Since I’ve already gone through AFL Dream Team 2007 winner Steve Morfesse’s team for 2008, after a suggestion from coggers I guess it makes sense to look at the 2008 Super Coach side of 2007 SC winner Casha. Here’s his starting Casha’s Killers EDT squad:
Backs: Heath Shaw, Andrew McLeod, Lindsay Gilbee, Jake King, Martin Mattner, Brad Symes, Mark Nicoski, Nathan J. Brown, Scott D. Thompson.
Centres: Nick Dal Santo, Lenny Hayes, Nathan Jones, Andrew Swallow, Chance Bateman, Nick Stevens, Bachar Houli, Craig Bird.
Rucks: Justin Koschitzke, Troy Simmonds, Matthew Kreuzer, Shaun Hampson.
Forwards: Matthew Pavlich, Nathan G. Brown, Brett Deledio, Alan Didak, Stuart Dew, Nathan Thompson, Leroy Jetta, Cyril Rioli, Kurt Tippett.
This is almost the complete opposite of the Peckin Away team strategy which won DT last year. Where Steve starts five rookies, Casha starts none. Casha spends big on only six premium-priced players, where many others would have 10-12. The fact that Houli starts on his bench only underlines how little Casha values rookies in his structure.
This method requires a huge amount of faith in mid-priced players. Some of them look like genius picks based on round 1 performances, such as Dew, Nathan Thompson, King and Bateman. Others are not so hot, like Swallow, Brown and Didak. His round 1 score was just inside the top 30,000 so he has a lot of ground to make up. It will be interesting to see how many premiums he can manage to trade up to by season’s end… his trade targets will have to deliver in spades!
