THE free hit in round one provided us with a proper match-day insight into what we can expect from players for the NAB AFL Fantasy season ahead.
Although it's easy to get excited by a big score of 141 from Clinton Jones [MID, $420,200] or incredibly frustrated at a score of just 68 from premium defender Sam Mitchell [DEF/MID, $517,700], it's no reason to fly into reactionary trades based on one week.
In Fantasy circles, this is commonly known as 'a Tyrone Vickery trade' after the Tiger star went nuts in round one and then proceeding to wound every coach who brought him in with a below par year.
So keep calm and trade with caution.
This week I'll look at a player in each position who justified their pre-season hype and should now be vying for a spot in your team.
DEFENDER: David Swallow [DEF/MID, $377,000] justified talk of a predicted fourth-year break-out with a dominant performance against the Tigers.
After a slow start, Swallow seemingly ‘broke-out’ before our eyes in the second half, taking control of the game and racking up Fantasy points at the same time.
Collecting possessions with ease all over the ground, the young Sun finished with 27 touches and nine marks for an impressive 114 points to be the second highest scoring defender for the week.
Note: To those coaches saying “Everyone has him Roy, write about someone else,” Swallow is currently owned by less than 30% of Fantasy coaches.
MIDFIELDER: Jack Macrae [MID, $344,400] was a pre-season sensation scoring 92, 129 and 129 for an average of 117 while scoring at 133 per 100 minutes.
Although that form made us sit up and take notice, all too often we can be tricked by the impressive pre-season statistics of a youngster, only to watch them crumble before our eyes after selecting them in our team.
Macrae however, does not crumble. His game against the Eagles has many coaches considering a re-structure to include the young Bulldog, despite playing for a team that was well beaten in round one.
He finished the game against the Eagles with 31 possessions, seven marks and two goals for an equal second-best 122 points for the match.
RUCK: Tom Hickey [RUC, $282,700] has been widely considered a selection to save money in the ruck department, especially after he took ownership of the number one ruck mantle at the Saints.
He did his Fantasy selection chances no harm with 14 possessions, four marks, three tackles and 24 hitouts to finish a well-rounded game with 85 points from 91% game time.
It is important to remember, however, that he was playing against the Demons, who commonly provide opposition rucks with plenty of opportunity to score.
FORWARD: Mark LeCras [FWD, $458,500] always seems to have his name tossed around during the pre-season and this year has been no different.
Such talk is usually accompanied with discussion of ‘more midfield time’ and, despite averaging just 79 over the NAB Challenge, he was still on many coaches' watch-lists leading into the free hit round, only to miss the cut on most teams.
There were however, a clever 4.1% of coaches who backed LeCras in and he repaid the faith with a massive 139 points from 27 touches, 10 marks and five goals to finish the round as the top ranked forward.
With a friendly month of footy awaiting him, LeCras might need to make the cut for your side this week.
PRICES BEGIN CHANGING THIS WEEK
AFL Fantasy Classic has a new price-changing formula this season than what they’ve experienced in the past.
The rules of the game explains the new mechanism below:
“The Players’ Prices will change based on a formula that takes into account their past performances. All games played by the Player since the start of the season are taken into account in the calculation of their Price changes, with a sliding scale of weightings with the most recent game receiving the highest weighting, as well as a component of their performance last year - if they played last year!”
Make sense? Like Grandma’s homemade sauce recipe, exactly how this all works is shrouded in mystery.
From this week, every player who gets on the ground will have a price change; regardless of whether it’s their first or second game.
As of round two, this year there isn’t a two week grace period for those playing their first game.
We’ll dig deeper into the formula when we have some more data and as we track the price changes, but we do know that there will be more weighting on each player’s most recent game.
Good luck with your unlimited trades this week before the two trades per week limit kicks in.
And don’t forget there’s a Thursday night game. Your Richmond and Carlton players will need to be locked in prior to the 7:45pm AEDT partial lockout commencing. Full lockout will be in effect at the regular time of 7:50pm AEDT on Friday night.
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