Round 19 saw the Donors score 2,348 points, which saw our ranking slip slightly, to 7,548 in the overall standings. Because of the late out of NicNat, and the uselessness of Buddy, we wanted to cover both. The plan became drop Franklin and Beams, and bring in Bennell and Gawn through DPP to cover NicNat. I managed to bring both players in alright, but thats where it all stopped working. I went to substitute Gawn and Cox, but I managed to do so right on lockout, and when my screen refreshed they were both still standing where they were to begin with, and Cox had a bloody padlock. Now we were stuck with Goldy, NicNat, and the emergency Cox. The term bugger” came to mind... A few other choice words were actually spoken!

Moving on from that disaster, we scored 2,373 points in Round 20, for a ranking of 39,060. Our aggregate has now moved along to 42,863 which has seen our overall ranking slip a little further, now sitting at 8,721 - not too shabby. Lets have a look at the team.

Defence
K Kolodjashnij 109
L Hodge 108
B Houli 101
H Shaw 96
B Smith 76
J Gibson 63
Bench of N Malceski 66 and B Maynard 0.
Kolo top scored for the defence, leading a pretty solid quarter that also included Hodge, Freo's favourite Tiger, and Cheater. Finally decided to start Smith ahead of the Eski, which paid off, until Gibson thought he'd spud it up and cost us a whole 3 potential points.

Midfield
P Dangerfield 157
J Kennedy 136
N Fyfe 119
S Pendlebury 118
J Selwood 114 (C, 228)
M Priddis 79
L Parker 49
J Steele 34
Bench of R Knight 41, N O'Brien 0, and J Nelson 0.
Of all the bloody captain options we could have picked, none were Danger, and Ducky only just did enough to not be a complete disaster. Looks like we picked the wrong Cat (what do you mean he hasn't signed with them yet???). Obviously Danger was good, really good. JPK was also impressive, while Fyfe, Pendles, and Ducky were serviceable. Priddis was disappointing (but I don't care, because the Eagles won!), while the Parker injury looked absolutely terrible, and he's obviously on the trade table this week. Our team balance was a little off, which lead to the need to field either Steele or Knight. After seeing Knight's 41, Steele got to keep his spot on the field, and cost us a further 7 potential points. Add that to the 43 potential points from the captaincy.

Ruck
T Goldstein 122 (VC)
N Naitanui 0 (Loophole ready)
Bench of M Gawn 74 (E for NicNat).
Like many, we gave Goldy a shot as VC. His 122 wasn't enough to convince us to take it, so the loophole ready NicNat didn't get the C”, and Gawn still came on for him anyway. Oh well...

Forward
T Mitchell 147
R Gray 131
D Swan 127
D Martin 123
M Bontempelli 91
H Bennell 85
Bench of J McGrath 0 and M Cox 0.
Much like the backline, four excellent scores up forward, with Titch, Gray, Swan, and Dustbin all easily topping the ton, while the Bont was serviceable with 91, and Bennell started to disappoint after we traded him in with an 85. No missed points from the spuds on the bench though.

So all up, 53 potential points gone missing. We still can't get that captaincy stuff right. Not sure we ever really will.

Trades
No trades for Round 20. We stuck with what we had. That won't be happening this week...
For the round, all of our trades gave us an extra 911 potential points and $35,700 in team value. A couple of injuries, or generally not being selected, helped us greatly in that, with tree trades over the year worth more than 100points each for us for R20.
For the year, we're ahead by a total of 6,477 potential points. Not all of those would have scored for us, but they were all there and available. In terms of cash, our years worth of trades have increased our team value by $1,040,200.

Looking forward to Round 21
The unfortunate injury to Parker means that, like many, we're looking for another premium midfielder. There's already some discussion going, so come and join us in the Donors Forum to help shape the final few trades of season 2015.