Despite some torrid scoring last weekend, our fantasy team ground out another win.
We only had five of 22 players top the fantasy ton, but Gary Ablett (as captain), Scott Pendlebury, Dane Swan, Brendon Goddard and Dustin Martin were good enough to get the job done for us.
Not one member of our star-studded defence managed triple figures and despite entering the round ranked inside the top 3, Kade Simpson could only manage 26 fantasy points.
A 274-point win over Geelong’s ‘J-Walkers’ flattered us, and we’ll have to improve if we’re to knock off the Brisbane fan team next week.
Thankfully we have plenty of cash to play with, after a double downgrade last week netted us Stefan Martin and Jeremy McGovern.
Our opponent this week
We take on Brisbane, who sit one spot below us on the ladder. As fate would have it, the Kangaroos also play Brisbane this Saturday night, and that matchup could dictate the outcome.
Brisbane’s fan team has only lost two games for the year, both of them to us. You can bet they’ll want revenge this week, while a win for our team would go close to locking up top spot for the year.
The Lions really have the edge in midfield, with Steve Johnson, Tom Rockliff, Michael Barlow and Josh Kennedy as unique players. We’ll have the opportunity to match them in that part of the ground with our trades this week.
Given the number of Lions in the Brisbane team, we’ll be relying on North Melbourne to have a great game and shut down some of their prime movers like Pearce Hanley and Tom Rockliff. Unless we trade in the latter, that is.
On the block
Unfortunately, Ryan Griffen is going to miss some time with a recurrence of his back injury. His back kept him out of the team in the early part of the year, and our gamble in buying him cheap hasn’t paid off. He hasn’t lost any value since, but he hasn’t increased like we had hoped.
Our second trade decision is a structural one. While we have star performer Stefan Martin in our team (he’s averaged 103 points so far this season), he’s stuck on our ruck bench.
As he’s a dual position ruck/forward we can trade a rookie forward out, and move Martin into our forward-line to start.
Therefore our trade decision is simple – bring in a premium midfielder.
