I’m seeing a lot of plan teams get posted in places like BigFooty’s fantasy forum and there are some strange names that are cropping up for reasons that don’t quite gel with me. Here is my list of the most popular players who won’t live up to the faith being put in them by fantasy coaches.
Brad Symes
Yes, he looked solid in Dubai with 73 including 35 in the third quarter, and he is most likely going to deliver an improvement over his 61 average in 07. He’s the single “mid price” back in a lot of fantasy teams at the moment. However, I put his ceiling at a maximum of 75, and I wouldn’t be confident that he’d get much past 70 most weeks. Even if he does manage 80-85, that’s not quite going to cut it to get into my starting 22 I’m afraid, especially not with a heap of other tasty options much further down the price scale in the backs. There are just too many sub-$120k backs worth a punt in your 22, let alone on your bench: Callan Ward, Tom Lonergan, David Myers, Levi Greenwood, Dennis Armfield and Eric MacKenzie are all going to be better value.
Tadhg Kennelly
No less an esteemed scholar that Mr Fantasy in the AFL Record has Kennelly down as one of his “Hot Shots”, citing his 98.5 average in his first 4 games of 2007 before going down with a knee injury. The only problem is that Tadhg has played 127 home & away games for only four Dream Team tons, two of which came in those four games. Those four games were the exception, not the rule. I am tipping that Kennelly will not be given the same free role in 08, because unlike the early part of 2007, Adam Goodes has had a solid pre-season and is ready to take up the halfback garbage collection role in which he excelled in the latter part of 2007. Don’t be so quick to place your bets on the Irishman.
Marc Murphy
Murphy is a fine player, no one is questioning that, but fantasy is all about improvement over your rolling average. As I said on this week’s Coaches Box podcast, if you’re in the market for a #1 draft pick Carlton mid then Bryce Gibbs is far more likely to improve from his 07 average of 55 to 75 or more than Murphy is to lift from 75 to 95.
Chris Judd
Plenty of pixels have been spilt in this offseason on whether it’s a good idea to have Murphy, Nick Stevens and Judd in the same fantasy midfield. Stevens is a lock, I’m not on the Murphy bandwagon, and I just don’t trust Judd’s fitness. Perhaps more importantly, I don’t want to have to worry about Judd’s groin for the whole year. Things were bad enough last year with Nigel Lappin‘s knee, Jimmy Bartel‘s head and… well, Judd’s groin. The only one obsessing over that particular area should be Rebecca Twigley.
