It’s a small selection of players who played their second game this week, but let’s trudge through them anyway.

Backpocalypse

Scott D. Thompson, KAN BAC. DT: 15503 selections, $83,500, -19 BE, 41 avg. SC: 28767 selections, $94,200, -93 BE, 75 avg.
James Frawley, MEL BAC. DT: 2904 selections, $131,700, -2 BE, 50.5 avg. SC: 3490 selections, $221,200, 4 BE, 64.5 avg.
Marcus Drum, FRE BAC. DT: 2494 selections, $225,800, 12 BE, 78.5 avg. SC: 5081 selections, $293,300, -12 BE, 94 avg.
Andrew Welsh, ESS BAC. DT: 1377 selections, $327,000, 91 BE, 77 avg. SC: 3754 selections, $383,800, 121 BE, 55 avg.

Oh Scott, I had such high hopes for you. I even christened you Scott DT. Then you got dropped for round 2, and then dropped out of my squad too, as in many others. Those 15,000+ hardy souls who kept the faith for the four intervening matches between your first and second appearances, who suffered through many trial and tribulations in the sorry excuse for a position that the fantasy backline has been this year, then had to endure another sub-50 DT score from you. Admittedly you’ve turned in two 75s in SC, so your 28,000+ owners in that comp are reasonably happy, but the rookie situation in the backs is not as urgent in exotic stat comps due to the fine performances of Harry Taylor, Nathan J. Brown and Austin Wonaemirri which show up much more in SC than DT.

Drum is the only other player who interests me in that lot, due to his debut performance against the Crows. Those who were keeping a close eye on him this week in the Cats game would have seen more to like. His price makes him a tricky pickup nevertheless, even in the barren wasteland of the backs. My major concern continues to be that Drum’s role is pretty much Chris Tarrant’s role, and Tarrant is being paid too much by Fremantle FC not to be back in the senior 22 soon. Then again, we would have thought that of bloody Joel Bowden, and after three weeks he’s no guarantee of getting back into the Tigers this week.

Centrageddon

David Armitage, STK CTR. DT: 9935 selections, $133,200, -46 BE, 73 avg. SC: 13578 selections, $175,300, -61 BE, 83.5 avg.
Clayton Hinkley, FRE CTR. DT: 1680 selections, $83,500, -19 BE, 41 avg. SC: 1878 selections, $94,200, -17 BE, 37 avg.
Adam Thomson, PTA CTR. DT: 981 selections, $270,000, 55 BE, 73.5 avg. SC: 774 selections, $372,000, 55 BE, 84.5 avg.
Adam Bentick, CAR CTR. DT: 193 selections, $339,000, 104 BE, 75 avg. SC: 270 selections, $438,600, 120 BE, 71.5 avg.

I picked up Armitage myself for my DT squad last week, although I admit it was a bit of a desperation move. A 55 after his his initial 91 in DT wasn’t great - if you are picking up Armitage at this stage you probably need him to fit right into your 22. This week against Richmond, who have suddenly figured out how to tackle and put pressure on opposing midfielders again, will be another stern test of his ability to find the pill.

On Hinkley, Freo don’t need yet another inside/outside mid with poor skills. They’ve already got at least 15 of those blokes on their list.

Forwardystopia

Chad Jones, WCE FWD. DT: 3352 selections, $139,100, -6 BE, 55 avg. SC: 1575 selections, $239,400, 50 BE, 47 avg.
Ryan Murphy, FRE FWD. DT: 2409 selections, $150,800, 20 BE, 46.5 avg. SC: 2539 selections, $200,000, 58 BE, 31 avg.

Neither of these boys are producing 22-worthy scores, so if you’re looking to milk your forward cash cows then I wouldn’t bother with these two.

So, that’s all of the players who are new to the bubble this week. I can’t bring myself to make any of them my Bubble Boy of the Week. Just not enough quality there, even with Armitage sitting on such a low breakeven. Ah, but there is another group of players who have been sitting on the bubble for many weeks now, just waiting to play their third week of the game. There are some good rookie backs who are in this situation and are in line for selection this week, including Albert Proud (BE of -1 in DT/-14 in SC), Jake Edwards (-28/-30), Scott Selwood (-22/-69) and Matthew Spangher (-29/-42). There is also Matthew Whelan who returns from a one-game suspension this week as a back priced at $181,500/$265,000 with a BE of 14/-8. Finally, there is Stuart Dew, who has a BE of -48/-9 and has recovered from his hamstring injury. Yes, I know that Dew is a continuing injury risk, but I believe he is firmly in Alastair Clarkson’s plans for the rest of the season and if fit he will get games and have some days out like he did against Melbourne in round 1. In particular, Dew looms as a very tasty downgrade for owners of Josh Hill, Bernie Vince and Jason Porplyzia. For these reason, Dew is my Bubble Boy of the Week.

UPDATE: Turns out Dew is only an emergency this week, which certainly bursts my bubble! Given the lack of quality in the backs this week, I’ll have to switch to Whelan.

Sorry I haven’t been blogging in the last little bit. There have been some shenanigans behind the scenes here, but they’re over now. I’ll try to at least keep up with the Bubble and Rollercoaster posts each week, plus whatever else takes my fancy.

And don’t forget the live weekly Coaches Box podcast on Talkshoe, where you can chat with other listeners and we take your suggestions for which players to talk about in real time. Another episode will happen tonight at 10.30pm AEST.

This is a new feature on the FanFooty blog. I’ve called it Rollercoaster because it’s going to focus on player prices, following the ups and downs of weekly price variations. I will try to figure out when premium players have bottomed out and rookie players have reached their ceiling, two things which every successful fantasy coach needs to master to lock in the right trades at the right times.

Big Dippers

We’ll start with the biggest of the big dippers so far this year, Brad Johnson. After his stellar round 1, he has put in three shockers in a row. Rodney Eade today confirmed what we could all see out on the field, which is that BJ has not been fit. It started off with groin soreness in round 1, then a knock to the hip didn’t help matters in round 2, and a corked leg made things even worse in subsequent games. What Eade didn’t talk about at the presser was a possible change in Johnson’s role. His owners, myself included, are now getting increasingly worried about the emergence of Josh Hill as a lead-up forward and the effect that Scott Welsh’s recruitment has had on the inside-50 structure of the Dogs. BJ’s 31-year-old body has had a lot of punishment over the years, and like Scott West he may well be getting eased out of his formerly dominant role.

The problem with Johnson is that if you wanted to do anything about this situation, last week was probably the week to do it. His match-winning round 1 performance was still in his rolling average after round 3 and thus he didn’t drop by much. This week, however, he crashed $40,000 in DT and $71,400 in SC. He is going to play this week, he is a champion so he will play through the injuries, and if you haven’t offloaded him by now then now is not the time to do it.

For those lucky so-and-sos who haven’t got him and are wondering when he will bottom out, I would plan on after round 7 when the Dogs play Sydney.

Cameron Bruce is the equal biggest loser in DT this year with Brett Ebert at a drop of $67,600. Ebert is not a fantasy player but Bruce is, so the fact that Bruce’s breakeven is at a reasonable level of 98 this week after successive 80+ scores suggest that his price has just about bottomed out. The reason his price went down in the first place was that he has been given tagging jobs on the opposition’s best small forward such as Brad and Steve Johnson. His recent improvement in scoring has been because in the Geelong game he added the ability to run forward and hurt his opponent going the other way. It will be interesting to see how Bruce’s role evolves under his new coach, particularly against Carlton where he might be released back into the midfield.

Heath Scotland put in three shocking fantasy performances to start the year, but posted a DT ton on the weekend against the Pies. His price is down $66,600 in DT and $97,500 in SC, with breakevens comparable to his latest number in both comps. However, it must be noted that eight Blues reached the century mark in DT in that game, and I think it’s a mere blip on a gradual withdrawal from serious fantasy consideration. I think his role has changed under Brett Ratten, and with he, Andrew Carrazzo and Bret Thornton all scrapping for stats in that backline there won’t be enough to go around most weeks.

On the positive side, it doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to notice that Aaron Davey has bottomed out. After three poor weeks he turned in a very creditable 77/103 against the Roos and his breakevens are below 70 in both comps. Also, a reminder that Justin Koschitzke’s round 2 score of 27/24 comes out of his rolling average this week, bringing his breakeven way down.

Loop De Loop

Cameron Stokes is the standout amongst those players whose price may have topped out after weeks of 22/15 and 26/35. He has done well to last this long in Hawthorn’s 22, and this week is most likely the one he will get Box Hilled for a large chunk of the season.

Travis Tuck is another Hawk who looks to have almost leveled out, albeit due to injury - a knock to the knee with no structural damage, 50/50 for this week. Even if he does play, that 20/19 is going to stay in his rolling average for another two weeks, making it difficult for him to earn much by the third week. He’s probably good for another small rise after his next game, however.

After the disappointment of Thornton last week, this week it was the turn of those who had chosen to upgrade to Michael Osborne and Nathan Bock to grind their teeth. Bock had a nightmare trying to keep Lance Franklin quiet, while Osborne was well beaten by Michael Doughty of all people. You’ll just have to grin and bear it if you picked them up, hoping that it was a one-off aberration.

Due to popular demand, I will now include Herald-Sun Super Coach numbers as well as AFL Dream Team ones in the listings below. There are actually 29 players on the bubble this week, but I will only look at those whose breakevens are below their 2008 average. First, the players who are bubblicious in both DT and SC competitions.

One Swallow Doesn’t Make A Season

Matthew Kreuzer, CAR RUC. DT: 63,979 selections, $123,500, -32 BE, 62 avg. SC: 84,442 selections, $144,200, -41 BE, 63.5 avg
Shaun Grigg, CAR CTR. DT: 1,079 selections, $165,900, 22 BE, 51 avg. SC: 1,965 selections, $180,300, -5 BE, 56.5 avg

Everyone who has Kreuzer already is pleased. Nobody who hasn’t got Kreuzer should be wasting a trade on getting him in, IMO. Even if Trent West gets dropped this week - as the MRP should have done already for his hit on Xavier Clarke - it’s not worth burning a trade on your ruck bench this early in the campaign. Grigg is not worth considering.

What Did I Just Say

Mitch Morton, RIC FWD. DT: 2,040 selections, $259,000, 44 BE, 74.5 avg. SC: 1,991 selections, $319,200, 61 BE, 65 avg
Matt White, RIC CTR. DT: 489 selections, $180,500, 38 BE, 48.5 avg. SC: 576 selections, $243,700, 9 BE, 68.5 avg

I like Morton as a player. He impressed me when I saw him live in the pre-season against Geelong, he does nice things when he gets near the ball, but my concern is that he still doesn’t get enough of it. 70/76 when your team is murdering the opposition on a wide ground is not a good return for a HFF. White’s 58/92 on the weekend looked impressive from an SC point of view, particularly as he kicked three points and no goals. I don’t trust that form, however.

The Great White-Haired Hope

Clinton Jones, STK CTR. DT: 2,002 selections, $188,900, 35 BE, 53 avg. SC: 3,522 selections, $205,700, -3 BE, 63 avg

I was expecting reasonably large things out of Jones this year, if not big things. He was in that group with Jarryn Geary and David Armitage into whom fantasy coaches put a lot of research in the pre-season, and Geary ended up being the one to have in your squad from the start. Jones was a late in as an emergency this week, as was White above, which screams out “fringe player”.

Baby Bubble Bombers

Andrew Lovett, ESS CTR. DT: 1,674 selections, $328,400, 64 BE, 90.5 avg. SC: 2,722 selections, $408,700, 80 BE, 82 avg
Kyle Reimers, ESS FWD. DT: 3,143 selections, $154,900, -35 BE, 75.5 avg. SC: 8,543 selections, $128,800, -84 BE, 80.5 avg (Bubble Boy of the Week!)

Lovett has looked like a million dollars so far, though given the colours he’s wearing he’s only one more bursting run away from yet another three-week hamstring twang. Reimers looks more interesting to me: a kick to handball ratio of 25:7, plus five marks, two tackles and a goal each game. His lower SC price and higher scores make him even more attractive in that comp. The Bombers are hurting for talls with both Lucas and Lloyd injured, making him eve. One word of caution, however: his first two opponents were the Blues and Dogs, both of whom play expansive games. He’s got Collingwood and Port Adelaide in the next two weeks, two more teams who allow space to opposing forwards. Sydney in round 8 and Adelaide in round 10 await, however.

Eaglets To The Slaughter

Chris Masten, WCE CTR. DT: 16,104 selections, $115,500, -29 BE, 57.5 avg. SC: 10,167 selections, $134,200, -27 BE, 54 avg
Ben McKinley, WCE FWD. DT: 3,195 selections, $130,300, -34 BE, 66 avg. SC: 6,017 selections, $118,000, -116 BE, 93.5 avg
Scott Selwood, WCE BAC/CTR. DT: 44,094 selections, $83,500, -22 BE, 42.5 avg. SC: 59,806 selections, $94,200, -69 BE, 63 avg

Selwood was one of the most popular players in the whole of Dream Team before the season started, and after round 3 all of his owners would have been patting themselves on the back. Masten owners, too, would have been pleased. Even after the predictable Swans effect, it can only get better for them. McKinley is the one out of the box, however. Kicking 80% of the Eagles’ goals is no mean feat, even if they do have the worst points for in the AFL. Given how poorly many of the premium forwards have performed over the first four rounds it’s going to be very tempting to a lot of you out there to downgrade a Brad Johnson, Matthew Lloyd or Kayne Pettifer to either McKinley or Reimers, and pour the money into your suffering backline. If you decide to go that route, I would recommend Reimers in DT and McKinley in SC. The other possible scenario by which you could pick up McKinley or Reimers this week is if you have Kurt Tippett. Tippett has been used as a decoy forward at best by the Crows. He has also been called upon to pinch hit in the ruck with disastrous results for his fantasy scoring, leading to three consecutive sub-40 DT scores after his opening 51. With a breakeven of 10 he’s still going to be earning you some pocket change, but selling him will eventually earn you a nice profit. Personally, though I have Tippett, I’m saving the trade, but I wouldn’t blame you for taking the chance.

Take A Good Hard Look

Austin Wonaeamirri, MEL BAC/CTR. DT: 8,246 selections, $72,600, -62 BE, 58.5 avg. SC: 8,322 selections, $83,400, -84 BE, 67 avg

By no means is Wonaemirri turning in 22-worthy scores. However, if you are still carrying one of the multitudinous overhyped non-playing back rookies this week like Scott D. Thompson, Lachie Hansen, David Myers or Jamie McNamara, it’s a pretty safe decision to make a sideways rookie trade.

DT-only prospect

Max Rooke, GEE BAC. DT: 2,972 selections, $235,400, 58 BE, 59 avg.

No.

SC-only prospects

Paul Duffield, FRE BAC/CTR. SC: 1,318 selections, $310,300, 33 BE, 76.5 avg.
Brendon Goddard, STK BAC. SC: 6,081 selections, $483,600, 96 BE, 96.5 avg.
Robert Warnock, FRE RUC. SC: 1,464 selections, $254,800, 49 BE, 51.5 avg.

Goddard is the only one of interest here, obviously. Having been priced at an average of 80 in DT and 90 in SC, and starting with an 85/103 from limited TOG in round 3, plenty of coaches had their beady eyes on his formline. This week he turned in a 62/90, pushing his DT breakeven to 114 but leaving his SC breakeven at a gettable 96. I think he’s a decent SC pickup now but I remain to be convinced that he can push his price high in the short term, so I’d wait on him to bottom out and concentrate elsewhere in your team for now.

I guess it was only a matter of time. Oh well, it was good while it lasted!

Yes, Joel Bowden is out, as he didn’t board the plane to Perth. Unless the Tigers booked him a ticket on the Indian Pacific in secret.

Yes, Andrew Embley is out. Mark Nicoski travelled with the team as the first emergency, but the Eagles have also rushed Brad Ebert across to cover. No one knows yet whether Nico or Ebert will replace Embers. Your guess is as good as mine. Dean Cox is likely to play through the broken bone in his foot, though again that is by no means confirmed.

Latest news on the Swans through the iffy source of Brad Seymour on radio SEN is that Heath Grundy and Tadhg Kennelly are doubtful for Saturday night, with Luke Brennan a likely in. No confirmation on this as yet.

Update 1: Angus Monfries is also strongly rumoured to be out this evening for Tayte Pears.

This post will be updated as news comes in.

Due to the overwhelming clamour for this feature (i.e. one bloke whinged about it in the comments!), and due to the fact that we didn’t cover it completely in this week’s Coaches Box podcast, I’ve decided to bring it back for the blog.

There are a lot of players on the bubble this week, including a surprisingly large number of rookies. Let’s first deal with all the senior players who missed a game here or there.

The Also-Rans

Robert Copeland, BRL CTR/FWD, $224,600, 68 BE, 47.5 avg
Justin Sherman, BRL CTR, $238,200, 110 BE, 31.5 avg
Brad Fisher, CAR FWD, $343,100, 106 BE, 71.5 avg
Michael Jamison, CAR BAC, $192,800, 103 BE, 18.5 avg
Jordan Russell, CAR CTR, $221,300, 57 BE, 52 avg
Scott Burns, COL CTR, $359,300, 91 BE, 85 avg
Ben Johnson, COL CTR, $320,900, 79 BE, 77 avg
Nathan Lovett-Murray, ESS BAC, $272,600, 47 BE, 75.5 avg
Henry Slattery, ESS CTR, $199,300, 57 BE, 44 avg
Jason Winderlich, ESS CTR, $357,100, 133 BE, 63 avg
David Wojcinski, GEE CTR, $248,900, 74 BE, 53.5 avg
Campbell Brown, HAW BAC, $256,400, 51 BE, 67.5 avg
Luke Hodge, HAW CTR, $412,600, 118 BE, 91 avg
Leigh Brown, KAN FWD, $220,500, 30 BE, 65 avg
Lynden Dunn, MEL FWD, $259,100, 93 BE, 47.5 avg
Colin Sylvia, MEL FWD, $273,900, 81 BE, 59 avg
Troy Chaplin, PTA BAC, $267,700, 91 BE, 52 avg
Kane Johnson, RIC CTR, $350,800, 86 BE, 84.5 avg
Jason Blake, STK BAC, CTR, $235,900, 57 BE, 57.5 avg
Fraser Gehrig, STK FWD, $292,100, 131 BE, 40.5 avg
Luke McPharlin, FRE BAC/FWD, $285,200, 32 BE, 87.5 avg
Chris Tarrant, FRE FWD, $311,500, 156 BE, 35 avg

The only possible value I could see out of that lot is Lovett-Murray and McPharlin, although they have shown inconsistency over their careers. Sherman has been extremely disappointing, and should have been dropped this week instead of Proud. Hodge seems to have dropped out permanently from the list of top 10 fantasy midfielders, due in part to continuing injury concerns and the roles he undertakes.

The Disaster Zone

Harry Taylor, GEE BAC/CTR, $83,500, -69 BE, 65 avg
Ed Barlow, SYD BAC/CTR, $198,600, 27 BE, 59 avg
Darren Pfeiffer, CAR BAC, $83,500, -61 BE, 61 avg

Thousands upon thousands of coaches are in a panic this week with the selection bombshells about Joel Bowden, Albert Proud, Mark Nicoski (although Nico is going to play after Andrew Embley withdrew) and the continued absence of Roo rookies Scott D. Thompson and Lachie Hansen. Many coaches are also sweating on today’s late teams to see if Pfeiffer will make the cut (EDIT: he’s in!). I recommend getting Taylor in place of Hansen or Scott DT, and if you can wait for the final teams to be sure of Pfeiffer’s spot then he’s also a decent pickup. However, I would prefer Scott Selwood over Pfeiffer… he’s the real Scott DT!

If Only

Rhys Palmer, FRE CTR, $99,500, -104 BE, 88.5 avg (Bubble Boy of the Week!)
Clint Bartram, MEL CTR, $108,600, -27 BE, 53 avg
Tim Callan, WBD CTR, $110,200, -61 BE, 70.5 avg
Brad Ebert, WCE CTR, $83,500, -28 BE, 44.5 avg

Those of us who have been cruelled in the backs and haven’t already got Palmer have to watch on wistfully as thousands of other coaches get on his bandwagon, with good reason. The Freo midfield is pants this year without Paul Hasleby and Palmer is the new messiah. They’ll play him until his head gets so bandaged he can’t see. And he’d probably still pick up the odd handball or two.

… Know When To Run

Ryan Gamble, GEE FWD, $83,500, -77 BE, 69 avg
Chris Mayne, FRE FWD, $83,500, -34 BE, 47.5 avg
Lachlan Henderson, BRL FWD, $95,500, 3 BE, 33.5 avg

Attention will most likely be elsewhere this week, unlike last week where Stuart Dew owners were scouring through the forward rookie ranks for a replacement. If you haven’t got Gamble already, it would be a brave move to trade away someone like Kurt Tippett but my feeling is that it would be justified. If you have the capacity to do so, I salute your gumption… and your luck!

Seriously. It’s all his fault. Naming Scott D. Thompson in round 1 and then banishing him to the magoos, like he did with Lachie Hansen last year. This year, he had to get more creative with Hansen so he named him for round 2 and then withdrew him. This week, still no sign of either of them, not even as emergencies. He’s the root cause of all of this, I’m sure. I reckon he had a word in the AFL’s ear about that stupid 6.10pm game in round 1. It was him who was taking a piece of 4×2 to VirtualSports’ servers when we were all trying to log on before R1 lockout.

He’s the new Kevin Sheedy.

Post your missives of implacable hatred below.

One of the things I have been really happy with on FanFooty is how you fans out there have embraced commenting on this blog. It always pleases me when posts get 100+ comments. For a while I’ve been toying with the idea of “open threads” - where I just let you lot chat amongst yourselves. I have noticed how a lot of comments are just questions about player choices, and while I try to answer them when I can, there’s only so much of that I can do before my brains start dribbling out of my ears.

Okay, so with that in mind, last week Molly and I managed to get all the gremlins out of our systems on the Coaches Box podcast for the Round 1 episode, which was freakin’ awesome if I do say so myself, and Molly has posted all the info about tonight’s live show. As you may know, the format of the show is centred around a review of the previous week’s games with focus on a small group of players in each game, working from a list I compile based on who I think are the players that fantasy coaches are thinking about this week. So why not ask you directly?

What I would like you to do is ask all your burning fantasy questions in the comments on this thread, which will give me an idea of who we should be talking about on the show. I can’t promise to go through all the A vs B choices - especially not the A vs B vs C vs D ones! - but hopefully what we do say about individual players will give you some ideas. Also, if you think you want to call in directly on the show, let us know so we can test out the system before the show kicks off. Get commenting!