Eliminated It Is – Some Advice for Dream Team 09

Can you say … Gonski?

Top marks to Chappie – he gave me a right royal crunching by almost 200 points in the week where finally I ran out of gas and realised my team is far from a team of destiny. Rather than dwell on what might have been – it’s time to look towards the league finals, where I am hanging on to top spot. No trades left however means I am at the mercy of the injury gods.

So why do I have no trades? Well I’ve been kidding myself in saying it’s all been to stay in Eliminator. Taking a look back on my 20 trades – I realise that in fact, a number of wasted trades through the year has come back to bite me. Being my first real year with half a clue of what I was doing (before this year I never knew about getting a player who was about to rise after their 3rd game), my history is littered with sideways trades – trading a player for another with a similar price.

So what have I learnt for next year?

• Initial team selection is incredibly critical – the following players are ones I traded out simply because I had a shocker picking my initial team: Mitch Thorp (horrible selection), Lachie Hansen (Junkyard Dog got me with this one yet again), Mark Nicoski (terrible), Daniel Kerr (just silly in hindsight), Cam Stokes (got some early cash but not much at all), Nathan Thompson (not as bad as the others because he was so cheap, but still could have done better). In fairness I didn’t get online in the hour after teams were named for Round 1 and the lockout – this is more key than I could have realised.
• Take a longer look at the youngsters playing NAB Cup – if you get your rookies right you go a long way to great success. Palmer and Cyril Rioli this year have been excellent, and critical to my success.
• Don’t overload with middle-priced players – Osborne, Xav Ellis, Peter Burgoyne and to a lesser extent McKinley are examples of players I simply shouldn’t have got involved with, and eventually they have been weak links that have cost me on a number of occasions.

Highlights of my year so far:

• I picked Palmer. Enough said.
• Selecting Masten, and then downgrading him at the right time to pick up Cotchin. If I could work all my rookies in that fashion I would be more than happy.
• Later than I should have – but getting Mackie. Possibly my favourite defender right now and wish I had him all year.

Already I’m looking forward to next year … and this year isn’t over by a long shot. The thought of all the mistakes I’ve made yet I’m still in the top 1000 has me really excited for another crack next year to see if I can get things right.

Really – it’s a simple game – at the start of the year, stock up on the stars, get the right rookies, cash in the rookies to upgrade for more stars through the year … and dodge injuries. Simple right? We’ll see…