Howlett the moon: m0nty’s 2010 Supercoach squad

The author of this blog has decided to take the risky route of a six rookie mid structure in SC this year.

As I set out in the Consensus posts this preseason, there seemed to be two main schools of thought on how many rookie-priced midfielders you could afford to start in your fantasy team this year. The safest option, according to the masses, was three starting and two on the bench. A small but stubborn minority, however, threw caution to the wind and decided to start four rookie mids, and I threw my lot in with them for the SC competition this year.

Brendon Goddard, Corey Enright, Ryan Hargrave, Jack Grimes, Luke Hodge, Tadhg Kennelly, Nick Malceski
Josh Hunt, Matt Maguire

Gary Ablett jnr, Adam Cooney, Jack Trengove, Dustin Martin, Michael Barlow, Ben Howlett
Jarrod Kayler-Thomson, James Strauss

Aaron Sandilands, Matthew Kreuzer
Robert Warnock, Matthew Lobbe

Adam Goodes, Nick Riewoldt, Lance Franklin, Kurt Tippett, Barry Hall, Patrick Dangerfield, Ben Warren
Carl Peterson, Mitchell Duncan

Brendon Goddard: No explanation needed.

Corey Enright: With no Tom Harley it was easy to see Enright getting more responsibility and thus becoming more of an SC player.

Ryan Hargrave: His poor round 1 score was more to do with the absence of Dale Morris than his own form. That frailty is a worrying development in and of itself, of course, but Morris should be back this week and so should his fantasy scores.

Jack Grimes: He lined up next to Hodge for many stoppages on Saturday, but didn’t show many signs of actually stopping him. If he is being groomed as a tagger, I would suggest to Dean Bailey that he look elsewhere. Grimes is much more suited to winning his own ball.

Luke Hodge: I knew he was going to cop a tag every week, especially early with no Shaun Burgoyne to take the pressure off, which would restrict his ability to get free for cheap marks, thus I had Hodge pegged as more of an SC improver. Once Burgoyne gets up and running I may well go for Hodge in DT later in the year.

Tadhg Kennelly and Nick Malceski: I have always loved picking Swans in SC due to the “Sydney Effect” – whereby both sets of players in Swans games have their SC scores adjusted up due to the typically low amount of possessions. It seems the four-rebounding-back structure that was so publicised in preseason was a furphy: Rhyce Shaw will run through midfield exclusively, while Martin Mattner will do tagging/defensive jobs both in midfield and up forward. Tadhg and Eski are the main men. Of course, having them both concussed in R1 is not ideal, but you can’t predict that.

Josh Hunt: I really like the structure of having Hunt as #8 back. His 80+ in round 1 may suggest he’s startworthy, and that’s certainly more true in SC than in DT on exposed form. All the same, I like the stability of leaving him on the bench.

Matt Maguire: Looked perfectly fine on the weekend if you ignored the knocks and bruises which seemed to affect him more than most. Brittle, of course, but from the #9 slot all you need is 8 games or so and he’s done his job.

Gary Ablett jnr: Started a little slowly on the weekend but then picked up pace like he was surfing a wave on a Gold Coast beach. He looked as good as a Gold Coast meter maid, to be truthful. The sun will shine on his owners like a Gold Coast winter’s day.

Adam Cooney: One of the more mystifying trends in the Exteam databases was the late swing away from Coondog. Early in the NAB everyone was on him as an underpriced premium, but later on it seemed everyone shifted their allegiance to Jimmy Bartel and there was no room left for the best player in the (allegedly) premiership-bound side. I can’t understand it. I like Cooney as an SC specialist, and I don’t really rate Bartel’s SC game seeing as he does tend to rack up uncontested stats late in junk time to boost his DT numbers. Perhaps some of you can tell me why you changed from Cooney mid-NAB.

Jack Trengove: I was on Mark McVeigh in this slot until pretty late in the piece. I heard one or two poor things about his standing with the coach – don’t ask me what – and got spooked on him.

Dustin Martin, Michael Barlow: Of course, of course.

Ben Howlett: The four-starting-rookie structure would normally be even more risky in SC than it is in DT because traditionally 18-year-olds do worse in SC. However, combining that structure with my big bet this year on mature-agers is hopefully a method to have it both ways. Howlett will make or break this team, pretty much, and he’s off to a good start.

Jarrod Kayler-Thomson: It is risky, no doubt. With half a dozen senior players due to come back into the Hawthorn side over the next month, there is a big chance that JKT will be dropped early. His ceiling, I would argue, is higher than any other player in this position.

James Strauss: Here’s another big risk. Structurally I don’t think it’s a bad move to take a slightly older player here, but perhaps the personnel could have been different – a Todd Banfield or Luke Shuey, maybe. But it’s easy to criticise with the benefit of hindsight (as I’m sure you lot will demonstrate in the comments!). Still too early to tell on this one.

Aaron Sandilands: I don’t think 211 can keep up the pace of 96% TOG – and that 4% off the ground coming only in Q4 junk time – but he’s got no competition in that Docker list for gametime, and he can dominate matches as he did on Sunday.

Matthew Kreuzer: Very happy with this pick, an excellent DT:SC ratio of 89:118 in round 1 shows his ceiling is high enough to make top two in total SC points this year behind Sandilands.

Robert Warnock: Conversely, an 85:47 ratio for Warnock shows that he’s bench fodder at best.

Matthew Lobbe: Only here to enable MPP.

Adam Goodes: Has always been an SC specialist and with his DT also on the rise, he should contend for most SC points among forwards again.

Nick Riewoldt: Naturally. Keep those soft frees coming, umps! 😀

Lance Franklin: Should stay a lot deeper in the forward line this year with Roughead rucking, which may hurt his DT but benefit his SC (and his team!).

Kurt Tippett: He is going to get double- and triple-teamed a lot this year playing inside 50 in tight games, which says to me free kicks, contested marks and big game-changing goals, all of which are SC gold. Plus he gives MPP security.

Barry Hall: It wasn’t a great start for BBBBBBH, but first up against Simon Prestigiacomo was always going to be tough. If 60 is his floor for the season, it’s going to be a good one.

Patrick Dangerfield: His owners were swearing and throwing things at the TV in the first half on Sunday as Neil Craig isolated Dangerfield in the goalsquare and completely destroyed his scoring. In the second half, he was released to midfield and ended with a nice score. He should be fine if he stays fit.

Ben Warren: Got pantsed by Chad Cornes and delivered a sub-50 in the wet, which looked poor. However, he’s only priced at 43.6 in SC, so if he scores that well when he’s beaten, his potential when he plays well still looks solid.

Carl Peterson: Here for a good time, not a long time. Exactly how long is the unresolved question.

Mitchell Duncan: Chose him over Peterson to sub for Franklin in R1, which robbed me of 35 points.

This line-up delivered 2207 in round 1, good only for 22,201st.