Learnings from 2021 Fantasy
Starting team
Brailey
Lodge Watson Welch
Fifita Riki
Cleary Milford
Bird Roberts
Teddy Pappy Laurie
Crichton Lam Liddle Turpin
Croker Simonsson Gosi Niu
My learnings from 2019 go into quite some detail about ensuring you have a set and forget captain. This year I was heavily influenced by MS’s deep dive into Cleary’s stats and I agreed they seemed sustainable. I don’t think anyone predicted he would blow his average out of the water by 20 points but I was expecting he could continue his 70+ form. When it became clear that McInnes, Lolo and Haas (and of course CS9) weren’t an option it really became a bit of a no brainer. Cook was the only other one I considered, but with Brailey an auto pick, and Watson, Liddle, Turpin and Croker as cover I didn’t need another hooker and Cook is more of a 60’s scorer than a 70+.
For my guns I had Cleary, Crichton, Fifita, Teddy, Pappy. I got lucky that Cleary, Fifita and Pappy all fired from the start. Crichton held his own, got a bit unlucky with Teddy stumbling at the start. That’s the risk though with paying big dollars for a WFB. My thinking with Teddy is that he always gets plenty of rest over origin and is a sell. So if you don’t start with him, when do you get him in? After six weeks and then sell for the first bye? Wait until after origin? That’s a big chunk of the year without him. My plan was to start with him and sell over origin. He tanked his price, so that didn’t happen. I don’t think selecting him was a mistake per se, but I feel like I probably won’t start with him next year. I would have selected Turbo. The inconsistent nature of WFB scoring means I probably only want one gun here to start the year. Pappy was a pretty easy selection once we knew he was GK. I’ll probably pick him next year too with his bench starts reducing his average.
Most of the other selections were fine. We’ve spoken about Lam vs Townsend already. Bird and Roberts were cheap. My bottom four were vomit worthy but were all cheap and starting. Welch went well, but BS9 would have been heaps better. It’s easy to say in hindsight, but we knew in advance that BS9 is built for fantasy, and played the first bye. Selecting him gives you a chance of that upside. Selecting Welch was possibly safer, he wouldn’t find himself on the bench with a 35-40 min role, but was unlikely to have a lot of upside. Selecting BS9 would have put myself in a position to get lucky, which is indeed what happened for owners and it wasn’t just in hindsight that this was evident. Honey Badger for example called it in preseason.
Milf started well but then got dropped which was predictable. He’s another one I could have got Townsend instead. Very important to look for role changes particularly halves being paired with a new partner who is not a noted kicker.
Round two – Lodge to Alvaro
Alvaro vs Leniu was this years Host vs Lawrie. They both score a point per minute. It seemed to me that Alvaro was set to play 40 minutes and Leniu 35. And Alvaro was cheaper. Simple as that. Even though Leniu will probably be a better player. Whilst I think I made the right decision, I have to say, Leniu owners got pretty damn unlucky.
Round three – Simonsson to Schuster and Turpin to Egan (Edited – I put the wrong trade down earlier)
Simonsson looked pretty ordinary, his stats weren’t great in the first place and Raiders seem to always shift the ball the other way. Schuster looked the goods and had lowered his BE playing most of the previous game in the second row off the bench through injury and seemed like a must have cash cow. Good trade. I think a lot of what I did well this year was my attitude of “let’s not fuck around, just do it”. That led to my bringing in of cash cows like Schuster, Walker, SOS, Simpkin early. Unfortunately it also led to my next trade of Turpin to Egan. Terrible trade. I should have seen with foresight that trading one mediocre hooker from a mediocre side to another mediocre hooker from another mediocre side was sideways as fuck. Backwards in fact in this case. I need more patience here in early season with green dots. Quickly cutting duds and injured players has served me well and I will keep playing aggressively, but Turpin wasn’t even going that badly. I need to save a couple of these dud trades so I can play aggressively over the byes which gives more bang for buck.
Round four – Gosieski to O’Sullivan and Lam to Walker
I got lucky here. Pretty sure I was going to trade Croker instead of Gosi, but from memory Gosi was benched in the one hour final team lists so I reversed trades and kept Croker which obviously turned out well. Lam was injured so a no brainer trade out. As I said above getting those guys (SOS and Walker) in quickly was key to making quick cash and not letting the duds/injuries pile up. I remember having a discussion about that with Booze et al, he pointed out how he was always a week ahead when everyone was debating whether to bring in these guys, and I was in the same boat. It means that for me SOS was a half decent result and made some cash. Whilst you don’t miss too much cash by waiting a week, you may miss an opportunity when the following week you have other fires to put out. Trading hard the first weeks to get right cash cows is something I’ll keep doing, but I’ll revisit how hard I go at it if there are changes to the rules and squad sizes.
Round five – No trades. I had 21 green dots and as already outlined I’d been aggressively collecting cash cows.
Round six – Riki to Moses and Liddle to Simpkin
Riki was benched. He’d made some cash and no one knew how many minutes he’d play and Moses, a rd13 gun had dropped in price due to his (?) concussion game. No time to fuck around, just do it. Moses scored 73. Liddle was dropped and there were big wraps on Simpkin. I don’t need to wait a week to see a base price starting hooker. Neary all of them would make money.
Round seven – Niu to Peachey and Milford to Turbo
Possibly my best trades of the year. A lot of people were against paying 565k for a centre but Niu was dropped and we had no idea when he’d be back. Meanwhile I’m playing James Roberts who was putting up teens. I was starting to bye plan at this stage and figured Peachey could give me some reliable scoring off the bench, and in rd 13 should start at lock for big minutes with Tino in origin. It allowed Roberts to go to my reserves as cover. I waited a week to see if Milf looked likely to return, but with no news I decided grab Turbo at 503k. I had waited a week to see his hamstrings get through a game and knew I had to have him. It felt weird because it meant Laurie was now out of the 17 but my gut said I needed Turbo before his price got out of reach. I also knew I’d probably have to play Laurie half the time anyway, there always seems to be someone out. This is the first week Pappy was out too, so it gave me someone solid I could play. Turbo and Peachey scored 65 and 66.
Round eight – Pappy to Haas, Egan to Fogarty
Another season defining trade here. I think a lot of this aggressive trading stems from holding Nathan Brown for seven weeks in 2018 for his “two” week injury. I’m also an avid bye planner. So no firm return date, plus the likelihood of missing the upcoming bye made Pappy a trade in my mind. Especially as he’d been on a massive purple patch and skyrocketed his price making 200k. It’s the same reason I traded Fifita out a couple of weeks later. Haas had dropped in price a little, I needed a MID and there was a slight hope that he would maybe miss origin one. MID was becoming a bit of a problem position and Haas always seemed like he would be top three in his position. Egan to Fogarty was possibly more of a luxury trade, but part of the bye planning process. Egan was still playing but scoring badly and didn’t play the first bye. Fogarty had dropped in price to 577k due to his injury game and I had nearly started the year with him at 666k so was a good price and played the first bye. Haas and Fogarty both scored 62 this week. Typing this up, definitely feel kissed on the dick with my timing here.
Round nine – Croker to Walsh, O’Sullivan to Tevita Pangai.
Probably not my best trades here. They worked out reasonably well though. Croker had made cash, didn’t play the first bye and I didn’t want to miss out on Walsh. I think Walsh had even been benched. And yet I’d seen him play trials, and the coach had moved RTS to find a spot for him. This was definitely a gut over head decision and got lucky here. O’Sullivan dropped to TPJ for bye planning worked out okay.
Round ten – Fifita to Matterson
Bye planning. Fifita to miss the next three out of four to a cheap rd 13 gun. I don’t see the point in messing around trying to hold in these situations.
Round eleven – Roberts to Burton and Welch to Koro
I needed a centre with Roberts out and Peachey out for two weeks. Again a lot weren’t keen on spending the money on a centre. I wasn’t going to play short for two weeks, Burton looked set play a couple of games in the halves and play the bye, possibly make a bit of cash before selling again. Seemed like a no brainer to me, I’m surprised more didn’t jump on. Again got lucky the first week owning with a 73. Kept him all year as it turned out. Welch to Koro, pure bye planning. Koro really hadn’t shown any form though. I’d definitely make this type of trade again, but maybe try and select someone based on form rather than previous pedigree. I could have got Ipap for example, this week or any other week. He was a huge miss.
Round twelve – Schuster to Fitzgibbon, Walker to Hynes
I had people actively trying to talk me out of Schuster to Fitzgibbon. Schuster was a late out injured meaning there weren’t many choices. Some played short. The aggressive trader and bye planner in me said, Schuster doesn’t have a fixed return date, will miss this week when I can’t cover him, will miss the bye round and possibly the week after which is always a difficult round also. Three half decent scores when I would have got a zero. Job done. Backed myself here. I’m aware Schuster should have played rd 17 but I always care more about the upcoming bye rather than the following one because it’s so far in the future it’s very hard to plan for. Walker to Hynes is another one of these trades which I thought had sound logic but got lucky with exceeding my expectations. At 586k you could argue the ship has sailed with Hynes, but he looked the goods, would play the bye round (probably) and his low BE meant two weeks of 40’s would make 100k. I wasn’t chasing last weeks points, I was chasing bye round points and hoping to make a bit of cash on the side. As it turned out he scored 90 this week.
Round thirteen – Turbo to Mahoney, Simpkin to Jones.
There were just so few decent rd17 options that I would want to run home with that I’d decided to go hard at the first bye to try and make ground on the leaders. I would have preferred to trade out Teddy but he’d tanked his price. To get more bye players means selling origin players. I didn’t want to trade Haas or Cleary because they are best in position and captaincy options. And I knew Crichton wouldn’t be rested because he’d been suspended. So that left Turbo. I always intended on getting him back in (or at least whoever I thought was the best buy at the time) and I did in rd19. Mahoney a big minute hooker gun. If you’re getting someone in for the byes, forwards are best. Most bye rounds you are playing short, so you might as well be short in positions which either score less, or score inconsistently. Simpkin I’d held on the off chance he plays rd13. He didn’t so ideal trade fodder. Jones looked like he might play a few games in the 2nd row. Bye round points with a bit of cash on the side. Gold. We often talk about the 150k a cash cow needs to make. We also talk about sideways trading guns over the byes. I like to try and make my bye round sideways trades slight forwards rather than sideways. If I can get bye round points and make 80k in the process before selling, I’m cool with that. Normally I would have made three or four trades this round, but BEs meant that I had to make a couple of bye planning trades in the lead up to the bye round.
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