NRLFF community managed fantasy team

rhinoceroo wrote:I'm probably in the "safe" camp, certainly with my own team, in that I think running with less than 4 trades post-origin is suicidal. There are 9 rounds left, more than in previous years, and it's a huge risk. Maybe possible if we run with a 19-gun squad, but don't think we're set up for that.

Don't know what the optimum number of trades left is and it's probably worth discussion, but certainly not under 4.

100% depends on this safe vs risky play thing. I've said it before, but Im pretty sure I used my last trade up 2 rounds post the last bye last year. (i.e. I had one left after putting together my final squad). I had to coast home for the remainder of the comp with no trades at all. I got really lucky, it didnt hurt me, and I finished 36th. So one could argue that for the team I had, and with the luck I had, 1 was optimum.

Each year will be different, and for each team it will be different (i.e. defends how much depth and cover you have). But mist importantly it depends on where you stand in this risk/reward debate. I know for sure, I don't finish in the top 100, probably not even top 1000 if I didnt take those risks last year.

EDIT: DISCLAIMER, this year I cant even breech the top 4000. I've made some dumb decisions and I've taken risks that have almost all flopped. Thats how it goes though. You gotta ride the highs and the lows if you take the risky approach!

One if the issues with deciding on a "goal" is how do you then use that going forward?

Do you deny making trades that are otherwise the popular suggestions? Do you force a risky trade that doesn't have broad support in order to try and make something happen?

I am happy to just continue as we have been going, and see where it takes us. It's the first time we've done anything like this and a lot of our decisions/strategy have been made up as we go along but regardless of how we finish up it's been fun.

Maybe in the off-season we can come up with some sort of structure about how to run the team going forward.

I'd like a high rank obviously, but I will consider the season a success if we top the celebrity league.

Milchy wrote:
One if the issues with deciding on a "goal" is how do you then use that going forward?

Do you deny making trades that are otherwise the popular suggestions? Do you force a risky trade that doesn't have broad support in order to try and make something happen?

I am happy to just continue as we have been going, and see where it takes us. It's the first time we've done anything like this and a lot of our decisions/strategy have been made up as we go along but regardless of how we finish up it's been fun.

Maybe in the off-season we can come up with some sort of structure about how to run the team going forward.

I'd like a high rank obviously, but I will consider the season a success if we top the celebrity league.

Yup for sure. I think you'd have to move away from the community vote thing, to a community driven team, run by a committee who make the final calls. If you had 5-6 people running the ship, with a pre-determined goal of "winning the celeb league" or "getting top 100" or what ever, then I think making moves to best position the team for the goal would be doable.

Renegades for example have 2 guys running their team.

Alternatively we got the way we are - which is also fine. We'd finish well each year, sometimes very well, but we'd probably never give ourselves the chance of winning the whole thing given the safety first approach the community appears to have as a majority.

Personally I think a community team driven by a committee with people that represent the various extremes would be pretty cool. MattNZ, as much as he throws out some shockers, does have a nice point of view to consider at times. Chuck in a couple of the guys that seem to do well each year (Verbal, MTB, Zora etc), plus a few others that have been regular on this thread and I'd be all for seeing how that team unfolded given a common goal to start the season!

Looking at future,

we'll ditch
Rein
Mahoney
Young
Sivo
Lawrie
Carty
CNK
Xerri

total right now plus cash in bank: 4757

For that we need 6 starters and 2 emergencies

Cook, Bateman and JTrbo are non negotiable post origin trade ins, that, takes us down to 2311 at current prices (ideally they have a game off the bench post origin to bring their price down, otherwise they'll stay ball park where they are)

2 cash outs allowed, first can be a $212k NPR for looping, other lets say up to $250k for someone who plays as an EMG for 1 or more of CTR/HLF/WFB to cover us in the run home.

That gives us $1849 for 3 starters.
A HLF, a WFB and an other

WFB will be RTS ot TTrbo (maybe both and move Ponga to half)
HLF would ideally be DCE, but unless we make a lot more money that might not happen. One option might be to pin our hopes on SJ, who could be available for close to $600k soon.

The other should probably be McInnes or Farah. Maybe look at Klemmer/Matterson/Twal

Probably not quite enough cash for that, but lets assume that we can eke a bit more cash out of our trade outs.
And also add in Dearden as a tradeout for funds (I've already calculated money without him and not going to go back and change the figures)


That would have us using 9 of our 17 remaining trades, and give us a final 17 of something like this

Cook
Fifita Haas
JTrbo Arrow Taumalolo
ARey DCE/SJ
Bateman Nikora
Teddy Ponga Rts/TTrbo

Smith
Murray
Taupau
McInnes/Farah

Probably wouldn't have an 18th man of any appreciable note unless we can make a lot more cash.

Any issues with that as a general strategy?
Injuries will change at least one of the possibilities of course, but if we are happy with that as a goal, then we can work on how to use the remaining 8 trades to best improve our team.
Lets be ambitious with injuries and say we can use 2 trades in the last 6 rounds, maybe we'll need more, maybe we'll be able to get away with less.

Gives us 6 trades for bye players/cashies
Maybe we want to ditch Taupau/Arrow for Farah/McInnes (whichever one we don't have with the above plan) to ensure we get all the gun hookers?
Maybe we want to play for Surgess/Taylor for a bye round scoring and maybe a bit of cash.

I think the above is pretty spot on.

The elephant in the room there though is we are probably $500k short (perhaps $200k if you take into account Deardon and additional price movements).

I'd argue the DCE is non negotiable too. He's the standout half and he was last year too. If we want to do well then we need him, in fact we need the best 17 we can get.

Therefore we need to use the 6 trades wisely to make cash and we'd be stupid not to use them to double up as trades that help our round 12.

Again, I come back to the point I keep making - we gotta take the punt on one or two guys for round 12 that will boost those totals and help us get the cash we need for our final 17.

We can say we need to take a punt, but that doesn't make someone available.

We took a punt on Young (a week too late) and now with Tapine coming back early it looks like creating problems more than solutions.

Out of currently available trade ins, who do you think can make $200k?

Milchy wrote:Arrow is a keeper, currently 14th highest average (discount Friend but including Bateman, TTrbo and DCE)
Unless we think he is going to be heavily rested over origin we want to keep him

The following are all keepers and I wouldn't trade them out
Smith
Fifita
Haas
Taumalolo
Murray
Arrow
ARey
Nikora
Ponga
Tedesco

Taupau is a possible keeper

The following are trade outs between R12 and R16

Cartwright
Rein
CNK
Sivo
Young
Mahoney

That's currently $3288 for 5 starters and 1 cashout (can also cash out Dearden/Lawrie/Lomax for funds)
Other than Young (and even he is a bit iffy), can't rely on big cash rises for any of them
But don't forget we also have $484k in the bank to use as well

If we bring in Taylor that is another person we have to trade out before R16 - do we think he cabn sustain his average long enough to make decent money. Every chance he's going to put up a 25 in the next couple of weeks and put a brake on the price rise.

Completely agree.

I totally think Arrow is a keeper. Just threw him out there as you said due to the origin concerns (he wasn't great last year during it). That's a risky move in rd12 that could fail horribly in hindsight but is a risk I'd be happy for the team to take. Arrow to McInnes for example sets us up for the following weeks before buying Arrow back after the last origin. It has drawbacks but goes okay if his minutes are down like they were last year during origin.

Taupau I think isn't a keeper but he's very close and has good duals if we go a HOK heavy bench (Cook, Smith, Farah, McInness). Would be a perfect 18th man.

Milchy wrote:
We can say we need to take a punt, but that doesn't make someone available.

We took a punt on Young (a week too late) and now with Tapine coming back early it looks like creating problems more than solutions.

Out of currently available trade ins, who do you think can make $200k?

My favourite picks this week to do this are Kotoni Staggs and Marion Seve. But thats totally on the upper end of those predictions. Both have a clear path to playing time and will play the 2nd major bye round. Probably a week to late on Seve.

Pap this week or last is a bold gamble if he's starting but even optimistically I can't see him getting 2 games (in which he'd need to score 50+) to make the big coin. If he starts I'd happily put him in but I think we are likely to be disappointed with the return.

I'm still keen to aim for a high finish but just choosing to be aggressive when there are poor options is closer to imploding than a calculated gamble.

A bold course of action for me is:

Rd 11
Lawrie -> Farah

Rd 12
Arrow -> McInness
Xerri -> Cash Out that will play 12 only that we can then loop

Rd 13
Should have enough bank to get RTS/Turbo and one more gun.

This is calculated aggresive as we burn a sideways trade to get 1 extra gun in rd 13 (hoping Arrows minutes are managed), get more points in 11 and 12 and be ready to reap the Sivo's and Cartys of the world with the funds to get anyone we want.

I feel like I am the step kid snooping around the study room when I'm in here.......

With the Arrow injury news

a) how many games does he have to miss before we'd want to trade him out

b) If we trade him out who would we bring in? RTS was most popular target in the trade poll. Would we stick with him or go for another 2RF?


if we keep Arrow and he misses this week, we can loop Cartwright and Young, but this would mean Fifita and Haas on the bench and therefore not captaincy options

Or loop Sivo and Young, but this would mean definitely playing Carty

I think we trade him even it's only a week. He'll miss minimum 3 out of the next 6 rounds possibly more with the possibility of reduced minutes in the games he does play.

Krump wrote:I think we trade him even it's only a week. He'll miss minimum 3 out of the next 6 rounds possibly more with the possibility of reduced minutes in the games he does play.

Agree - sorry Im away at a conference and pretty tied up. As long as we bring in a solid scorer that pays round 12 Im happy. I'd probably go with JFH, Walker, Moses or Surgess.

Based on current voting we are lining up

Smith (vc)
Fifita Haas (c)
Murray Taumalolo Taupau
ARey Ponga
Lomax Nikora
Sivo teddy CNK

Rein
Mahoney
Lawrie
Arrow

Young
Carty
Xerri
Dearden


If Arrow is ruled out tomorrow we can have a snap poll on replacement
If Papenhuyzen is a surprise starter on Sunday we'll sub him in for Lawrie.

Will double check voting before I go home in case captaincy/sub voting has changed.

We can wait on Arrow news.

Tonight the keys are where we play Sivo essentially. And by the looks of votes we are playing him and I like the way its set up now.

0 trades is the current vote but if we get better news before the game tomorrow I think he's a definite trade for mine. Maybe can discuss options over the next day while we wait for news.

As for captaincy I see its a tie between CS9 and Haas. I voted CS9 but if its a tie Milchy happy for you to put your preference up as you've done the legwork this week

I'm just up and heading to work but with Arrow out a trade could be in order. Not sure to who though. Maybe Farah?

Cap'n Ranta wrote:I'm just up and heading to work but with Arrow out a trade could be in order. Not sure to who though. Maybe Farah?

Only an hour to sort things, shoul dhave put something up during the day.

RTS was the most popular trade on the trade poll if we were going to bring someone in

If we trade Arrow it's really either

RTS (most popular Lawrie replacement in earlier thread)

or a R12 player
AFB, Surgess, Taylor the main options.

Personally I like AFB out of those, maybe Surgess

Could just use Arrow to get a free look at Carty tonight. If he goes no good we bring Young in?

code delta wrote:Could just use Arrow to get a free look at Carty tonight. If he goes no good we bring Young in?

Carty and Arrow are about to lock out, can't really loop them

poll up
https://www.nrlfantasyfanatics.com/t1004-snap-poll-do-we-trade-arrow

Have about an hour to get votes. Most people that commented thought trading him out was the way to go, so let's see what people say
If there is a clear decision we'll make it