Alex Neal-Bullen joined the strong 2024 footy trend last week in shifting off a flank to become a midfield tagger, keeping Nick Daicos to a relatively low output. With the Demons losing Christian Petracca for the season last week, they have yet another spot open at the coalface and it's Nibbler who is probably next in line to fill it. He is dynamic enough to contribute between stoppages, has excellent vision in the front half and evidently can play a defensive midfield role matched up on the best. Perhaps you don't want any part of the Melbourne mids for fantasy, but he is a strong POD.
Alex Neal-Bullen joined the strong 2024 footy trend last week in shifting off a flank to become a midfield tagger, keeping Nick Daicos to a relatively low output. With the Demons losing Christian Petracca for the season last week, they have yet another spot open at the coalface and it's Nibbler who is probably next in line to fill it. He is dynamic enough to contribute between stoppages, has excellent vision in the front half and evidently can play a defensive midfield role matched up on the best. Perhaps you don't want any part of the Melbourne mids for fantasy, but he is a strong POD.
Alex Neal-Bullen has put up three excellent scores back to back to back, including a best-on-ground performance last week in the narrow win over the Eagles. Like most half forward flankers who tend to specialise in uncontested possessions, his fantasy production can tend to be reliant on supply from the engine room, but in the case of Melbourne he has arguably the best midfield in the comp feeding the ball to him, and he managed three clearances himself last week as well. It's always hard gauging how long a hot streak will go for, but he is a daily fantasy special today.
Mount a case for Neal-Bullen?
Following two consistent seasons of linking the midfield to attack, hard-running forward Alex Neal-Bullen struggled to replicate that form last campaign and was dropped on four occasions. He lowered his disposal, mark, tackle and goal outputs, failing to kick multiple goals after doing it six times the previous year. Neal-Bullen will search to regain his role as a depended member of the best 22, and he is likely to garner some fantasy interest. Then again, he could be one of several outside players whose job security is destroyed by off-season recycled players. A potential diamond in the rough, deep into the latter rounds of the draft.
Alex Neal-Bullen is the sort of weathervane player in his current half forward flank role whose fortunes rise or fall with that of the team around him. When the Demons play well, he scores and can put up big numbers when they win with lots of inside 50 disposals by and to him. If they get flogged in contested footy and clearances, his supply dries up and he's left lonesome on the shelf. Picking him for fantasy purposes is like footy tipping, in that if you think the Demon engine room is going to dominate that week, he's a spot start proposition.
Good skiing for Neal-Bullen
Going into last season, Alex Neal-Bullen had a HFF spot at the Demons in his grasp but faced challenges from Dean Kent and Aaron Vandenberg to keep it. He might have lost it during a poor run in April had those two not been injured, but he recovered in May to play out all 22 games for the year to boot 25.15, then the three finals. He played further up the ground than Jake Melksham on the other flank, with less inside 50s and more clearances. The focus on slightly more midfield involvement than at half forward makes Neal-Bullen a more viable start than Melksham, as the floor on his scoring is far higher. That blip from rounds 5 through 7 is a worry, and for some reason he put in two quiet ones against the Saints. His big scores tend to come with a lot of tackles, and if he's cracking in at the contest then you can rely on him for a score worth starting. He's worth a middle-round pick at least.
Alex Neal-Bullen is one of the bellwether players for Melbourne, when he and his mates on the outside like Jay Kennedy-Harris and Christian Salem are having good games then you know the Demons are going well. He is coming off three very startable scores in a row including a ton in his last outing against the Crows, so if you picked him up in draft leagues off the free agent pool then you're now putting him in your starting line-up. Today presents a great opportunity for ANB to build a solid form line going into fantasy finals, let alone real finals.
Bullish outlook on ANB
It looked like Alex Neal-Bullen had finally found the secret to translating his excellent VFL form to the seniors with a couple of fantasy tons in the first three rounds of 2017. He was dropped after round 6, then returned near the bye to play out the rest of the season, ending with three further tons in August. His basic stats all improved markedly, and criticism of his disposal is probably overblown as his efficiency was about normal for a HFF. Neal-Bullen might think he has a forward six spot sewn up in the Demon best 22 but he will have Dean Kent on his hammer in 2018, plus Aaron Vandenberg returning from LTI and Bayley Fritsch as well. He obviously knows how to find space in the right positions to attract the footy, an endearing quality for fantasy coaches that does not always ensure job security. If he wins the positional battle in preseason, he's worth a middle to late pick.
