Yes considering taking both lake & Hargreaves ATM. One of them should be traded up to a prem before the byes so wait and see next lot of games coming for form.
Can't see either of them being premium this season; not sure about getting as a midrange then upgrading. The advantage is they are part of the Round 11 troupe, but that's their disadvantage. The advantage of any defender in R11 bye is that you could get them in to cover R12/13. The disadvantage is you really don't want them in BEFORE R11, because in that case you have to cover their bye that round. It's the reason most of us waited to get Ablett after bye #2 last season. And then Lake/Hargrave would either be overpriced (i.e. having a great season) or stuffed anyway. I can see the argument that people could use them as a D5, use good coverage (R13 coverage) during R11 then maybe have them as their last upgrade in R14-17, but I'm not buying it unless Lake is legit. And if he's legit there will be a time to get him early, not taking the risk from the start.
Just on your previous point Lucas - I can't see being able to trade him in during the round 3 shuffle, if he does kill it. You would either need to have around 180k in the bank to start with, which seems like a waste to me. Or trade down an underperforming premium...definitly a waste of a trade. Although if you started with Grimes he probably would be injured by the end of round 2 and you could swap for lake...
As a point of discussion - Grimes, Lake, Hargraves, Phil Davis - how many of these four have you got in your team ATM? And how many should you have. All underpriced IMO, but with significant risk (either of injury, or of the unknown with Davis and GWS).
To answer your question chriss88, I'm strongly considering starting Grimes at the moment. The interesting thing about defenders in general is that last year there wasn't a massive margin between the 6th best defender's average and the averages of many of the players who started out mid-pricers or rookie-priced. Heppell, Lower, Stanley, etc. ended up not that many points-per-game below so of the so-called premiums at the start of 2011 (I'm thinking Newman for example). What I take from this is that spending a bit less on some of the D4-D5-D6 players in the backline might not actually be a bad idea for 2012. If you can find the value players to start in D4-D5-D6, there may not be a significant loss of points across the year compared to starting with a much more expensive player. Certainly the difference between the value-picks in the MID line and the top end of town is far greater at any rate.
Jason - I'm with you on that - I have Grimes at the moment... have Phil Davis as well, and am considering one of your Dogs' boys too! They'd be D4,5 and 6 (or D5,6 and 7).
Looking at the photo why on earth would Melbourne risk such contact in training. Oh yeah that's right, they play Collingwood this week.
supercoach should petition all return-from-injury players to have a Public pre-lockout test on the wednesday before Round1 - where all supercoachers can barrel into them from all angles and really test their shoulders. Maybe hold it at Gosh's paddock (there'll be heaps of collingwood guys in this group anyway). All the heraldSun nerds can film it, we can cook sausages, raise money for tooSerious hehe