I too bet against both Macrae and Oliver with the Miller, Neale, Cripps, Rowell, Berry M1-5 structure. It did give me more flex to get the "better" rookies and keep most of them off the ground. Unlike
@wogitalia I also went with Gawn / Grundy in the rucks, essentially having Gawn there as insurance for the spike VC scores given I wasn't taking Macrae.
I've been gritting my teeth watching Macrae in two games and at this point it's pretty much a BE call. Given so many people are using Macrae as a VC option, for me as long as I find a C score each week that matches or beats Macrae, I've succeeded. On top of that, getting value for money with my other picks and being better able to get potential sh!t scores off the ground in the early rounds, it's a win. (Emergency loopholes are helping there too
although for the life of me I don't know why I didn't keep the E on McGov last night. Had it there at the start of the week)
Back on Macrae - he appears to have a acquired a golden ticket which is somewhat annoying. Yes, he's improved his kicking over the years but there are still a lot of those awkward grubber kicks that miss targets. Last night's ratio was a little absurd and I feel CD were being a little generous with the "effective" rating at times.
Macrae will no doubt be in my team by seasons end. The true test will be whether I've managed to use the early rounds wisely without him. As Wogi says, it's a long season and the beauty of this game is there are a million ways to win it.
