Hi all, I'm interested in peoples thoughts re: trades now affecting finals rounds. I'm going for league win, currently on top. Hopefully that continues. I read on the trade threads lots of people bringing in Enright or Chappy or Judd or Selwood etc. Yet these guys won't be around come certain rounds of the finals. Do you just play them as any other week and use your bench cover and hope your opponents do the same, or do you load up on top guys from the likes of Freo etc. Do you plan on trading out Gibbs at some point in/before finals to maximise chance of winning. Do you keep enough trades in the kitty to make these sort of swap outs late in the season? Cheers.
I'm playing league only so my attention has turned to long term planning also. All your points are spot on. If there's little difference between trading in a Blue and a Crow I take the Crow. Having said that, I will be recruiting a Blue next week with the intention of removing him come finals. I have plenty of trades. Geelong is interesting. If you think you'll finish Top 4 and can win your first final, you won't need to trade out your Cats. Risky!! Within reason, I'm trading towards zero Blues, Dons, Cats and Roos but it's a balancing act. If I go stupid I won't make finals at all. Cheers
I would think that one needs to have sufficient trades left come the finals that one could trade in and out of a given premium(s) for a given week. An example would be that if you had Boyd now until R19, trade him out for another Premium for R20. If you happened to have a mid field NM premium he would go out for R21 (maybe you could even bring back Boyd of you wanted). R22, J Selwood and Chappy could be benched or short term traded, possibly to come back in for R23 when you may need to sit or trade Judd and/or Gibbs or Scotland. R24 and Watson (and maybe Ryder if you have him) would go for one of the premiums that you think is best number of points for the round. Team structure helps too, of course, so I don't think you would do well by having too many players from a given team in your side for a given round. Ideally you would not want more than a couple of "absolute must" players from a given team for these rounds without sufficient bench coverage. I'm planning on having between 6 to 8 trades for the last four rounds. YMMV etc, etc.
Cats will be fine due to that "weeks rest" option! I think also you have to really think of loading up on Hawks. Of course, they are the lucky team to have a Round 24 Gold Coast game. However with the possibility of the Hawks playing finals we could see a resurgence of "Hawksflu" I for one am hoping for a 200 that game from Buddy and Rioli.
Depending if the hawks need % to go up a rung on the ladder can see a few sore boys rested that week, currently have Joel Selwood in my team but plan to trade him to a Sam Mitchell round 22, for the finals if I'm still kicking on, blokes like Rioli and Hodge look like rested material
Fez, I can see the first thing needed. Hawks need percentage like the Saints did a few years back. I had Roo as my skipper and he rheemed Essendon that night, kicking a goal after the siren that got the Saints into the top 4, and my team to victory by under 10 SC points! An epic GF win if ever there was one. In the event Hawks need percentage, I could see Bud and Rioli playing and doing some significant ripping and tearing of the Suns defenders.