Player of the Week: Matthew Priddis (160)
Ok, ok we were wrong. Not only did the Paddle Pop Lion step up and fill the void left by Daniel Kerr, he also filled up the Chris Judd-void as well…
Five weeks ago he looked like he might get pushed out as we edged closer to the finals. But due to Ben Cousins, Judd, Chad Fletcher and Kerr all missing games in this period he has recaptured his early season form. Don’t expect this to change at home against Essendon, who have one of the poorer midfields going around.
Biggest Disappointment: Michael Johnson (29)
Johnson was one of the steals of the 2006 season, but he has failed to reach the same dizzying heights in 2007. A 29 this week was his worst output of the season, and he has averaged only 57 since Mark Harvey took over. This is down on his average of 68 for the season – both are incredibly disappointing figures.
Other points of interest:
- Two goals, 9 points and a couple of out of bounds to boot - if that isn’t enough to frustrate a DT coach I don’t know what is. Yet Buddy Love still manages to rack up 113 Dream Team points. We forecast that if he actually managed to kick straight he would have scored something like 170 and could have featured as this week’s star… Maybe he should pick himself next year and he might kick a bit straighter!
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Player of the Week: Kane Cornes (164)
Not only did Kane win lunch from his brother Chad this week, but he also collected the much-sought-after Talking Points Player of the week. 38 possessions, 14 marks and three goals will get that for you. A smart coach would have had one of the midfielders from the Hawthorn - Port game as a captain this week, with both teams always playing a loose high-possession game. This is the fourth time in the past six outings that Kornes has topped the 30 possession mark.
Honourable mentions: Jimmy Bartel (146), Andrew Carrazzo (139), Josh Carr (136), Quinten Lynch (129)
Biggest Disappointment: Brendan Fevola (15)
The Fevolution has played his last game for the year apparently, and what a way to go out! Coming off 81, 97, 92, 114 and 92, the enigmatic Fevola struggled even before getting injured just before half time. He did play the whole final quarter, so there is no excuse for 15 measly points. I imagine he cost a few managers a win in the finals this week.
Other points of interest:
- Robert Harvey (48) and Luke Ball (44) were casualties for the Saints against Fremantle. Look out for players such as Leigh Montagna, Nick Dal Santo and Lenny Hayes to get a bit more attention next week when deciding your captain if both Harvey and Ball fail to come up.
- The ‘slow’ Collingwood midfielder responded to Mick Malthouse’s postgame bake last week with Tarkyn Lockyer (76), Scott Burns (100) and Dane Swan (94) all having a decent games, but don’t expect this to be replicated against Sydney next week. For Melbourne, James McDonald and N.D Brown both put up more than handy scores of 126.
Tagger Watch:- Brett Kirk: The shaggy one had the job on West Australia’s finest, Simon Black. Black could only manage 48 well down on his average of 83 whilst Kirk was able to compile a decent score of 77
- Tyson Stenglein: Axel Foley wasn’t going to be allowed to go head to head against West Coast this game. The Steinleigner bottled Foley up all game, 58 points being his lowest outing of the year. With Adam Selwood taking the elite half forward flankers Steinleign has gone back to playing in the middle and taking the premier onballers. Expect him to take Dal Santo or Hayes this week.
To read more, and leave comments, go to:
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Richmond recruit Troy Simmonds, who has been mooted for some time now as a lock for 2008 fantasy sides of all types, has come down with a clot in his lung which was part of complications surrounding an “energy-sapping virus” that affected his heart. He will not only miss the rest of the season, the nature of this ailment could put into question his status as next year’s bargain-priced equivalent of Ben Hudson.
Poor luck for Simmo and Tiger fans, to be sure, but there is no room for sentiment in the hearts of fantasy coaches. Will you take a punt on a player who shows the ability to find new and fascinating ways to miss games? Or will you shy away from even the hint of susceptibility to injury, and stick to players who have proven themselves to stay fit as an ox for 22 weeks straight?
- Player of the Week: Matthew Pavlich (168)… With a total of 30 touches and 6 goals, Pav is the winner of the player of the week. The Big Pavlova scored a massive 168
- Biggest Disappointment: Jared Brennan (20)… For those who finally thought he had come of age, Jared could barely get near the ball
- It was a very high scoring Dream Team, week with more than 50 players scoring over 100 points. Matthew Priddis (115) responded to our criticism of his haircut and welcomed a little more time in the midfield with Chris Judd down forward. He posted a decent score as he was consistently doing earlier in the season. With Matt Rosa (134) and Daniel Kerr (112) all scoring well it shows how good the Eagles midfield is. Those looking to strengthen their gun team for the finals may want to take note of these names.
- As mentioned last week, Daniel Gilmore is in a bit of a purple patch with the Sandiman out, scoring 126, well up on his average of 77. Would have been excellent trade potential if he was listed in the ruck rather than a centre/back. One to watch for next year, even with Sandi back.
- Wayde Skipper (62) is on the downslide and was not the bargain that the 4,348 players were hoping he was. Daniel Giansiracusa suffered a shoulder injury and his score of 18 reflects this.
- Tagger Watch: Jordan Bannister - For the second time this year The Chad was nullified by Bannister…
To read more, and leave comments, go to:
http://www.dreamteamhero.com.au
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As if there weren’t enough for fantasy coaches to think about going into round 19, comes unconfirmed news from the North board at BigFooty that Corey Jones limped off at training with a possible left knee injury.
Speaking of Brad Johnson, the denizens of the Bulldogs board on the same site seem to think it’s almost a lock for Andrew McDougall to come in for him, referencing coach Eade’s comments in the very pessimistic Herald-Sun story on the subject.
The happy team at Cat’s Claw seem to have no special insight into whether Paul Chapman or Brad Ottens will play, but consensus is leaning towards no on both counts, with a bit more pessimism about Chappy than Otto.
The long-suffering fans at BomberBlitz are grumbling about Scott Camporeale as usual, but there is also talk of Scott Lucas not fronting up and Adam Ramanauskas being rested.
The TalkingCarlton crew think that a late change of Shaun Hampson in for the still-proppy Setanta O’hAilpin might be on the cards.
Over at Nick’s, the Magpie fans applauded the dropping of Alan Didak but are suspicious of the presence of Brad Dick and newly-promoted rookie Sharrod Wellingham on the emergency list, with both mooted as late changes.
Brad Symes and Steven Salopek are the fan favourites who missed out on selection this week over at The Power From Port. Salopek is returning from injury through the SANFL, and Symes seems to have been squeezed out by the Burgoyne brethren.
Some forceful words about the quality of Clinton Jones‘ game last week stand out in the Saintsational thread about this week’s game against the Swans, Jones having been moved from the bench to the wing in the St Kilda team this week. The other source of angst is the replacement of Matthew Clarke with Michael Rix in the ruck.
The Adelaide Crows press conference this afternoon was not about Mark Ricciuto’s retirement after all. It was to announce that Ben Hudson, Darren Pfeiffer and Bernie Vince have been given one week club suspensions for being out past curfew following Andrew McLeod’s 31st birthday celebrations. Vince and Pfeiffer missed curfew by 20 minutes and Hudson missed by an hour.
Fantasy coaches couldn’t give two hoots for Pfeiffer or Vince, but Hudson has been a major anchor of thousands of teams. He was still in 39,197 Dream Teams and 15,420 Super Coach teams as of this week. Along with the news that Brad Johnson might miss this week with hamstring tightness, Scott Lucas is still fighting off the effects of the soreness that affected his game against the Hawks, and Paul Chapman is no certainty for this week either, the Hudson news will strike fear into the hearts of fantasy coaches heading into finals.
If you have a trade left to spend on Hudson and you are desperate to burn it, two choices recommend themselves. At the high end, Brendon Lade has scored consecutive tons and his partner in ruck Dean Brogan is out for 1-2 weeks more with back spasms. Blade ALWAYS scores well without Brogan in the side. At the low end, Wayde Skipper has had two excellent scores in a row and is dirt cheap. Can you see any other bargains out there?
To answer some readers’ queries:
Tom Nightingale, who has been writing the excellent Talking Points posts on this blog every week, has co-founded his own fantasy football Web site called Dream Team Hero. As of this week, he’ll be posting a truncated version of Talking Points to this blog with a link to the full version over on his site. I encourage you go to over to DT Hero and read the articles, there’s a lot of good stuff there. Also, comments will be turned off on the FF blog version of Talking Points, but they’ll be open on the DT Hero site (with some more stringent posting requirements).
That brings me to the other point, which is that while I have been very happy to see that Tom’s posts in particular, and mine to a lesser extent, have become so popular that they get hundreds of comments from all you passionate fans out there… there have been some problems. Specifically, in the last week or so there was some inappropriate language and even some racial abuse in the comments by certain individuals. I don’t know what possesses people to think that a fantasy football blog should be the forum where they can throw about racial epithets and libelous accusations, but let me set it out here. I will not tolerate any poster who uses bad language or racial taunts, I will ban anyone who breaks any laws by posting here (e.g. copyright or libel), and I have no time for anyone who wants to talk about non-fantasy-football related topics. Just because we don’t have armies of moderators like BigFooty doesn’t mean our publishing standards are any lower. (And let me thank Tom for his sterling job acting as unpaid mod for this blog up until now!)
Having said that, I am not going to remove comments altogether. I think that when the trolls stay away, the comments you come up with are very informative and entertaining. Good luck for the fantasy finals!
Player of the week: Jonathan Brown (140)
Brown scored a massive 140 this week, kicking a total of 6.6 in the Lions’ win against the hard-to-beat Kangaroos. That makes it the third week in a row he has scored over 110, and makes him an attractive captain proposition. King Brown almost doubled his output from his last outing against the only Mexican in the AFL, Michael Firrito.
Biggest Disappointment: Fraser Gehrig (0)
Welcome to the big league Fraser - you can’t play Carlton every week. I don’t care if you are playing on four players… the big G-Train should still be able to score at least one point. At least get a tackle.
Other points of interest:
- The Bulldogs and Saints were not able to get anything out of their game but those with Wayde Skipper sure did.
Daniel Gilmore is spending a bit more time in the ruck now that the Sandiman is out and his score this week (88) illustrates this. I don’t know what is worse, Matt Priddis’ recent form (58) or his haircut…
- Richmond are continuing to play its youngsters with first gamer Angus Graham scoring 34 and ultra impressive second gamer Daniel Connor getting 11 contested possesions and scoring 82 Dream Team points.
For the full edition of this week’s Talking Points, and to leave comments and join the discussion, visit:
www.dreamteamhero.com.au
