Normally around this time of week, we’d have either Rare Gems or Movers & Shakers. But with the very pointy end of the season upon us, and with coaches shopping around for all kinds of players, I thought it might be more useful for people if I did something a bit different this week.
A little while back, Father Dougal introduced the concepts of swords and shields. They didn’t really catch on at the time, but I think the concepts are quite relevant at this time of year. It’s well worth reading his post in full, but the general idea is that a shield is someone you own to avoid falling behind, whereas a sword is someone you own to get ahead (or catch up).
I’ve included at least one of each, as well as general bargains (regardless of ownership) for each position. In the interest of both brevity and usefulness, I’ll let the numbers do most of the talking this week.
I’m also limiting the field to players who a) don’t have a bye this round, and b) are, at the time of publishing, yet to play this round.
DEFENDERS
SHIELD: Jake Lloyd
SWORD & BARGAIN: Zac Bailey (MID)
SWORD & BARGAIN: Harris Andrews
SWORD & BARGAIN: Alex Witherden
SWORD & BARGAIN: Steven May
MIDFIELDERS
SHIELD: Lachie Neale
SWORD: Taylor Adams
BARGAIN: Sam Walsh
BARGAIN: Josh P. Kennedy
BARGAIN: Ed Curnow
RUCKS
SHIELD: Brodie Grundy
SWORD: Max Gawn
I never thought I’d see his name here, but with his ownership having plummeted recently due to his missing a couple of matches, he’s gone from a shield to a scoring weapon for the 18.4 percent of coaches who have kept him.
BARGAIN: Oscar McInerney (FWD)
FORWARDS
SHIELD: Lachie Whitfield (MID)
SHIELD: Christian Petracca
SWORD: Jordan Dawson (DEF)
BARGAIN: Jake Riccardi
An absolute bargain if you think he can keep this kind of scoring up. With a sample size of just 2, that’s a big ‘if’, but he doesn’t have a particularly tough draw for the remainder of the season(tonight’s upcoming thrashing at the hands of Carlton notwithstanding).
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Harris Andrews is the one. Expect him to do a similar job to the Suns King that he did to his brother.
Im in front pts wise in all my leagues. Went shield doch this week. All 3 likely oppts from here have him.
Its sword this week with gawn, and jpk for my lovechild mcgrath…. Tks son for the cash to get gawn. Goldy, thanks for warming Gawn seat.
Glad you bright this back up! I think the concept is much more relevant at the end of the season when either defending a chase / playoff or trying to catch up.
This looks like something that can be done every fortnight through the season. When starting the season, you’d have less bargains, but ‘Swords’ won’t have to be major PODs.
If done next year you could stay Lloyd = Shield, Williams = Sword due to injury prone. Same would go for Fyfe as injury prone. Decent premiums, but they are not really going to be PODs but still treated as Swords
Wow, so suprised by Gawn ownership this year. Partly due to the extra trades people had. 18.4% he is the perfect POD. Also his lack of ownership in the top 100 teams shows what an unusual year we had.