This weeks bye was nowhere near as painful for the donors, scoring a wonderful 1985 points for the round. This placed us at 30,031 for the week, and brought us up 2,403 places to be 6,975 in the overall rankings! In our leagues we lost in Ucantbetooserious to be ranked 15th, while we won all our other leagues, to be 1st in Ucantbe TS, 2nd in TS Igotatheory, 4th in TS Pinewarmers, and 7th in the WA League.

Join me over the break to see just how our team did.<!--more-->

We decided to trade out Kennedy and Clarke this week, bringing in Shaw and Priddis, which turned out to be a really good move, netting us two players whose prices rose, along with a fantastic haul of points. Like many we took advantage of the captains loophole, naming Priddis as VC, and decided to stick with his 131 points (like most) by placing the C on Pendlebury.

The team itself, with 20 scoring players, looked like this:

1. Deledio,DEF,132
2. Goddard,DEF,67
3. Lake,DEF,88
4. Bugg,DEF,90
5. Darley,DEF,71
6. Shaw,DEF,71
7. Ablett,MID,188
8. Mitchell,MID,124
9. Priddis Vice Captain,MID,262
10. Treloar,MID,7
11. Adams,MID,70
12. Cox,RUC,132
13. Redden,RUC,44
14. Franklin,FWD,118
15. Dangerfield,FWD,86
16. Roughead,FWD,129
17. Martin,FWD,99
18. Riewoldt,FWD,83
19. Porplyzia,FWD,90
20. Milera,FWD,34
,,
1. Broughton,DEF,0
2. Shaw,DEF,0
3. Morris,DEF,0
4. Kennedy,MID,0
5. Selwood,MID,0
6. Pendlebury,MID,0
7. Giles Emergency,RUC,0
8. Pattison,RUC,0
9. Sidebottom,FWD,0
10. Sexton Emergency,FWD,30

Down back we were lead by Deledio’s 132 points, while our other five were headed by the surprising Bugg on 90, followed by Lake on 88, Darley and Shaw both on 71, and an unfortunate shocker by Goddard on 67 points. On the pine we had Broughton and Shaw’s byes, and Morris, who simply let us down.

In the mids we had Priddis on 262 as a captain, which you’d take any other week, except for the one that you lose faith in the permacaptain, and he gives you a big @#$% you with 188 points! Like probably 95% of coaches who took advantage of the captains loophole, we’re sorry Gazza, we’ll never doubt you again! Following on, Mitchell did a great job with 124 points, while Adams was nothing to be sneezed at with 70, however his teammate Treloar leaves more than a lot to be desired, scoring just 7 points. We had three donuts across our midfield, three premium donuts (with all the sugary toppings) of Pendlebury, Selwood, and Kennedy.

After Thursday night things were looking really good for the donors (along with many other teams), with big Cox back in form on 132 points, but then it all came crashing down when we knew that Giles was going to be out, Pattison still hadn’t been named, Roughead was in our forward line, and Redden only got 44 points.

Onto that forward line, and that boy Roughead dragged down 129 points to lead the way. Buddy Franklin did his job with 118 points, while we’ll let Martin off for his 99. Porplyzia also did well for 90 points, however Dangerfield’s 86 and Riewoldt’s 83 were quite disappointing. Finally we had Milera’s ugly 34 points, and emergency Sexton’s 30 points on the bench with Sidebottom’s bye.

All in all we only missed points on our captain selection, and while hindsight says that 262 points from a captain is a good job, when Gazza would have given us 376 points you can’t help but think “what if?”

So onto round 13, where at the start of the season we expected our backline to be quite decimated, its actually going to be our midfield that hurts more, with Ablett, Mitchell, and Pendlebury taking a sabbatical. Then we scroll down to the forward line and see Franklin, Roughead, Martin, Riewoldt, Milera, and Sexton all sitting it out this week, and with only Milera likely to be tradable we’re sure to have our share of tasty zeros to munch on!

So, head on over to the forum to help us decide who’s in, who’s out, and who’s going to be given captain duties this week.