Rd 16 discussion - and maybe a bit of final team planning?

Better week for the team - 1,153 for the round, up to 4,937th overall.  11 trades left, $116k in the bank.

Chopping Block:

Watson
Brailey
Hynes
Matterson

?

cheers Filth.  Hoping to use this break to get some discussions going about final team planning.  Some questions to ponder:

- how many keepers to do we have?  Haas, Harris, Crichton, Cleary, Moses, Peachey, Bird, Tedesco, Turbo for sure.  I'd probably include Matterson, Watson, Fogarty, Walsh, SJ and maybe Schuster in there too.  So that's somewhere between 9 and 15 final team players, with a clear gap at hooker...

- how many round 17 players? Harris, CHN, SJ, Verrills, Schuster, Suaalii, Walsh (maybe)

- are there other round 17 players worth picking up?  AFB, Lolo, RTS (with no Walsh), Thompson, Jackson, Taupau

- who are the priority upgrades before round 17? Hynes (especially if he gets named on the bench in Rd 16?), Brailey, Jones (maybe), for me Matterson and Watson less so

- who should we upgrade after round 17?  CHN, Verrills, Suaalii

- how many trades do we want to keep for the run home????

My rambling thoughts:

I'd add CHN as a potential keeper to that list. So maybe 16 keepers (admittedly a lot are fringe but there are some guns (Cleary, Fifita, Turbo etc.) and then there's a 2nd tier (Tohu, Crichton, DCE etc.) then its really close in that next 3rd tier.)

Players I think we need to get in:

Fifita (rd 18 or 19 pending origin 3)
DCE (rd 18)
Papy or Ponga (as soon as either is healthy)

Everything else is really fringe in terms of being a gun upgrade and is more of a luxury.

Watson, Walsh, Fogarty, Jones and Hynes could all go. There's enough cash there already to afford those upgrades with 2 sub 300k players coming in.

Then you get the luxury upgrades:

Brailey to A "gun" hooker............ (Mahoney, Hunt or Cook -> maybe Grant if he gets the starting spot locked down) - I'll admit this is a luxury on season averages but is probably more a neccessity based on recent form.
Schuster -> Jarome Hughes or more hooker coverage??????
Verrills/Suaalii to a decent 18th man (Averillo)


Thats probably 600k + of upgrades we can't afford without Verills/Suaalii catching fire......

We also probably want Lolo and Averillo pre 17......... (so +1 trade and cash for Lolo or +2 trades to get him in and out)

Thats 5 must make trade trades (or 4 if we are happy with Walsh over Papy/Ponga),  + 1/2 more for Lolo + 4 luxury trades.

Leaves 0/1 trades left. Probably not enough so we may need to compromise on the guns we bring in. I'll wait for rd16 team lists to start tinkering.......

Cheers Ranta.  Fogarty is a lineball one for me - last four games his kick metres have dropped off significantly, and only those two tries against the Roosters boosted his scores.  That said, Titans will surely make some changes next round so that might have an impact on his fantasy production.

I agree that Fifita is a priority.  DCE and Papy/Ponga perhaps one rung down. I see upgrading Brailey (maybe to Mahoney) as possibly more urgent. Hughes would be great, but that might be one HLF too many when we might need some HOK and MID cover. 

Anyway, here is one possible set of 8 trades, leaving 3 spare for the final 6 rounds (dependent on when Papy suits up):

Trade	Rd	Trade out	Price	Trade in	Price	Balance
1	16	Brailey	622	Mahoney	668	70
2	17	Jones	355	Depth	250	175
3	17	Watson	579	Lolo	618	136
4	17	Fogarty	652	Depth	250	538
5	18	Hynes	728	DCE	864	402
6	19	Suaalii	283	Depth	250	435
7	19	Schuster	587	Fifita	865	157
8	20	Walsh	576	Papy	800	-67

We'd be $67k short, so would depend on Lolo, DCE, Fifita and Papy losing a bit of coin and there being three worthwhile depth pickups at an average of $250k.  We could replace Lolo for AFB or Papy for Ponga for example (or even hold Walsh to save a trade), although Papy *should* drop a bit of cash in his first game or two back.

I've left out Averillo for $714k, given we have two decent centres at the moment, but can see a case for him too.  i'd personally rather an AFB or Lolo for $100-200k less, or a Fifita/Papy/DCE for $75-150k more...

That would give us a final team of:

Mahoney
Haas Lolo/AFB Crichton
Fifita Matterson
Cleary DCE
Bird Peachey
Teddy Turbo Walsh/Papy/Ponga

Harris CHN Johnson Moses
Verrills Depth Depth Depth

That would leave Verrills as 18th man, so could be worth an upgrade if trades and prices allow.  But he would also be our only HOK backup.  We'd also ideally want WFB and CTR backup in 18-21.

Interested in thoughts?

Hooker is a real hard one.
No one is putting up their hand as a must have.
I’m hoping the weeks rest followed by another rest in rd 17 will freshen up Brailey.
Watson and Schuster with DPP I see as terrific value as bench players. Both keepers for me.
Those 2, along with a DPP FRF/2RF (I have Koloamatangi), covers HOK, MID (X2), EDG (X2) and HLF.
Matterson is probably more of an issue with his frequent rests after 60 mins.
With cash in the bank would it be worth going Matterson to IPap?
Cashing out Jones when he peaks should facilitate a Hynes to Pappy/Ponga upgrade.

Hooker, I'd grab Cook after Origin
$699k at the moment, and not likely to shoot up. Means keeping Watson or Brailey short term
(or trade next week if Cook backs up)

IMO main upgrades to prioritise for final 17 are
Brailey, Watson, Hynes, Schuster to Fifita, Cook (or other gun Hooker), Taumalolo and WFB3

In forwards, we want to keep Tohu, Crichton, Haas unless injured.
Matterson is a luxury upgrade if we can

Halves - we keep Cleary. We probably keep Moses and Johnson
Fogarty to DCE would be a possible upgrade but I think its lower priority than others

Bird and Peachey fine in the centres

Teddy and Trbo fine at WFB
Maybe we can play Walsh. Pappy or Ponga best upgrades if we go that way
Hynes will get traded out, probably soon, even if Pappy not back as he's likely to start dropping cash

Guys to upgrade to
Fifita is main target. maybe Schuster to Fifita after origin with a downgrade
I like Cook as hooker as just posted
Taumalolo I think will be too cheap to ignore as R17 player

Will have to downgrade CHN or Walsh to get cash, hopefully that's enough. Maybe Brodie Jones might make enough to use for a cash out

Edit to previous post.

I was getting confused between the community team and my own.
Fifita is definitely the main priority at present.

Cleary is now going to be the big call, ditch or stick dependant on severity of injury.

We really want some more info before deciding ditch or keep.

11 trades, I think 4 weeks or more and we trade him.

Was likely to miss 1-2 anyway,even if for, and noone would think of trading him for that

Burton could be an option as a trade in with cleary being out a few weeks minimum. Doesn't cover round 17, but does give added bonus of covering the centre position moving forward. At least until cleary returns. Or is he priced too middle of the road, 5-600k for a half scores, maybe not to costly

Just checked out Burton price, $609000, quite a fee. Obviously depends on the cleary verdict

So, Cleary 4-6 weeks out could mean him missing 3-5 games (with the Rd 17 bye). Personally struggling to justify trading him out with almost all of the main targets not playing Rd 17 and a question mark to backup in Rd 18 from origin.

I think we would have been prepared for Cleary to miss 2 of the next 3 weeks anyway

4 weeks would be a hold. 6 weeks if maybe getting to trade territory. Also depends how fit he is when he returns.

I think include him as a possible trade option in the poll and see what the community says

yeah, will try and make enough sense of it all for a poll. Lots of names in the mix for trading in and out.