It also harms your team if you're not focussed on your approach of what you're aiming for. That winning team traded extremely aggressively, while you'd think if you were going for league wins you'd keep some trades for the GF.
I disagree with the 'all in the trades' theory. If you nail your starting team, you are already so far ahead, and you can afford to make a few mistakes in your trading, whereas if you miss a few guns to begin with, you have to play catchup and nail all of your trades. Ultimately, nailing your trades is probably more luck then nailing your starting team, simply because of a players scoring fluctuations.
Nailing trades is still v important and a skillful part of the game and where people like us on these sites have an advantage. Because even if they cookie cut their team, they won't be researching throughout the year to get the right trades. Eg from last year To be able to know that Cox's value was still falling and to wait 2 weeks for the trade until he had played Swans at the SCG (where he scores poorly) and against Freo against 211, then bring him in after that, takes a bit of extra knowledge, thought and patience.
On the structure of the team, I am thinking slightly differently - working backwards sort of. The idea is obviously that you need 22 premiums/keepers, so my main concern with my starting squad is how many upgrades will I need to get those final 22. I know my team is ready when I am confident that I should be able to upgrade all my non-keepers.
<blockquote>Quote from eagles2011 on February 25, 2011, 14:31 Nailing trades is still v important and a skillful part of the game and where people like us on these sites have an advantage. Because even if they cookie cut their team, they won't be researching throughout the year to get the right trades. Eg from last year To be able to know that Cox's value was still falling and to wait 2 weeks for the trade until he had played Swans at the SCG (where he scores poorly) and against Freo against 211, then bring him in after that, takes a bit of extra knowledge, thought and patience.</blockquote> There is no way to know when a player will suddenly hit form though. How many people from this site actually hit the Cox trade at the perfect time? And by hitting it at the right time, did it actually save them enough money/points to make a difference in the team they ended with? So many people, even from TS traded Roo out after his injury, and brought in Brown. That was possibly one of the biggest mistakes we could have made, but Brown's form was great, and apart from Chappy, who was a fair bit more expensive iirc, he was the best option. If Brown had have stayed injury free last year, he probably would have been a top 5 forward, but it was plain bad luck that kept him from doing so. While obviously there is some skill in picking the under performing gun over the over performing dud, it is ultimately luck that determines whether they get injured, whether they stay in form, whether they get tagged, etc. There is luck involved with picking your starting team, but there is less luck, as you don't have to guess when a player has peaked or hit rock bottom.
I agree with Ruddy. A good starting team allows for some mistake trades along the way. Whilst others are spending pre-R3 trades adjusting their starting lineup to pick up the rookie bolter that they missed, you have the luxury of some additional room on your trades. Blue Thunder clearly made more than a few trades that were of questionable benefit and he still got the $50k prize.
Agree with Ruddy. It comes down to nailing your starting lineup and trades just need to then be smart, not necessarily perfectly timed. I nailed it in 2009 finishing 2nd overall in Rd 1 and from there stayed around the mark for the remainder of the season. Whereas i stuffed it last year (too Crows heavy). And even with some smart or timely trades - Roo to Pav (over Roo to Brown) and getting Goodes the week of his break out game - my challenge was well and truly over by this point cause of the remainder of my team.
My thought is if your team has got mistakes, now particularly with 24 trades, you need to trade hard to get out of it. It most likely would involve something like trading out of two average performing players (say 350k each) into one improving rookie and one gun. The early weeks are getting rid of midrange/appreciated rookies and changing them to premiums/fresh meat.
I thought Crawfs team was an interesting one. He had a number of the big guns down back that most will have, and had managed to squeeze in most of the elite players. But his starting midfield was monstrous comparatively! Granted, this came at the expense of his forward line, and I dare say R2 as well, and he is only a celeb. who is probably just having some fun. But I couldn't believe his midfield when I saw it.
Just read BTs account of last year and I took 3 things from it - 1. theres definitely a place for a few midprice players in your team, 2. starting Maguire and Bastinac on field let him spend big elsewhere (makes me keener on the idea of leaving out Gaff and Polec in favour of cheaper options), 3. he was willing to bring in older proven premiums who had started fairly average ie Harvey, Cox, Goodes. Also agree with thought that more ruthlessness is required in trading - go hard early or go home.
Maybe the starting team comment was just from my own experiences. My starting team was almost as good, but I stuffed up the ruck trades and completed my midfield too early to fit Swan or Judd in when they were firing.
@Tylo, not only is there room for mid pricers, but it's almost certainly going to win it for you. Why? Because it's so hard to get them right, that when you do, you're probably one of very few. A bit of luck and some good trading and presto - 50K jumps in. The problem with GnR is that it's too easy. Sure, follow all the advice here, and have the same luck and some good trading and you'll be in the top thousand or so. Because so many have virtually the same team. You pick a whole team of mid price improvers and you'll win the overall with 24 trades still in the bank. GnR for me though, all the way, because I like to still be playing a team that's not completely dead in the water by round 3!
<blockquote>Quote from Tylo on February 25, 2011, 18:37 Just read BTs account of last year and I took 3 things from it - 1. theres definitely a place for a few midprice players in your team, 2. starting Maguire and Bastinac on field let him spend big elsewhere (makes me keener on the idea of leaving out Gaff and Polec in favour of cheaper options), 3. he was willing to bring in older proven premiums who had started fairly average ie Harvey, Cox, Goodes. Also agree with thought that more ruthlessness is required in trading - go hard early or go home.</blockquote> I see what you mean about having Gaff and Polec, has been an issue for me too, but what are the other options? Atley, Wallis, Libba, Savage, Pittard? None have shown enough for a spot on the bench. (assuming you already have Mzu and Hibberd)
If your not happy with the rookies in a line (FWD, MID etc) Find a line that you are happy that these rook's should get game time and make that your GNR line. Ofcourse mid rookies will be the most fruitful, from previous years form, but having lesser rookies just to fit a certain structure or plan is not going to get ya 50k,,,,,,Famous last words to be used against me later.....
@Tylo All value and you are stuffed You need only as much value as to give yourself a POD against full GNR teams. I'm trying to go unspeakably full-on GNR this year as a trial but normally I try and have a smoky or two in there. The bye is going to be the hard thing to arrange around this season.
Who said anything about all value. I said theres definitely a place for a few midpriced players. I agree you need the rookies to generate cash and you have to start with some keepers cause you cant upgrade everyone. I believe 1 or 2 midpricers on each line gives you more flexibility in early trading and with a bit of luck the possibility of picking a Mummy or Malceski you end up keeping.
Fair call Tylo I think if you do have midpricers they need to be gone by say round 10. Up or down. If you are not brutal on getting rid of these guys they will haunt your team as the year progresses. In other words they are placeholder selections, hopefully will increase in value but unless they do a lot better than you thought (ie went from 70 to 100) you are going in with the strategy knowing you will need to upgrade them. I'm thinking 2 per line is a shade too much (esp in midfielders - not bad thinking in forward though), 1 per line is not bad thinking, 0 per line might be where I'm headed this year, but it's going to take some really hefty trading to make that work. It's generally guess work, but when you look at the best teams they were fully traded out of midpricers by R10 and fully upgraded by R14, so you'd want to be that quick or quicker this year. So yeah, I don't want to sound like I'm hammering on this one - everyone has their own systems, and so long as you can back it up with scores, who gives a stuff. Blue Thunder won by using all his trades by R18. Not in the textbook but who has the 50k.
Yeh I've realised this preseason I havent been brutal enough with the trades in the past. Last year I held back more than usual, I think cause I had spent more time researching and picking the team (and theres always the league win in the back of your mind). Hard to let them go when you feel like you have an emotional investment in them. This year I'm going hard early.