Review 2022: Round 20 Review

[warewolves]

Score: 2,410 (Miller)
Weekly: 11,475
Overall: 4,608 (up 250 spots)
Trades Made: P. McCartin --> Stewart (that was #35)
On the Pine: Cogs, Hewett, Houston
Heroes: Miller (153), Cripps (146), Merrett (140), Petracca (134), Dunkey (130) - others to ton up Neale, Blakey, Walsh, Cameron & Stewart
Villains: Blicavs (66), MaCrae (82), Oliver(85), English (79)
League results: 3 wins out of 5

Comments:
With three of my starting line-up on the bench, I basically held my position, which is not a bad result.
It's taken me 20 rounds to get there, but I've finally managed to nominate my highest scoring player as Captain - On average I've missed by about 38 pts per week
Some ordinary scores from some of the popular big-guns in my line-up probably also kept down the scores of the overall leaders.
As mentioned, I'm now out of trades, but have decent cover of at least one player on each line. So obviously I'm hoping to avoid too many injuries & if my luck holds there, I might just scramble up the ladder a bit further..

 

[nawtay]

Score: 2,310 (Laird)
Weekly: 32,676
Overall: 1,431 (down 358 spots)
Trades Made: P. Curtis --> Zorko the magnificent
On the Pine: Cogs, Hewett
Heroes: Trac, Neale, Miller, Laird, Dunkley, Parker
Villains: Short, Daicos, Macrae, Oliver, English, Jackson, Himmelberg (McVeigh)

Comments: With 2 premiums down I was expecting to go down the rankings, especially with many trading these guys out. Hoping Hewett comes back this week as I don't want to move him on. Considering I have already done that this season with the whole talk about him bleeding from the calf. Zorko & Jackson provided adequate cover but I don't want to be relying on them every week. Have 2 trades left with 3 games to go, I will most likely hold this week considering I have the week of in the league I care about. I am having trouble loopholing though as I have too many rookies who are playing but not putting any where near decent enough scores to want to field in an emergency (Parnell, Ambrosio, Hough, Rioli) I might bring in a proper loophole & upgrade a premium in the final match if I get through unscathed.

 

[Deeman1]

Score: 2,295 (Miller)
Weekly: 36,120
Overall: 7,555 (down 1,002 spots)
Trades Made: nil
Heroes: Miller (C), Dawson, AndBrayshaw, Cripps, Parker, Heeney, DCameron, Owens, Wehr
Villains: Rich, Hewett, Coniglio, Treloar

Comments:
With 4 'keepers' on the bench it was never going to be pretty, but shout out to Owens who as a late in scored 67 valuable points that I would have not had otherwise, was starring at 2 donuts without Owens and RioliJnr at least contributing 73 points, so will take that as a win off sorts. Need to get a few passengers back this week to try to at least get some form of quality team, hopefully Treloar, Rich, Coniglio back at least who knows with Hewett...

At least there is only 3 weeks of pain left.

The slide continues, lost all but one league match so well done to 9 of my opponents, not sure what you were doing @Darkie

Well done to all those with great results and rankings

 

[Shannon]

Score: 2,514 (Laird)
Weekly: 1,414
Overall: 126 (Up 37 spots)
Trades Made: Cameron > Gawn & Hewett > Stewart
Heroes: Laird, Miller, Merrett, Dunkley, Dawson, Stewart, Cripps, Parker, Heeney, Parker, Gawn, Coleman. Burgoyne & Owens generating more money on the bench, both played well so should hold their spots/good bench cover. I am actually very tempted to play Burgoyne over Crisp/Short given how well he is playing & his role - really like him as a player. Can't loop unfortunately as he is on my mid bench.

Villains: Crisp, Short, English & Oliver. Crisp & Short have featured on the villains list far too much over the last month or so...

Comments:
Really good round for me, getting close to my ambition of finishing top 100 - my main miss is not having Sinclair at this point but I am very happy with how the rest of the team is looking. Have 1 trade remaining which I intend on holding if possible until the last week & 130K in the bank.

Team lined up like this on the weekend :-

 

[Russty_]

Score: 2,514 (Laird)
Weekly: 1,414
Overall: 126 (Up 37 spots)
Trades Made: Cameron > Gawn & Hewett > Stewart
Heroes: Laird, Miller, Merrett, Dunkley, Dawson, Stewart, Cripps, Parker, Heeney, Parker, Gawn, Coleman. Burgoyne & Owens generating more money on the bench, both played well so should hold their spots/good bench cover. I am actually very tempted to play Burgoyne over Crisp/Short given how well he is playing & his role - really like him as a player. Can't loop unfortunately as he is on my mid bench.

Villains: Crisp, Short, English & Oliver. Crisp & Short have featured on the villains list far too much over the last month or so...

Comments:
Really good round for me, getting close to my ambition of finishing top 100 - my main miss is not having Sinclair at this point but I am very happy with how the rest of the team is looking. Have 1 trade remaining which I intend on holding if possible until the last week & 130K in the bank.

Team lined up like this on the weekend :-

View attachment 46641

Nice week Shannon, shame you didn't have Burgoyne is Crisp's place, congrats with the rank, hope you crack top 100. How many points away are you?

 

[Shannon]

Nice week Shannon, shame you didn't have Burgoyne is Crisp's place, congrats with the rank, hope you crack top 100. How many points away are you?

Thanks mate, 65 points away from being top 100 currently.

 

[GrainFedBeef]

Score: 2,435
Weekly: 7,636 (+2,608)
Overall: 6,685 (+747)
Trades Made: Petracca > Merrett COGS>Bont
Heroes: Laird, Miller, Merrett, Dunkley, Stewart (held), Cripps, Dunkley, Parker, Butters

Villains: Crisp, Short, Himmelberg, Macrae, English, Witts, Goldstein (Hewett on bench)

Comments: With two trades and cash, decided to trade Petracca to Merrett given recent record, didn't gain much from it this week. COGS threw me and had enough cash to go to Bont and it was this or Rioli jr (6). If I had another trade left (now zero) it would have been Marshall to not spend all my money.

As Burgoyne game had started (in mids), I couldn't trade Hewett and was forced to trades COGS to bring in another forward, which also was annoying as I expect COGS back and Hewett has another week off. Had ideally planned on last trade to have Himmelberg forward as I have Buku + Burgoyne to cover backs.

Positives are Butters and Stewart who I held. Hopefully Hewett back by prelims and no outs in forward line as I can only cover def/mids.

Won all my minor premiership SCS league games and climbed 1500 spots in last two weeks.

 

[Professor]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1553692320096489472

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/Jim_Kotsakis/status/1553692320096489472

 

[BC]

Heroes: Touk, Laird, Petracca, Cripps, Parker, Dunkley
Villians: Culley, English. Clarry, Macrae, Short, Crisp, Witts, Whitfield
Comments: Um... Train wreck comes to mind. Captained Neale over Laird and Touk. Fielded Culley for Cogs. Lost all my finals. Lucky I was top 4 in all so I get another crack. Witts giving me nothing since I got him after thr byes. Probably fall short on top 1000 now. Anyway....We move on.

 

[Bermi]

Trades Made: OUT Hewett - IN Gawn
Top Guns: Miller (Capt), Laird, Merrett, Cripps, Dunkley,
Spud Guns: Himmelberg, Short, Crisp, Oliver, Macrae, Witts, English,
League Results: Won all the 4 League Final games, I'm in 3 Prelims and 1 Semi. Won 5 of the Minor Premiership, but lost 1 by 12 pts.
Planned Trades: Since my main focus now is winning my Cash League, and since I am now in the Preliminary Final, no need for me to make any trades.
Comments: Pleased that I went up 992 places and now 4,253, hope it continues, but not trading this round may cause a problem.
Picked the right Captain (I had Merrett on stand-by if Miller didn't score well). I also picked the right non-Rookie to bench (Baker).
It's a worry with the low SC scoring of Crisp, Short and Baker. I'm expecting Himmelberg to go back to defence, as he did little up forward, but does a good job in defence, it just seems so logical to play him back.
Like all, hoping there are not too many injuries/suspension/Covid in the next few weeks. Good to read that the peak of the new Covid strain is behind us.

 

[mike89]

Score: 2329 (Miller)
Overall: 1232 (down 277)
Trades Made: Hewett -> Atkins (stamped my NTLC membership)
Leagues Won: 1/10
Heroes: Miller C 153, Laird VC 144 (I'll get to it), Merrett 140, Petracca 134, Dunkley 130, Dawson 126, Parker 119
Villains: Culley 26, (Crisp E 60), Atkins 64, May 69, Himmelberg 74, Short 74, English 79, Goldstein 80, Macrae 82, Oliver 85

Comments: Real feast or famine round, this. In my case, mostly famine. Been waiting for the other shoe to drop for a while, and here it is.
Had two big 50/50s and fluffed them both. Had Cogs out and wanted to loop Macdonald and Culley but didn't have any M or F donuts playing after Macdonald so had to pick one straight up. Naturally I went against my instincts and picked Culley, who proceeded to "do a Preuss", as we call it in the business.
The other one was for my last trade. I ended up going with Atkins because I wanted some exposure to Geelong (and couldn't get to Stewart) with their relatively kind draw, but Hayden Young was running a very close second at the time I needed to pull the trigger.
Each of those were 40+ point mistakes. Get one right and I'm winning 5/10 leagues, get both of them right and it's 8/10. At least there's not really much decision making to do from here on out.

Why did I pass on Laird VC? Similarly to getting stuck with Culley, I didn't have any donuts in the mids or forwards to lock him in with. I did, however, have Rory Thompson... using whom required me to take Crisp. Ended up rolling the dice on Miller + Short against 204 and winning handsomely, so at least I got one thing right this week. Even if Miller had to do all the work.
Intended Trades: Crisp and Short out... oh, if only.

 

[Diabolical]

Score: 2,454 (Merrett)
Overall: 5,931 (up from 6,800)
Trades Made: Hewett & Preuss To Stewart & Gawn
Leagues Won: 4/4 Finals and 5/6 Minor Finals
Heroes: Miller, Laird, Merrett C, Petracca, Dunkley, Dawson, Gawn, Stewart, Ryan, Neale
Villains: Coniglio (for making me field Wright), Short, English, Macrae, Oliver, Zorko, Whitfield

Comments: It was nice to hit the trade button for the first time in five weeks, and along with it, stop the reverse ranking trend. As has been the case with my team this year, scoring very enigmatic across the field. Fortunately the good slightly outweighed the bad this week. Nothing like the wild thrill knowing that I will be riding my captain in the final game of the round, but fortunately Zac stepped up.

Planned Trades: With a bye in 3/4 of the major finals I made, I think I might keep the trade finger in my pocket this week.

 

[jel]

Score: 2,371
Overall: 19,125 (up 705)
Value: $13,541,800 + $52,600 itb
Leagues Won: 5/9
Heroes: Miller, Cripps, Laird, Dunkley, Dawson, Parker, Gawn, Stewart, Neale, Steele, Heeney,
Zeroes: Crisp, Oliver, Witts, Zorko, Macrae, Himmelberg, Short
Trade Out Made: Hewett, Baker, Cameron
Trade In Made: Gawn, Zorko, Stewart
Planned Trades: OUT : none IN : none
Comments:
First week of finals was a success.
Ended up in 2 ‘A’ finals and 7 ‘B’ finals. Managed to win both ‘A’ finals, one being a Cash league, but both are must win each week for me to survive.

With the team on auto-pilot in the last 2 weekends, I’m lucky to have escaped any major disasters, getting just enough coverage to be able to set captain choices. Ironically when I'm back in full control I make my worst C pick.

Macrae starting to feature in the Zeros a bit which is a worry.
Getting rid of Cameron may have been a bad move, but with Grundy due back it may turn out ok. The Baker experiment is finished and the result is a resounding fail, so I’ve invested in another risky venture in Zorko, what could go wrong.

One trade left, I may just hold unless an obvious move shows itself.

 

[Eagling]

Score: 2441
Weekly Ranking: 6880
Overall Rank: 11296 (up 1352)
Team Value + CTB: $13, 774, 100
Trades Made: Hewett and Jackson to Stewart and Bontempelli
Heroes: Stewart, Dawson, Khamis (B), Laird, Miller (C), Merrett, Brayshaw, Cripps, Cumberland (B), Burgoyne (E), Parker, Dunkley
Villains: Short, Crisp, Oliver (VC), Macrae, English, Culley

Comments: Getting Tom Stewart in was pretty much a certainty all week - a single trade up from Wehr was one option, keeping Hewett. I decided, after looking at opposition forward records against Freo, that Jackson had to go - and by trading Hewett over Wehr, I could get Bontempelli in, though I was reluctant to spend $650k. I did consider Marshall as an alternative, but when Campbell was named on Thursday evening, decided against him. I might have switched Bontempelli to Marshall had I been aware of Campbell being omitted, but I wasn't able to keep up with team selections during the day. As it turns out, I spent an extra $200k for -75 points in one week. (If anyone was curious, I couldn't afford a Jackson to Marshall and Wehr to Stewart double trade, otherwise I would have pulled the trigger). The other Saturday event was Cogs a late out with soreness, so I had to choose between Cumberland and Culley to cover. I felt Culley had the more viable scoring role and was up against easier opposition, but he finds himself on the villains list not for his score, because I basically never put rookies there, but for clobbering Noah Anderson with an errant elbow. Ironically, this disreputable act might just give him the captaincy armband for Fancy Hibiscus this week.

This week, I think I just play it simple. Wehr out for Hollands.

 

[Ironhawk]

For once, I don't have much to complain about. Sure there's a few middling scores, but you have always got to be happy with a ranking in the top 500 for the round. Surviving OK with my NTL team so far, and always good to see your final trade in (Redman) score well. Still didn't captain my highest scoring player - in 20 rounds so far this season, not once have I made my highest scoring player captain, despite captain scores including 137, 162, 128, 139, 134, 140, 176, 154, 140 and 153.