Ripper suggestion from Billy on SC 2025. Along with any other thoughts you have go ahead and copy the template and fill out, to whatever extent you like, your early calls for SC 2025.
Locks:
Never Agains:
Watchlist:
Discounts:
Starting DEFs:
Starting MIDs:
Starting RUCs:
Starting FWDs:
Structure & Strategy Thoughts:
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I’ll kick things off and answer my own question lol.
Locks: Sheezel, Flanders and Daicos the main ones. Daicos and Sheezel had patches of light injury and role change so technically underpriced. Also a massive fan of Richards.
Never Agains: Satan. Won’t bother till he’s 100% in order. Would take an epic preseason at a new club.
Watchlist: Wil Powell, McKercher.
Discounts: Honestly, Ashcroft. Building back in. Will be underpriced and play midfield. My man Oscar Allen too. 60 average and 9 games.
Starting DEFs: Sheezel, Sinc and maybe Holmes.
Starting MIDs: Bont, Richards, Daicos, Flanders.
Starting RUCs: Fixture based tbh. Open to Xerri/Max R1, maybe RoMo, even a revamped Briggs.
Starting FWDs: I’ll honestly start Moore. He’s lethal. Rankine might also hold onto FWD status have made his move to OB later in the season. Baker at West Coast and maybe even Reid.
Structure & Strategy Thoughts: Take the obvious rucks. Witts last year, Max this year, Xerri later on. I got clever and paid right up for Tingles, bloody traded Xerri for Sweet and ended up with Max when he’d already let every team put 10k ranking on me. Pure stupidity from me. Other thing would be have patience with the paid up rookies. McKercher, Wilson, etc.
Eager to see everyone else’s takes.
Locks: McKercher, Sheezel and Daicos. Possibly Flanders.
Never again: Oliver- would need huge convincing. Jackson is a hard watch.
Watch list: S DeKoning. If he is going to get the gig as a ruck, then I am keen. The fact that the experiment was so short lived and with Conway coming through, gives big questions. Graham for GC- a few subs this year. Feel like he might be an improver
Discount: BSmith will be in a lot of teams. Looking at Kiddy Coleman and Doedee at Brisbane. Feel like Zorko took the Kiddy role, so will be interesting. Ashcroft and Mills.
Starting defenders: Flanders Sheezel and hopefully SDK
Starting mids: Bont and daicos
Starting rucks.: will be considering Meek.
Starting forwards: Rankine, hoping H Young might sneak DPP
Strategy and thoughts: took a set against R0 players, which didn’t work. Always chasing players.
40 trades means you can sideways trade more. I didn’t at all. Will consider more next year.
Outside of Bont, many other mids didn’t look like premiums week in week out. Might be prepared to start skinny in the mids and buy value later.
A golden year for starting rookies got us all to full premium pretty quickly this year. Will see what the pool looks like, but thinking I might start with a few premiums who are captain options, maybe only 10-12 rookies , not 13-14, and a few more value plays.
Locks: Xerri, Sheezel, Daicos, Bont
Never Agains: Fisher and Key Forwards
Watchlist: Pou, Peatling, Matty Roberts
Discounts: Coleman, B Smith, C Daniel (if at another club), Elijah Hewett
Starting DEFs: Flanders, Sicily, Sinclair
Starting MIDs: Bont, Daicos, Sheezel
Starting RUCs: Xerri, Marshall or Gawn
Starting FWDs: Rankine, Moore
Structure & Strategy Thoughts: First few rounds focus on starting right premos and maximising cash gen. Pre byes focus on upgrades vs sidewaysing premos. Then trade smartly around the byes so i can have 24-25 solid on field options for closing rounds with few trades up sleeve for injuries. More focused on getting best 22 on field with decent cover than playing premo loop game as it can backfire.
Locks: Sheezel, Daicos, Bont, Xerri, Flanders, Serong, Butters
Never Agains: Walsh – every year it’s the same thing. Starts off red hot, tapers off, then gets injured/carries something. Too injury prone, body doesn’t hold up enough week in week out. Rowell, Luke Jackson.
Watchlist: Wardlaw, Phillipou, potentially Oliver if he gets fit again.
Discounts: Petracca, no? Caleb Daniel if at another club. Ashcroft.
Starting DEFs: Sinclair, Flanders, Whitfield again, potentially NWM
Starting MIDs: Bont, Daicos, Serong, Butters
Starting RUCs: Xerri, TDK
Starting FWDs: Moore, potentially McCreery if he’s flagged for more midfield time
Structure & Strategy Thoughts:
– Don’t try to be too clever. Be patient and play it smart. Don’t go the home run trade. Focus on solid cash gen to then 1 down, 1 up your way to full premo.
– If choosing between a player who’s had a breakout season in scoring vs a player who’s scoring well and historically has scored well, always go the latter (i.e. Rowell vs Butters early on this season – went Rowell and it screwed me.) Go the guy with more runs on the board.
– Don’t trade rookies who have good roles (Wilson, Windsor, Reid) as soon as they get one bad score. If the BE is obscenely high, fine. But most of them can keep pumping out 70s and provide good cover. Be patient with them.
– Have a look at actual stats as well as scoring. This was big for me picking Caldwell (was averaging 21 touches and 6 tackles a game at the time) over someone like Curnow.
– Looping premos is too difficult – get your best 22 on the park.
Great analysis!
Locks – Sheezel, Jordan Clark, Serong, Bontempelli, Flanders, Butters
Never Again – Oliver, Warner (massive ceiling but too inconsistent like N Anderson who I did not have)
Starting Defenders – Ryan, Sheezel, J Clark
Mids – Bont, Serong, Flanders, Butters
Ruck – T De Koning maybe
For- Moore (who I still do not have)
Made it to Semi full premo with 9 trades left this season but we were blessed with almost uber rookies this season, so many hit $300k plus & in quick time. Soon worked out pick the best not just the best value as per season’s past as we had the cash generation and the trades.
Xerri may well be the No 1 ruck in 2025 but will start at $700k plus ! Hard to justify on one break out season. Bont is the only proven $700k+ must have IMO.
The forward line may suck a little more next year, no Heeney, presumably Flanders as well, some more miles in Zorko’s legs who honestly took me weeks and more $$$ each week before I relented and brought him in.
I cannot see myself starting with too many speculative picks after this season, whether that changes throughout will depend on cash generation and injuries, etc.
Watchlist – McKercher for sure, will consider Nick Martin again, Sicily perhaps and Gawn, still cannot help but think our forward lines may be worse than this season !
Locks: Sheezel, Bont, Gawn, Xerri.
Never Agains: Nobody in pen, but will maintain my no Carlton players rule I trialled this season, much more fun watching my team without worrying about their SC score.
Watchlist: McKercher (lock if maintains Def), Phillipou (will be very popular if he’s a Fwd), Daicos (will be happy to fade if early fixtures look tough), Rivers, D.Cameron (depending on value or price of Gawn/Xerri).
Discounts: Petracca, all the guys who missed the whole season will be considered.
Starting DEFs: Sheezel (will start if he’s mid only too), Ryan
Starting MIDs: Bont
Starting RUCs: Xerri, Gawn (D.Cameron instead if needed)
Starting FWDs: Phillipou, Moore, Rankine
Structure & Strategy Thoughts: Tried to avoid Rd 0 players this season, but with best 18 it didn’t really matter so I just missed out on obvious top 8/6 players in each line. Won’t overload but I’ll ignore the missed early games for genuine premos.
I sideways traded too much this season. I’ll aim to have 3-4 trades for the last 5 rounds or so. Remember a lot of ground can be made in the rankings as teams run out of trades (I have 0 now in both classic and tech leagues, used last ones last week, wish I had 1 more).
Will pay attention to fixtures and taggers too, it doesn’t always work but I wasn’t in position to take advantage of fallen premos as much as I’d like. I won’t pay full price for premos (especially midfielders) with a low floor.
I will also remember that a fallen premo is usually tag/injury impacted, not someone (cough, Oliver, cough), who just had a series of shit scores due to conditioning or other issue. And premos must have a good preseason!
Locks: Sheezel, Bont, and Tom Green for his first 4 games.
Never Agains: n.a.
Watchlist: The De Konings, Graham, D Jones and Peatling
Discounts: Ashcroft.
Starting DEFs: Sinclair, Flanders, Young
Starting MIDs: Bont, Serong, Green
Starting RUCs: $400k solo rucks
Starting FWDs: Caldwell
Structure & Strategy Thoughts:
– When buying late season $102k loopers make sure they are from different club than your existing loopers. I have lost a few points because I have eagles looping in mids and f/r and the eagles have had plenty of early in the round fixtures lately (AND r 24)
– Get a few good captains regardless of price. A captain average just over 130 has kept me afloat in rankings
Hayden Young has the scope to average 130. Kicks goals, good use, tackles. I think he may out average Serong next year.