essential in this regard. If Preuss goes down early on in the year, you aren't going to have the type of cash generation to get to an elite forward or ruck, so you will likely be upgrading to a 400-500k player, of which there are options on both lines.


tl;dr starting with Marshal at F1 will certainly give greater flexibility if Preuss goes down early, but at what cost if he is only going to maintain his average at best compared to others around that price ?

 

[Cotchy9]

Marshall is a top 6 forward in any case, so even without the ruck insurance he’s a great pick. Still relatively young in big man terms so could improve to 100+

 

[adonski]

Is Marshall worth 140k more than Heeney?