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Cleary's scoring is definitely an extreme outlier, but it is what it is.
Here's my perspective as someone who has a serial history of NOT starting with the popular Captaincy choice;
From about 2015 I decided that a 30 year old Cameron Smith was likely to slow down and his scoring would drop somewhat - giving me a (theoretical) advantage.
That kind've worked in 2018 when Cook had a break out season (but still took me about 3 or 4 weeks to feel safe to put the C on him).
Last year I decided that I could get better value starting with a Taumalolo Captain rather than joining the Haas pack.
It worked for a couple of weeks, until I was suddenly one of the few with my Captain out injured and with a lack of depth, had to sideways move to Cook.
The thing is, it almost always ends up being a dumb play.
The advantage of going an alternative Captaincy route to the pack is really so small compared with the disadvantage of if the pack were right (and most of the time they are).
If in the best case scenario for a non-owner; Cleary had a 20min HIA or injury - guess what, either the pack just holds for a week - and maybe you pick him up in a week or two for a $100k discount OR the pack sells him straightaway and you've maybe picked up 100 points and avoided a $100k loss.
Either way; $100k isn't that much of an advantage when you're trying to add $4million to your squad value to build a gun pack.
The 100 points isn't that much when you're trying to accumulate 25,000+ points across 25 rounds.
Risk - reward. The risk greatly outweighs the potential reward.
You can't WIN fantasy in the first month, but you can LOSE it - choose your Waterloo!
The risk was even greater this year with last year's other two top players unavailable to start; McInnes (season-ended injury), Haas (suspended).
Then you had Taumalolo (expecting less minutes), DCE (arrival of a genuine playmaker at 6 in Foran) and even Grant (injured).
Unfortunately for non-owners they have been heavily punished with Cleary's scoring.
It's not one bad-decision though, it's a bad-decision not to start, then each following week has been a further bad-decision until you end up at a point that the disadvantage is so huge there seems little point in changing your mind.
Tommy Turbo for me was a bad decision not getting him when named that first week.
It was a worse decision not picking him up each of the next two following weeks.
Now I just live with it, but it's not the scorers fault, or the scoring system, or the 90% of top 5k players fault, or the "group-think's" fault for being right.
My decision, my choice, and my choice this week when I still don't buy him.
When he put's up another hundred this week, I'll just have to wear it and take the lessons I can for next year...
Here's my perspective as someone who has a serial history of NOT starting with the popular Captaincy choice;
From about 2015 I decided that a 30 year old Cameron Smith was likely to slow down and his scoring would drop somewhat - giving me a (theoretical) advantage.
That kind've worked in 2018 when Cook had a break out season (but still took me about 3 or 4 weeks to feel safe to put the C on him).
Last year I decided that I could get better value starting with a Taumalolo Captain rather than joining the Haas pack.
It worked for a couple of weeks, until I was suddenly one of the few with my Captain out injured and with a lack of depth, had to sideways move to Cook.
The thing is, it almost always ends up being a dumb play.
The advantage of going an alternative Captaincy route to the pack is really so small compared with the disadvantage of if the pack were right (and most of the time they are).
If in the best case scenario for a non-owner; Cleary had a 20min HIA or injury - guess what, either the pack just holds for a week - and maybe you pick him up in a week or two for a $100k discount OR the pack sells him straightaway and you've maybe picked up 100 points and avoided a $100k loss.
Either way; $100k isn't that much of an advantage when you're trying to add $4million to your squad value to build a gun pack.
The 100 points isn't that much when you're trying to accumulate 25,000+ points across 25 rounds.
Risk - reward. The risk greatly outweighs the potential reward.
You can't WIN fantasy in the first month, but you can LOSE it - choose your Waterloo!
The risk was even greater this year with last year's other two top players unavailable to start; McInnes (season-ended injury), Haas (suspended).
Then you had Taumalolo (expecting less minutes), DCE (arrival of a genuine playmaker at 6 in Foran) and even Grant (injured).
Unfortunately for non-owners they have been heavily punished with Cleary's scoring.
It's not one bad-decision though, it's a bad-decision not to start, then each following week has been a further bad-decision until you end up at a point that the disadvantage is so huge there seems little point in changing your mind.
Tommy Turbo for me was a bad decision not getting him when named that first week.
It was a worse decision not picking him up each of the next two following weeks.
Now I just live with it, but it's not the scorers fault, or the scoring system, or the 90% of top 5k players fault, or the "group-think's" fault for being right.
My decision, my choice, and my choice this week when I still don't buy him.
When he put's up another hundred this week, I'll just have to wear it and take the lessons I can for next year...
its been a nice day so far
congrats to you my friend, wonderful news!
