A very good performance this week, with that measly point meaning we were on 2,499 for round 16. Our weekly rank was a respectable 11,884. Our overall score is now 33,374 while our overall rank is now happily in the top 10,000 at 8,535.
Lets take a look at the breakdown of the donor team for round sixteen.

Defence
H Shaw 126
L Hodge 110
J Gibson 93
K Kolodjashnij 73
B Houli 67
B Smith 50
Bench of J Lever 57 (E), and B Maynard 44.
Top score down back coming from the cheater, who has actually been pretty good to us this season, so we can't complain too much. Next up were Hodge and Gibson, which is amazing really, as Hawks defenders in that game shouldn't have seen much of the ball - somewhat like the Swans forwards really (I'll get to them in a minute...). The other three were pretty average really, although is it fair to expect more out of Kolo? I don't know. Anyway, with Lever on the bench outscoring his more experienced premo” teammate, in the game that the crows just chose to stop playing about 15 minutes too early, we missed a total of 7 potential points.

Midfield
G Ablett 189
P Dangerfield 121
S Pendlebury 110
J Kennedy 105
L Parker 102
N Fyfe 92
D Beams 89
J Selwood 0
Bench of N O'Brien 76 (E, on for Ducky), J Nelson 0, and T Dumont 0.
We brought in a new kid this week, Gary someone his name is, who has done well enough for us to probably keep him in the side for the rest of the season. Danger also did quite well, in what I can only imagine was a very emotional game for him and the team, while Pendles, JPK, and Parker were serviceable. That Fyfe bloke is an absolute has-been (did anyone trade him for Gazza???) while Beams was also below par. Ducky took his enforced week-long holiday, only keeping his spot in the side thanks to O'Brien scoring 76 as the emergency, which was enough to convince us to flick Cripps instead. Meanwhile Nelson and Dumont are still clogging up the midfield...

Ruck
Same-old, same-old in the rucks this week. So much blandness infact that we decided to give Cox a run, and even gave him the captaincy. We also threw NicNat on the bench as an emergency, and just for fun, we placed the VC with Goldy. What a terrible decision that was! 442 points thankyou very much!!! J Seriously, 542 points from the rucks outscored our defence, and nearly did the same to our forwards. It won't happen every week, but when it does, you have to be there to take advantage of it.
T Goldstein 221 (VC 442)
M Cox 0 (C)
Bench of N Naitanui 100 (E)

Forward
R Gray 122
M Bontempelli 94
D Martin 93
D Swan 91
T Mitchell 84
L Franklin 72
Bench of J Steele 75 (E), and J McGrath 0.
Of all the alleged big-name forwards we've got, only Gray was good enough to top the ton. Bonts, Dusty, and Swan were almost identical in the nervous nineties (too much cricket?), while those Swans forwards would have been better off on the trade table. Seriously Lance, biggest contract in league history, and you can't even present enough to help your team get close to scoring. Even the rookie with the solid surname, playing as our emergency, out-scored your over-rated a*se. Only three points, but it still cost us that magical 2500 mark.

So yeah, the captaincy was all good this week. With 7 points down back and 3 points up forward gone missing, we could have hit that 2500 point mark, but unfortunately we backed our premos in over our rookies. That'll teach us!

Trades
So this week we dropped Hamling after only 4 weeks with us, and brought in Maynard for some cash. We then put the emergency on O'Brien, and gave him the power to select either Cripps or Selwood to make way for Gazza. O'Brien did enough for Ducky to keep his place in our side, and Ablett came in with his 189 points! There was a 151 point gain in these trades for us, and nearly $85k worth of team value.
For the round, all our trades have given us 328 potential extra points, with some injuries and non-starters really swaying that count. The Salem-to-Parker trade made us 102 points for the week, thanks to Salem not playing, while Rocky-to-Dumont cost us 101 points due to Rocky playing, and Dumont not. For the week, we were $92,800 in the black on total team value.

Looking Forward to Round 17
The team is nearing completion - if you count some of our premos as actual premos and keepers. There's already been some discussion in the forum about trade plans for the next few weeks, so make sure your opinion is heard, by heading over to the donors forum and putting in your two bobs, 10 cents, or whatever the value of your opinions are!