Just a brief interlude to my teams Mad Monday for a little season review, It will be quite boring but its for my benefit to look back on more than anything
My goal was finish top 1000, 664 is a brilliant result for me in my first full year, last year was a learning year as I missed round 1 finishing 27K overall.
I've tracked my progress to the leaders all year and it shows what I already knew started too slowly and Rd5 was the defining point. After rd5 I was 667 pts out of the top 10 by rd 20 its 665 pts, so I held my ground. Rd1 was very poor (1007) but Rd5 is the turning point an a lesson learnt.
This was the round that everyone was getting Best and Grant. I already owned both, started with Best and got Grant the week before so I felt really ahead of the game. I traded Cleary out Rd3 for the cash of the 5 trade round but promised myself I will only do that if I get him back rd5.
By the time Rd 5 came around Teddy was the clear buy, but sticking to my promise I got Cleary, I really struggled to make that trade so to double down then made him C for 39pts, Teddy then posted 199pts and would have been my C. My gut said get Teddy in but I made myself stick to a promise and was absolutely kicking myself, far more so than the Rd19 trade of Teddy to Turbo despite the result.
This however probably then inspired my best move of the year at Rd 8 when I got Gutho in, this was a week earlier than most and meant I got his 166 vs cows, it was a huge swing and allowed me to go ponga to Teddy the following week, then Gutho to Ponga 2 weeks after than, lots of points, lots of cash.
In Hindsight made some regretted trade ins of Drinkwater, Fuimano, Papalli and getting Api back late, I held injured Matto, CS9 and Munster too long and Turbo back in was a cocky rush of blood to the head.
Kind of weird to consider how many re-trades I did this year, fullback was almost a swinging door so its a bit of a one off, I do think there may be a bit of a change to reserves, AE and trades next year no matter what as injury and especially HIA's are becoming more damaging to a SC team.
I was generally conservative this year, once it looked possible this was more about banking a top 1000 finish than anything else. Maybe next year my goal will be take a few more risks, maybe the goal is more about being in the top 100 at some point but not necessarily finishing there, to give myself a genuine shot.
Maybe I just need to close the spreadsheet off now lol
