Looks like those boys over at <a href="http://dreamteamtalk.com">DT Talk[/url] have dropped the first bombshells of the preseason.

Rumours of a rolling lockout and positional swapping.

Now, firstly, the Rolling lockout. This will be delicious. Getting your team sorted at 2am Friday morning will be fantastic (well, except for your Carlton/Richmond players- but they will already be sorted!). I feel that it will be a big positive to the game, removing the sadness caused amongst players who arent able to get into their teams on the Thursday night.

Secondly, position swapping. It seems the assumption is that you will be able to swap an M/F sitting in the mids with an M/F sitting in the forward lines. And so on.

Which looks to be a huge boon to coaches who put in the fore-thought and plan their teams well.

With one particular caveat- for there to be much benefit, youre going to need multi-positional rookies who also make good cashcows.

Otherwise, the only coverage gained is if the actual multi-positional goes down injured AND you dont have coverage for him where hes positioned AND you have additional coverage availiable that you can move over. (aka- unlikely.)

Whether or not VS decide to give us those, would be another kettel of fish!

The funny thing is though, To this caveat, theres also another caveat to consider.

What position dont you care about making money? The worst cashcows in history? Who, by virtue of having the worst cashcows in history, also have the worst bench coverage of all the positions. And play in a position where injuries should be expected?

Yes, Ive hinted enough- the rucks.

Throw in a multi-positioned rookie ruckman on your bench, with a Clark (or if youre feeling daring, a Tippett or Kosi) in the forward line.

And suddenly, your backup ruck becomes Clark, this years highest scoring ruck, and your forward bench then goes on to cover for that lousy Ruck division.

Add to that the posibility of decent multi-positioned rookies, and you might even have your midfiled bench covering for your rucks.

A very tasty prospect for coaches who are paying attention.

That said, who knows if the same rules will apply to Supercoach, or if they will just keep it DreamTeam specific.