Our round 18 high of 2415 was always going to be hard to top, and while our captain Tom Rockliff managed a more than respectable 110, it was a long way short of the 190 he put up last week.
Our team scored 2056 points this week as usual fantasy studs Scott Pendlebury, Josh Kennedy, Steve Johnson and Brendon Goddard all failed to post a fantasy ton.
Dayne Beams bounced back to some nice form, however, top-scoring with 136, while Stefan Martin continues to get the job done with 114. He’s now averaging 108.6 this season, ranked first among ruckmen and forwards. Who would have thought this guy would be a must have?! We traded him in for $258,000 – he’s now increased in value to $500,000 and doesn’t look like slowing down.
On the back of all that we managed to post another win, toppling Geelong’s ‘J-Walkers’ by over 300 points. But the big news this week is who we take on this weekend.
Title decider this week
We’re not being overdramatic when we say that this weekend’s matchup will determine who takes out the vaunted ‘Fan-team league’ for 2014. Here is the ladder as it stands:
As you can see, we are neck and neck at the top of the table with Brisbane’s fan team. Four wins clear of third place, we appear to have second spot locked up at worst. Really though, who wants to come second?
We have lost just two games for the year; one to Brisbane, one to Adelaide. The Lions have lost two also – both to us. However they have a superior percentage, so if we want to win the league we have to win this week. There are no finals in this league, and we are a great chance of winning our remaining three games after this week, but in order to win the title, we must beat Brisbane. No pressure!
Trade decisions
He’s been magnificent and courageous since coming back from injury, but Andrew Swallow isn’t quite scoring with the best. We love the skipper, but moving him on at this time of the year might just be the difference between winning and losing.
However, up front we have a Jack Gunston-sized problem. Admittedly he’s not the bulkiest player, but he has been all class for our fantasy squad this year. He’ll miss the next 2-3 weeks, so he needs to go.
We are short on cash cows too, with Jack Frost the only player on our bench worth more than 200k (he’s also our only playing emergency defender). Unfortunately this means that we’re either limited in terms of who we bring in, or we expose ourselves to no defensive cover for a late withdrawal.
Given the importance of this week, any decision on Swallow will need to be delayed by one week, so pick a Gunston replacement and we’ll worry about the midfield next week.
