Round 13 was a successful round for many with key premiums scoring well however it did come at a cost, with now only 10 teams playing this week which makes best 18 scoring slightly troublesome.

Today I will be dissecting how you should go about maximising your strategy throughout this period as well as talking about some bargain bye players who you could look out for in the run home.

Finally, we’ve got some nice questions from Twitter which I will be answering at the end. 

Round 14 Bye Chaos and what to do with your trades

As mentioned in last week’s The Buzz, we have been blessed with four additional trades in both SuperCoach and AFL Fantasy. However, how should we be using this gift?

The priority this week should be to get as many players onto your field as possible without compromising your current team. What I mean by this is do not go sideways trading from one rookie to another or a premium to another premium just because they are not playing this week, think of the long game ahead.

Sure, you might have to cop one or two donuts, but it will be better in the long run. This is especially the case for SuperCoach players who will have limited trades for the rest of the year. You would have to be a brave coach to believe that your team will not suffer any injuries whatsoever in the run home and I know that many players still have a handful of rookies on the field which will obviously need to be turned into premium options. 

Alongside this, we have also had some underperforming players who we thought could be premiums with the likes of Jarman Impey, Joe Daniher, Isaac Heeney and Changkuoth Jiath, while we are gifted with more trades this week, we should still be focusing on upgrading our rookies that have hit their ceiling rather than moving those lot on.

While inevitably we ideally would want to move them on, their scoring still is better than most of the new rookies that we have now. If you are in a fortunate position where there are no rookies to move on, then I would consider moving them on to a premium who you can back into being a top 10 scorer in their position. 

As mentioned previously we only get two trades next week (assuming everything is normal) and this would mean we cannot move on as many players as we would normally want. Start planning ahead of time for the players you want to bring in because you might want to consider bringing in players with the bye so you can maximise upgrades next week when byes are finished or even The likes of Luke Edwards and Luke Foley seem to be two decent rookie options with alright job security and while they won’t change in price, you can potentially double upgrade if you jump on rookies now. Although yes, it does come at a cost of the amount of players you have this week, it would be a worthy sacrifice as we all want rookies who score well rather than those slow burners who once in a blue moon might produce a 70+.

More bye bargains and buys we should look out for this week

As always, I’ll be looking at the players who present some serious value as well as tick the box that they’ve had their current bye round completed. The three players listed below aren’t exactly your first-choice lock in options but could prove to be a nice point of difference selection come seasons end.

Defenders

Nick Haynes (AF $335k SC $471k DEF)

Haynes last year stepped up his game to be one of the elite defenders in the competition with his ability to take plenty of intercept marks. This form has dipped at the start of the year as he was moved out onto a wing at times and Haynes hasn’t had the impact, he did in 2020 and this is concurrent with his current scoring as so far, he only registered one ton in the year which came last week.

After his injury in Round 6, he has slightly returned to form by averaging 87.7 (AF) and 84.7 (SC) which is more in line with what he produced last year and at his current price this could be a bargain move as playing as that loose third tall served him well last year. The one downside from this is that intercepting defenders are not rewarded as well compared to last year unless they gather a lot of the pill and with the game being a lot more 1-on-1 contests it may hurt his scoring more if he is asked to lock down on a particular forward.

At the end of the day, you will need to put some trust in Leon Cameron which is hard to do from a Fantasy perspective and play this man in his best role. We’ve seen what a role change has done to Jordan Ridley, and we just have to hope that Haynes doesn’t get the same treatment. Overall a well undervalued defender who could average 95+ if played in the correct position. 

Midfielders

Ben Cunnington (AF $678k SC $573k MID)

Cunnington is always one of those midfielders who fly under the radar and that is mainly due to other midfielders having a more consistent and higher ceiling than he does. However, in a rebuilding North Melbourne midfield he has shown this year that he is probably their most important cog in that engine room.

You can pencil him in to get at least 25 touches, plenty of tackles and does have the ability to hit the scoreboard, North do look more competitive in recent weeks and that is in line with Cunnington’s recent rise with an average of 101 (AF)/ 121.5 (SC) in the past 6 games. It is worth noting however, his scoring can be limited if North gets convincingly beaten as his first 4 games this year were all sub 100 when North was playing like a VFL level team.

But he is a POD midfielder who has a high ceiling, his game does suit SuperCoach’s model of scoring more which is why he’s got the better averages there but if he continues to rack up the pill for North there’s no reason not to pick him. 

Forwards

Kyle Langford (AF $663k SC $474k M/F)

Langford always seems to have this role change at the back half of the year when Essendon need that midfielder who can make a difference. His role change has come slightly earlier with a move into the midfield coming at the expense of injuries to other midfielders like Andy McGrath, Dylan Shiel and Jye Caldwell, however now that he has made this role change, his scoring output has done up significantly with a 5-round average of 102 (AF) and 102.8 (SC) which is in line with a top 6 averaging forward.

The question we all will ask is does he keep this new permanent midfield gig or does he share this role with other Essendon mid/forwards. There is news that Shiel is not far off from returning so there will be questions asked if he keeps this role for the rest of the season, but again with the state of the forward line it is hard to argue against picking him. Even in 2020, when McGrath went down it was Langford who got the opportunity first. If you need an undervalued forward with a good potential role, look at Langford this week. 

Mailbag Questions

“De Goey? That’s it. That’s the question” @Timothy_J13

It feels like deja vu when this question is asked and currently, he’s being put into a midfield role that has been promised for the past few seasons. Unfortunately injuries and inconsistent form has derailed this progress and he’s been used more as a forward.

With injuries and the loss of Adam Treloar there was a big hole to fill in that Collingwood midfield and it seems for the time being De Goey is the man to fill that void. In Round 7, 11, 12 and 13 he was utilised within that inside midfield mix but had a mixed bag of scoring with an average of 85 (AF) and 81.25 (SC), so his numbers are not that top 10 premium bracket of forwards that you would want.

Add in the fact that key midfielder Taylor Adams will be thrown back in very soon, I would be very worried if that pushes De Goey out of the midfield mix. Add in the fact that he is an injury prone player and with a new coach anything could happen so i would be rather hesitant to bring him in.

But his teammate Scott Pendlebury is just a tad more expensive and looks to be back into that midfield role he is known for, so maybe it is another Collingwood forward (unfortunately for SC players we don’t get DPP changes mid-season) that you should look for. 

“Best trade targets to bring in now that will be in the best for their line at the END of the season.” @aflbsmith

Unfortunately, there are just too many players I would have to list for each line in order to do this. But a simple way to deducing whether they will be within that top 6-10 bracket in the run home is to analyse how each player is able to accumulate their points and from there work out if it is sustainable for them or are they likely to change role due to returning players or if they are unable to keep their form up. 

An example would be someone like Aaron Hall, as a rebounding defender he has only produced one score of under 100 (not counting injury affected or sub affected games). This role has been his since Round 3 and has become one of the greatest stat-padders out there with how many 1-2’s he does to get the cheap points. I was initially worried when Tarrant was brought back in, if it would take some points away but it seems to have affected Ziebell more than Hall given Hall’s willingness to run out from the back and follow up. We’ll wait on Luke McDonald’s impact too.

Next week I might throw in a tier list or rankings to showcase who the best players to get vs the more value picks are but for the meantime you’ll need to use a bit of logic and go with your gut but unfortunately this article would just be way too long if I went and listed the top 10 players for each position for each format. But certainly, look out for next week’s article where I will follow up on this question. 

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