Father Dougal’s Team Reveal

Hi Everybody!

This season has  been a bit weird for me. I recently moved interstate to be with my partner, and combined with work that kept me mostly not available until last week. So, I came at team creation fresh, without months of thought and also without months of getting attached to or fearful of any players. Very open mind, hopefully nothing important fell out!

So, Rule of Cowquistion Number One: “Start the season with as many good cows as you can get, up to where you have undesired left-over money.” 

I started with all the cows I feel good about taking. I hate dodgy cows. I always seem to end up taking a few to fill out my team, who end up a selection risk for weeks until they go away forever, probably without making much money. Often playing for Carlton. I do of course have one anyway, Zane Zakostelsky.  It is entirely possible he’ll fade away and turn into a loophole, but since he is a ruck DPP and only costs 119,900, I am ok with that as the worst case. I would not be ok with that for a non Ruck DPP. I feel like he’ll make cash eventually, but I am not counting on it. I think he has a good chance of playing through the early byes, which would be nice. But, again, not needed. ZZ Top is unlikely to be “Eliminated”. 

So, next comes the Cow Like Objects. Rule Number One still applies along with Rule Number Fifteen: “Any non-premium player who has a reasonable chance of going up in price by $150,000 should be considered a cow for purposes of the rules of Cow-quisition.”

There are a lot of Cow Like Objects this year. Again, I took all the ones I feel confident about.  Young and Flanders are just cheap enough to be Cow Like Objects and not underpriced keepers. They may end up being keepers, but I’m not counting on that, and if they only make $150,000 I’ll probably want to upgrade them. 

Now the fun part – filling in the keepers. I am going to pay serious attention to the byes this year both early and late. I’m also going to be careful of getting players who are over priced. 

 

Defense

On defense, There are three players I like who have no early bye and are not overpriced and I have three open spots. That was easy! Well, aside from missing Rivers, who I like but not enough to make room for. 

The midfield has the most options so I am going to fill in the other lines first so I can see what I have work work with. 

 

Rucks

One spot. After a lot of thinking, I am going with Xerry. He has no early bye, although he has the rough R12 bye. He is probably overpriced. He has a good early run, and if it turns out the new rules have neutered him then I can probably trade him to anyone. Gawn would be similar but I feel safer going with the much younger guy. I may also change my mind, as Max is probably better around the ground, but I also suspect the Demons are not going to win a lot of games. Coin flip? I’ll be looking for data that supports one over the other but for now Xerri. What I want is someone underpriced who I think will improve, but other than McAndrew I am not seeing that person. I really want to avoid making corrections, so if I am “stuck” with Xerri I feel I can handle that. I had Luke Jackson for a long time, but his situation feels unclear and I worry about him dropping off as well. He has a much better bye. I worry he will end up not scoring well enough for me to be happy keeping him as a Ruck. I was feeling better about Xerri before I started writing this….

 

Forwards

Sheezel and Petracca are just too clearly good options to not take. Accepting the dread R3 bye to own Petracca.

Midfield

Yeah, the hard one. The good news is I can handle some bye players. First is Butters, who has no Bye and might even raise his average. I have no premium missing round 2 yet, so I can handle Diacos, who I expect to be priced about right. He could do better and I don’t think will do much worse. I do not like the idea of anti-PODding either of them. While I have an annoying number of R3 players, even though mostly cows, I am still taking Ed Richards. Again, priced about right, maybe up and I do not think much down. I would not be shocked if he did a lot better. I do not want to have to try to bring him in later. The Bont I feel safe trying to bring in later. He did so well last season that his best case is his keeping it up. I expect to be able to get him at a discount at some point in the season, and plan to. That leaves on spot and enough cash to get who I want. I want someone with good byes. No early bye and not one of the hard ones. Ideally R13. That’s GWS and Richmond, which means I am looking at GWS.  No Tom Green, so that leaves…Clayton Oliver. Who is not expensive and very likely to average over the 92 he is priced at. And he really helps my byes. Also, he is just 28. With the new club, it is not impossible he goes back to 120, and it is very possible he goes for 110. I already liked the idea of taking him and now he is the only guy with the best byes? Easy sell. 

 

Flex

I do this last, because, well, flexible. I have $368,200 left over. That is not enough for a quality player but more than enough for a non-quality player. It is agonizingly short of enough to get Rachelle. Hmm. lots of guys I could get, but if I felt good about them I would have them already. Um. I think the best of the lot is De Goey? Or I could bank a lot and take Blamires, who is the best of the rest of the cows. He is not as safe as I like but he is $99k, did well in the pre-season and seems to have OK job security? I end up taking De Goey. 

 

Penultimate Reveal Team 

I keep looking for a way to improve De Goey. Rule Number Eleven: “Better an unknown cow than a known bum steer”. Yeah….Rule Number Thirteen: “It’s going to go wrong. Pick the cows who will go wrong in the ways you can best cope with”. Sigh. 

Now it looks like Hayden Young is touch and go to play because of an injury. Even if he plays, will he get managed in game? Confidence dropping. Do I fear missing out? Some but not a lot. So if I can swap both Young and De Goey I have two spots and $757,200. That is a premium and a cow, and I like starting with another premium. There is one I want, Tim English. I ruled him out because of a bad early bye. He has a good R16 bye though. Looking at all the players I do not have, I want him the most, and along with ZZ Top I am much better covered at ruck. Now I have $156,300 left. Taking Blamires leaves me with $57,200. Perfectly reasonable bank. English to R2 and McAndrew to Flex to make things look clearer for the screenshot. Jagga has to play on field, which is just fine. 

 

Final Reveal Team 

The only cow I worry about being dropped is Blamires. I’ll come up with a backup plan. Also, since I am not worried, soon someone is gonna get dropped. I think I cursed myself. 

I am a tight at Round 3, but mostly from cows who will not play, which are less a worry. Only three premiums missing and Budarick. I am not hurting at any late bye other than 12 with six premiums out. Not great but not bad. Probably no need to bring in more for R12. 

Will I make any more changes? No idea. I am more settled than normal. Something always happens and I will need to have a few players selected as possible emergency replacements, but odds are anyone going out will be highly owned and someone on the site will have thoughts! 

I would like to have found a sane way to get Joel Freijh in, but just can’t see him over anyone I have. 

After seeing https://supercoachtalk.com/team-reveal-jjs-circus-sct-2/ I am wondering if Brayshaw could help my early byes? In place of English? Probably not, but an interesting question….

Love to get your feedback and ideas!

Thanks for reading!