Quite a few changes from first iteration mate. I like you midfield a lot and what appears to be a plan to flip Bont FWD when a FWD rookie is ready to be upgraded. Nice. I'm not convinced about Hambling or Edwards, although the latter did score well against the Saints (which may not be a positive... ) Rucks and FWDs really, solid.

D: Yarran, Newnes, Higgins, Sheppard or Laird, Dalgliesh, Goddard, Saad, Maynard
M: Pendles, Gibbs, Wines, Macrae, B Crouch,A. Swallow, Heeney, Boekhorst, Cockatoo, Anderson, Eliis-Yoman.
R: Mymmy, Nic Nat, Cox
F: Gray, D Martin, D. Smith, T. Mitchell, Clarke, Karnezis, Lonie, Lambert.

Back line is full of risk and potential for disaster, kinda depends who plays R1.
Might have to sacrifice a semi premium mid for a def rookie I think.
Cox may become O'Brien.
D. Smith should probably become Bartel.

Yeah, a lot will depend on what the outcomes are on 31st March. If they go down, what is left of the Don's squad will all get games.

I meant sacrifice a semi premium mid and get rid of a Def rookie for a better def option/

Like Bontempelli in the mid, Jason, also gives extra mid/fwd links. However, if I'm going to have a mid in the 400k's, I'd have to pick Neale. For me his pre-season form has not announced him as a good pod, but I already had him as that before his NAB Challenge games and this has made me go from likely to certain, in how likely it is he will have another breakout season.

I don't believe starting without Ablett is a bad idea. I took Ablett out of my team as well, just to have a look. Perhaps, this is the year he might have slow start?? I read earlier this week that he still cannot lift his arm above his shoulder.

Jason, I think you are on the money. I have Gibbs because he almost never plays less than 21 games per season (11th for total points for 2014, despite the relatively low avg per game of 106 for 22 games). His current dodgy shoulder puts a question mark on him for sure. Yeah, Maynard is not in NAB 3 for the Pies, so he's out. Agree that that team has a lot of 'hail Mary's'. Back to the drawing board I think, although my take on Macrae was that he would evolve into the clearance guy for the doggies with Libba out. But you are a lot closer to the likely outcomes for Footscray than I am and your point is very well made and taken. Cheers

What are the thoughts on which pair is going to simply average more per week? I know it is hard though because several of these lads could have a very broad range of how they might go:
Neale + Leuenberger ($826.9k) or
van Berlo + Mumford ($839.3k)

Re Bonti in the mids: yes I think this is definitely a year to stash at least one M/F in the mids for a while with all the attractive forward premiums and rookies around. I think I'll be starting probably two in there for that reason. This move doesn't get used often enough for mine, but perhaps will become more prevalent with the extra mid spot.

I know this isn't the question you asked but I'm a bit iffy on van Berlo as a pick - if he scores 75 every week he only makes $150k by his bye, and also that bye is R11 which is a bit unhelpful. I guess $150k is passable though and is what you often have to cop with a rookie anyway in these vest-infested times, so he could be a good conservative pick allowing more risk elsewhere.