Brendan Fevola booted 8 goals to help Carlton to win a hard fought battle over Brisbane.
Carlton broke through for their first interstate win of the season after controlling the game for three quarters, before Brisbane came storming back with a nine goal final quarter. The Blues win was a result of an even team performance and effective tight tags on key Lions players. Although Chris Judd and Fevola (DT136/SC163) lead the way with DT tons, lesser players like Dennis Armfield and Paul Bower stepped up to make the difference. Aaron Joseph, Andrew Carrazzo and Steven Browne applied hard tags and became fantasy blankets in the process.
Jonathon Brown and Simon Black toiled manfully, but too much was left to too few. The Lions had to contend with the loss of Josh Drummond to a calf injury. Fantasy coaches who considered him too much of a risk at the start of the season may feel vindicated. With Rhan Hooper providing only 2 effective disposals, the Lions were really down to 20 players. Daniel Rich (75/89) finally escaped a tight tag to blow away his breakeven fantasy scores and continues to increase his price. Some Lions players such as Travis Johnstone could not seem to cope with niggling tactics of Carlton taggers.
Earlier in the day, St Kilda finally blew away a brave and injury ravaged Kangaroos, in a last quarter blitz. In the process they racked up 6 DT tons and 9 SC tons, with Justin Koschitzke (113/152) and Jason Gram (114/108) being the biggest surprises. Brendon Goddard (46/74) will drop in price for the next few weeks and will be a great upgrade before round 14. Kangaroos back Nathan Grima (85/69) burst his bubble in fine style, but injuries to Sam Wright and Ben Warren will have some fantasy coaches worried.
And finally, Port Adelaide scrounged a win against a youthful Fremantle side. Greg Broughton (68/92) continues to rake in cash for his fantasy owners, while Stephen Hill, Nick Suban and Matthew DeBoer continue to provide reliable backup for coaches who kept them on the bench. For neutral football followers, the most exciting thing to come out of the match was the promising debut of Michael Walters (70/76) and Clancee Pearce (68/66).
Will the injury to Drummond be the straw that breaks the camels back for some fantasy coaches? Did you have league game against a coach who had Fevola? How did today’s matches effect your team?
