We only saw the real Charlie Dixon in the last month or so of 2019, as he took a long time convalescing from a nasty leg bone break from the previous year. It came too late to lift Port into finals, proving once again that their fortunes rest on his broad shoulders. Even if fit and firing, his fantasy scoring is too reliant on six-pointers to be wholly reliable. The drawbacks of basing your forward structure on one man were shown up for the Power last season, which is why they will take no chances with him in future. He has already slimmed down this preseason, so perhaps the club will let Wylie Buzza play the role of smashing big packs and free Dixon up to be more of a leading forward. Worth a flier at best.
Stop surfing, Charlie
We only saw the real Charlie Dixon in the last month or so of 2019, as he took a long time convalescing from a nasty leg bone break from the previous year. It came too late to lift Port into finals, proving once again that their fortunes rest on his broad shoulders. Even if fit and firing, his fantasy scoring is too reliant on six-pointers to be wholly reliable. The drawbacks of basing your forward structure on one man were shown up for the Power last season, which is why they will take no chances with him in future. He has already slimmed down this preseason, so perhaps the club will let Wylie Buzza play the role of smashing big packs and free Dixon up to be more of a leading forward. Worth a flier at best.
Charlie Dixon is by far the most important player at Port Adelaide, and it's not even his personal statistical contribution that makes him so talismanic. His presence straighten the team's attacking thrusts up considerably, as the Power trust him to at least bring the ball to ground at worst, cutting out the dreaded intercept mark, and providing the odd bonus goal here or there. His value in fantasy circles is less about himself as a starter as that it lifts the scores of players around him whom he brings into the game.
Man down, Charlie
August is fantasy finals time and if you had managed to make them with Charlie Dixon in your side, he let you down with a poor game then right ankle and leg fractures to put him out after round 22. To be fair he did play every game before that, including some as a ruckman in tandem with Justin Westhoff in the absence of Patrick Ryder. He ended up dropping ten fantasy points from his 2017 peak, with his goalkicking output lowered from 46.24 to 26.24. Dixon suffers from the classic full forward's problem of lacking consistency in scoring, as his startability can depend on goalkicking, opponent and the state of the game which is highly variable. If he's pushing 50 goals per season then those problems tend to get smoothed out, halve that and we have a more questionable start. Combine that with the managed preseason, with the club undoubtedly taking no chances, and it adds up to a late pick at best.
Charlie Dixon started the Port Adelaide part of his career with a bang, booting 3.3 in round 1 over Fremantle and looking like the proverbial million dollars. Since then things have been more lean, with two more bags of three but both coming in losses, and no other multiple-goal games, leading to sub-70 fantasy averages. If you bought him in AFL Fantasy, AFL Dream Team or AFL Supercoach then you would have offloaded him already; those in Ultimate Footy leagues must have benched him already, or probably should do this week as he comes up against Alex Rance.
Charlie's alpha tango
For the Power to make the eight last year, they needed someone to cast a spell over Charlie Dixon's chronically injured ankle to get 22 games out of him. The club witch doctor did the trick, evidently, as he delivered his first full season to boot 46.24 plus 3.6 in the final. Perhaps most impressive was his contested mark total of 59, first among key forwards. This was only the second of Dixon's seven seasons to produce a startable average, off the back of three consecutive years of sub-60s. He only let you down a few times across the year if you had him in your team every week, a very respectable performance from a key forward. Perhaps it is folly to trust him to back that year up, but he deserves to be picked in middle rounds.
