We had our best score for the season, with a 2,285 point week. Ordinarily you'd think that'd be enough for a decent ranking, but not this week, where we still only managed to get 25,178th place! On the overall standpoint, we're sitting at 28,292 with an aggregate score of 18,835.

The team this week was littered with some huge scores, although not from our captain. Its like we're taking pot-shots with the selections, but always missing the target.

Team breakdown:
Defence:
H Shaw 144
J Gibson 119
J Newnes 117
J Lever 74
K Kolodjashnij 43
A Oxley 25
Bench of K McIntosh 98 (E) and B Smith 0.
Shaw gave us one of our missed captain opportunities, although it would have been an absolute miracle to select him. Gibson and Newnes back up well, with recent recruit Lever pulling in another 74 points. Then we crashed to Kolo and Ox, who both stunk it up pretty bad. With Smith still floundering away on our bench, and McIntosh finally showing that R1 wasn't a complete fluke, we missed a total of 73 points (McIntosh for Oxley). Wasn't entirely out of the question to make that change either...

Midfield:
P Dangerfield 188
D Beams 144
T Rockliff 103
C Ellis-Yolmen 103
P Cripps 91
S Pendlebury 81 (C, 162)
J Kennedy 73
L Parker 59 (VC)
Bench of A Saad 78 (E), J Nelson 63, and D McKenzie 48.
There you have it. Terrible captain selection. We went the path of most, selecting a Swan as VC, expecting them to go large against the hapless Blues, but all of our three (including Titch) were absolutely terrible. We had the C on our safety, the man you're supposed to be able to depend on, who didn't live up to his name, with his doubled score still less than our top-scorer. Two huge missed opportunities, with Danger on fire in the wet against Freo, monstering 188 points, while Beams turned out 144 to show why we all brought him into our sides this year. New recruit Rocky did a job, but with another injury, its not what we needed (or most teams who also brought him in over the past couple of weeks - we're blaming you BB!). CEY scored well again, keeping his place in the side with some cash ticking over, while Cripps looks like he's about cooked as a cow. We continued with the cash generation on the pine, and with Saad outscoring Parker, we missed 19 points there, and a HUGE 107 points from our captain selection!

Ruck:
T Goldstein 134
N Naitanui 152
Bench of M Cox 0.
Very little to say here, two stellar performances, with Goldy back in form, and NicNat taking mark of the year! He was a pleasure to watch during the death timeslot of Sunday afternoon, although he has to learn to do the special things down my end of the ground... (the goal from the ruck contest was also down the other end of the ground!)

Forwards:
R Gray 136
D Swan 112
D Martin 108
T Mitchell 97
M Bontempelli 83
N Krakouer 18
Bench of M Clark 37 (E), and J McGrath 0.
Gray rounds out our missed targets, with another captain-worthy score, while Swan and Martin also topped the ton. Titch was good, but definitely not Carlton was our opponent” good. The Bont appears to be sliding, while Krak may have written his own death sentence. On the pine we had Clark unfortunately injure himself, although his 37 still more than doubled Krak, by 19 points, while McGrath is still sitting around with his feet up.

So overall there was a bucket load of missed opportunities, missed targets, and missed points this week. 73 points down back, 19 in the mids, 107 through the captain, and another 19 up forward, for a total of 218 missed points. This would have bumped our total score up to 2503, which would have given us a round 9 ranking of 697. Clearly we have the cattle, we just don't know how to herd it!

Trades:
Only one trade for round 9, with Touk out and Rocky in. That trade netted us 40 points and $16,000 while overall we're 1,247 potential points infront, and $285,200 ahead. The biggest pain still comes from the Wines to Smith trade, which has cost us now 27 points and $138,600 in team value. The biggest gain had been thanks to the unfortunate Jimmy Bartel, who we dropped for Swan, and have picked up 581 points and $11,100 in team value.
For round 9, all of our trades year-to-date, saw us gain 181 potential points, and $47,900 in team value. It doesn't sound like much when you break it down that way, but it shows improvement!

Round 10 preview:
Going into round 10, and there's some trades that will likely need to be made. With some cows showing that they've peaked (unless they pull a Hogan or Salem on us and score huge again!), there's some premiums that deserve a spot in our side, and there's some injuries that need to be ironed out. Never mind the fact that captain selection without the consistency of a Fyfe, appears to be a huge challenge for us this year.

Come and join us in the donor forum, to help shape the team as we head into the byes.