Plenty of coaches weighed up the merits of trading in Kieren Briggs last week and if you were brave enough to pull the trigger, he delivered with another triple-figure score, while Tim English and Zach Merrett were huge in Round 12 too.
Melbourne v Carlton
Freak: JVR (77)
Flop: Walsh (55)
Rookie Roulette: Chandler (80), JVR (77), McVee (68), Cincotta (39), Smith (30)
There is absolutely nothing as sweet as a rookie standing up in the byes. JVR played the best game of his career so far and boy does he know when to do it. He’s averaged under 50 as key forwards usually do but suddenly he’s gone up a chunk of cash and been excellent cover. Despite the low BE, there is merit in the thankyou and goodbye, to fix up the trickier bye rounds. Chandler similarly stood up when the chips were down. On the other hand, it was a short-lived reprieve for Cincotta owners. It hurts to say this but what a paltry performance from Sam Walsh. Who’d have thought that his score is a candidate to drop off your total? While JVR’s stays on there? There were a load of other Floptastic performances including Cripps (68), stop-gap Kennedy (64), Grundy (47), and even Doch (87). Only Petracca (118) and Cerra (111) tonned up on Friday night but honourable mention to Brayshaw (89) who’s put three reasonable efforts together in a row.
Port v Hawthorn
Freak: Butters (129)
Flop: Day (70)
Rookie Roulette: Weddle (80), B.MacDonald (51), Mackenzie (50), Blanck (43), Lord (25), Sinn (21)
The Butters/Rozee (121) one-two punch is living up to the hype. Sure, it was against a mediocre Hawthorn, but they are cementing themselves as top-6 forwards. Weddle followed in JVR’s footsteps and as this round unfolded teams became separated by the performances of the rookies and mid-pricers. If Lord, for example, couldn’t drop off then you netted -55 on a Weddle.
Will Day is no doubt a superstar of the future and should put together some more big scores at the back end of the season but he’s sticking his hand up to be traded out on his bye. He didn’t get as many CBAs as we’d like to see and he’s not looking top 6. Let’s not forget Port are restrictive, though, and there are others who should go first like Worpel (82) and JHF (77). I’d only be pulling the trigger on Day if you’ve got a Round 14 structural issue.
West Coast v Collingwood
Freak: Sheed (138)
Flop: De Goey (58)
Rookie Roulette: Long (65), Ginbey (58), Harrison (54), Hewett (11)
Why is Dom Sheed the new biggest rollercoaster in the competition? And why in the world does Duggo have an enormous 5-game average? These are not real options (especially with Duggan’s suspension) in my view, but it is a bit flummoxing. It is an absolute shame you’d only get a week out of him before his bye but holy hat Elliot Yeo (94) would otherwise be a serious consideration for the brave, and with Hurn (22) going down again Witho (101), like-clockwork, jumped back up.
On the Collingwood end, Titch (124) has now put a few good scores together and Naicos (114) didn’t take any marks but luckily replaced them with goals. DCam (109) was a worthy Seany Darce replacement and now we have to figure out if our bye structure allows bringing him in even if we don’t have a ruck issue. JDG turned in a putrid point score and will be sent packing from the competition and your fantasy side for the remainder of the byes.
Bulldogs v Geelong
Freak: English (158)
Flop: Smith (90)
Rookie Roulette: Mullin (34), O’Donnell (33), A.Jones (26), McNeil (18)
A classic Bulldogs display. They absolutely racked up millions of fantasy points, so many that Bailey Smith gets awarded the Flop with 90 points to his name. They notched up a staggering seven tons but accidentally forgot to win the game. I, for one, am very appreciative of their commitment to our fantasy sides over winning. There are no words for the brilliance of English. Caleb Daniel (136) and Bailey Dale (118) took the sweeping half back duties with JJ out and Richards (54) going down with a hammy. Meanwhile the mids Treloar (130), Libba (121) and Bont (108) were back to their prolific best. Macrae (104) too backed up his recent scores but the problem for me was the reduced CBAs with everyone back from injury.
I haven’t mentioned Geelong yet because they are so irrelevant apart from Stewart (115) who continues to confirm his place in the top few defenders and hopefully our new favourite Irishman Oisin Mullin’s (34) score fell away. Fingers crossed he holds after his bye but I wouldn’t count on it.
Gold Coast v Adelaide
Freak: Dawson (128)
Flop: Laird (81)
Rookie Roulette: Humphrey (68), Berry (49), Michalanney (48), Pedlar (42), Ulwand (-3)
It is lucky that Anderson (109) and Dawson (128) were there because the rest of this was awful for fantasy. Keays (123) is disgustingly cheap but I am wary of that role.
Now, the Floppers. Line them up. Laird was a very obvious captaincy choice but good lord did he let us down. It hurts to miss a captaincy score in the byes with loopholing options aplenty. He was down on his tackles, particularly given the game was in the NT, and I’m hoping he’s not nervous after what happened last week. I’m calling it a blip but he’ll be getting a lot of -3s from coaches around the country. That display tended to overshadow some other borderline disasters in the form of Rowell (77) and Macpherson (42). The Atkins (66)/Fiorini (60) adventure remains as nerve-wracking as ever. They put up double last week’s output I suppose, but blimey they both looked absolutely horrendous to begin with. I know you got them to see you through the byes but if your structure allows it, you can let them go very happily.
GWS v Richmond
Freak: Briggs (117)
Flop: Short (85)
Rookie Roulette: Clarke (60), Ryan (60), Angwin (39), Young (35), Cadman (26), Fahey (17)
Sometimes in this game fortune favours the brave and the Briggs move turned out to be the correct one. I’ve run out of superlatives for number 1 player in the game TT (130), and he and Tom Green (115) have continuously rewarded their owners. Cogs (101), Ash (97), Whitfield (94) all ticked the box but the person we really need to talk about is Harry Himmelberg (91), who was unsighted in the forward line. We know what he can do back there and he is at a very affordable $533K. I spun the chamber of rookie roulette this week and somehow ended up with Cadman instead of Clarke. Mistakes were made and honestly there is no obvious downgrade which will make things tricky.
Essendon v North
Freak: Merrett (155)
Flop: Sheezel (64)
Rookie Roulette: Phillips (90), Bergman (68), Wardlaw (62), Spicer (59), Menzie (55)
Merrett, Merrett, Merrett. He is so good. He has such a ceiling on him. If you haven’t got him he is a priority for you after the bye. Will Phill did it again and it’s become quite frustrating most of us weren’t able to take advantage of his output or price rises at any stage. Hobbsy (86) was a little quieter, although still fine. Shiel (44) went down with injury again so, sicko, Hobbs should be there abouts for another week. There was some absolutely rotten luck going on here, with those who took the punt on Simpkin (7) a couple of weeks ago getting slammed alongside new Greenwood (49) owners. Nobody deserved any of that, but since I’m being a sicko I may as well point out that must be good for Wardlaw.
It hurts to put the Flop on Sheez and it’s with great reluctance that I do so. His role wasn’t horrendous, there are just too many mouths to feed when Hall (96) is in the team. Its aggressive but you could think about trading at Round 15.
You’re likely to be set for personnel for round 13, so this week’s trades are all about making sure you are good for rounds 14 and 15, with that in mind:
Bring them in: Neale, Steele, DCam
Cop it on the chin: Walsh, Laird, Day
Put them in the bin: Pedlar, JVR, Fiorini
Read what the coaches said after every Round 12 game with injury updates
Read Honeyball’s CBAs and kick-ins trends from Round 12, to spot role changes
