Hello all, This year seems to provide the savvy Supercoach with plenty of potential midfield stars at Crazy Eddy prices. Kerr, Foley, Anthony, Davenport etc come to mind. Others who could step up include Martin, Brennan, Hill, Palmer, Scully, Zaharakis, Shuey...the list goes on. I wonder how this will affect the makeup of your starting midfield? I'm looking to start with two premiums (Judd, Pendlebury), three midrange (Foley, L Anthony and Higgins) and four Rooks (Swallow, Harris, Heppell and Mzungu). Admittedly it's risky, but as risks go Higgins, Foley and Anthong ain't bad. I was even tempted at one stage to chuck in Kerr, but I'll wait to see if he gets picked Round 1 before I start doing anything too foolish What are everyone's thoughts on the best balance of risk and reward in the midfield stakes?
That is very risky, and doesn't leave as much room for growth as a GnR strategy. For mine, Anthony is a huge injury risk, and Higgins is a fairly big risk to miss 4+ games again this year. Along with Foley, who i'm not sold on, you miss so many good midfield rookies such as Gaff, Polec, etc., especially since you are putting mpp rookies in there also. It seems like, given the amount spent on your midfield, that you surely must be skimping on your other lines.
The major risk with this method, is that these mid-pricers that you pick could average 90-95. This doesnt sound like a problem, however someone running wiht GnR method has guns scoring 110 and then will trade the rookies to guns scoring 110. You will have players scoring 90-95 who you will probably keep because you will view the trade as a waste. I currently have this problem in my forward line, if you go for this method would you trade a mid-priced to an elite? or would you conisder it a waste?
Gday Woosh - Welcome aboard The general consensus is to stay well away from a mid-priced midfield strategy as your goal should be upgrade all your midfielders to premiums. Sure mid-pricers might be juicy value pickups initially, but what are the chances of them becoming 110ppg premium keepers? History would suggest that on average only 2 mid-pricers will make the jump to premium status each season and picking those players is quite rare. Evidently, if you assume that your mid-pricers would score 80-90ppg - and that's being quite generous - you will still need to use a trade to upgrade them to premiums. You will be better suited to run with a GnR strategy as the rookies could possibly score similar to your mid-pricers but considerably cheaper. Additionally, rookie price increase will allow you to upgrade your team quicker as you can afford more premiums to begin, but also there will be less total upgrades required.
In past seasons i would agree that this strategy would be risky but i think this year it is well worth considering. To me job security is a huge issue this year and this is where players like higgins/kerr(fit)/dangerfield/knights will become valuable contributors. These mid rangers are in their respective best 22 and whereas the same cannot be said for some of the rookies currently doing the rounds, sure these rookies will get games but you run the risk of them missing alot more than mid pricers. The last thing you want this year is non playing bench cover resulting in donuts in your weekly scores. I also don't believe that upgrading mid rangers is a waste as you get the benefit of gtee'd 80ppg from the start of the year then cash them in for elite's or premiums as you see fit. This kind of strategy will also give you a point of difference also if going for the overall as majority of serious teams will be running a GnR approach. The value picks of mid ranges is definately something that i am having trouble passing up on but good luck whichever way you choose to go.
My forward line has no rookies in it, as I have gone with a similar method. I think it is safer to take the risk on the mid-priced players in your forward or backline because there are not as many rookie options in these areas compared to the midfield. In particular, why pick dangermouse in the mids when he can go into the forward line and you could replace him with a rookie that will play all games like swallow or harris?
Woosh - first of all welcome! But I think you are going to run into extreme difficulties with that strategy. You definitely need 3 premiums in the midfield to start with. I have 3 premiums and 3 rookies in my starting midfield (Swallow, Harris and Polec). The midfield rookies is really where you make all your cash as they are normally the ones who increase in price the most. I would be staying clear of any of the mid pricers you mentioned, there is just no value there and it is too big a risk to select them. As others have stated you need to run with GnR strategy.
I agree that the GnR stretegy will allow for a broader growth in the value of your team. Say you start with 14 premiums. That's eight upgrades needed to leave you with 22 premiums as you head into finals. Double trading 8 times will obviously cost 16 trades, leaving 8 trades to cover injury and some finals tweaking. For this strategy to be effective you need a lot of rookies (I'll start with between 14-18, most sitting on the bench). I had some mates go for the cheap mids options last year and they came up short in the finals.
If every midpricer you picked made the jump, then you'd probably be laughing. But their hit and miss nature is likely to cause you serious troubles as the season goes on. Walesy put up a good analysis not too long ago regarding last year and players ppg increase over the year and it compared the two strategies with each other and showed just how hard it is to get the midpricer strat to even be competitive with the GnR strat. I'm not completely against the idea of taking a punt on a couple of midpricers (Kerr, for example, high injury risk for sure, but at his price if he is fit is a great player who is underpriced), but I wouldn't be running too many of them.
I reckon there is something to be said for picking the better value premiums, even if Buster/Chris says no. Having more premiums means when the inevitable bye comes you are able to have a greater spread on the field. It may mean saying no (for the moment) to the guys averaging 120, and saying yes to those averaging 110 or even 100. I can see the arguments for D Swallow and Jack which have been fairly prevalent on the site, and though I personally wouldn't use those players, you could use Bartel and Watson in a similar fashion.
Woosh, theres a lot of devoted GnR disciples here that will tell you its the only way to go. As someone who uses a more balanced structure, I would give you 2 bits of advice - 1. personally think your crazy not to start both Harris and Swallow on field, 2. its generally better to look for value on other lines. As for the players you mentioned I'm not keen on many of them but thats your call.
I reckon a midpricer here and there, such as Jolly, Otten and Dangerfield, but i wouldn't go more than 1 or so per line. There are so many good rookie options, that will rise by more, and can probably score more than the mid pricers. The extra 200k+ can also be spent on more premiums.
Take this with a grain of salt Woosh. I have both Anthony & Foley in my mids. I confess I did not look at their prices when making the selection and could not tell you now what those prices are. I selected them because I consider them to be 2011 premiums and, barring injury, to remain in my team for the duration. A lot of folks on here are discussing the merits of recruiting Goodes and/or ROK. Frankly I don't see a lot of difference in terms of price/risk/scoring potential of this pair compared to Anthony/Foley. Jack is another one in the same basket, but it is possible Hannerbury and some Hawk imports might steal his thunder. But Kerr? No, not that radical mate.
Terry/Woosha At the moment I think the reason people aren't pushing on the midfield midrange is that there seem to be some great rookie prospects in this area, and you need to make room. By the same token, the ranks of the forwards isn't in the same ball park (even compared to defence) so that's where people such as Goodes/ROK get a mention, in my view more legitimately. I can understand the thoughts on Foley/Anthony and think that they are reasonable, but not enough to warrant avoiding a current premium and extra rookie strategy. Foley-Anthony are priced around 75 each. I can't see their combined scores being over 180 this year, just my assessment of where they're at (obviously you two would disagree). One of them will probably need to be up-traded to get to a legitimate premium. E.g. Anthony goes 100 which is OK but Foley tanks and gets 80 In comparison, you could get, for the price, a 600 and a 120 player. Something like Swan-Bennell. If Bennell starts with more than 60s you win on this double. I think probably more chance of there being only one trade from this duo than on the other, where two may be required.
Lucas, based on your previous comment about not having 120+ elites does that mean you are Swan and GAJ-less? I currently have Swan but I was thinking of trading him for Pendles and trying to use the cash elsewhere. Goddard would be more than enough for permacaptain...but would it be too doffcult to try and upgrade two rookies to both GAJ and Swan?
You are right Matty C. In some ways I'm more happy with three premiums in the mids, with three to come (hopefully some of the elite). To go either Swan/Ablett would involve cutting a prem down to a midrange, and currently I'm not as prepared to do that, as it would at least cost an extra trade, maybe two.
Fully agree with you Lucas. IMO Swan and Ablett are upgrade targets, not starters, because they get their byes out of the way early. Also, GAJ is something of an unknown quantity, in that he has much less experienced midfield around him and I would not be surprised if he took a significant ppg hit - especially early. Whether this is offset by a greater "slice of the pie" I'm not sure.
@Lucas I see your logic. The only flaw is your example of Swan - Bennell, when in a later thread you confess to not starting Swan. The first issue is perma-cap. Every man and his poodle have Goddard and most will give him the perma-cap. Why? Because this season we start from R1 and we have yet to see the old standards such as GAJ, Swan, Hodge, Mitchell, Hayes get on the paddock. No more opportunity to use the first 3 rounds to get an indication on them. I don't think Boyd will be anyone's POD either - he is the only premium midfielder to show form of interest so far. No arguments with the combined total of 180 either, nor the very high possibility of one up/one down. Sure, I think Swan and GAJ will be in my team, but not from R1. It is this uncertainty hanging over the old standards that probably has people looking elsewhere for a bit of value and reliability, with every intention of picking up the standards if and when they fire. Out of Jack/Foley/Anthony one should hit prem and remain a keeper. Two would be considered very lucky. If we take your argument of maintaining zero kitty, it will take at the very least 2 rookie cows to get a Swan. Mid to upper priced mids narrow this gap.
Why isn't Judd considered amongst the "perma-captains"? Won two Brownlows, smashed some massive scores in the past, and style of play suits Supercoach scoring.