Killer Carl for the chop: Rollercoaster R5, 2010

Hawthorn’s Carl Peterson is one of the rookies worth selling this week, with a few fantasy premiums at tasty prices to replace him.

As promised, I have turned the semi-regular Rollercoaster feature into a couple of dedicated stat pages, so you can see the lists for yourselves. The Dream Team Rollercoaster and Supercoach Rollercoaster links will be added to the front page and the menus.

A reminder of the premise of this regular feature: Rollercoaster follows the ups and downs of weekly price variations in the AFL Dream Team and Supercoach salary cap competitions. Trying to figure out when premium players have bottomed out and rookie players have reached their ceiling are two things which every successful fantasy coach needs to master to lock in the right trades at the right times.

Big Dippers

Dean Cox is always a big fantasy story in the modern game, but even though his price has dived and his scores have levelled out, I am still a little reticent to suggest he should be a trade target this week. You could go straight from Nic Naitanui to his fellow Eagle ruck for little more than $100,000 in DT and $120,000 in SC. Many fantasy coaches will look at that and think it’s a no-brainer trade. I would still have concerns over inconsistency due to the ruck committee swinging one way and the other in terms of TOG share, as has been the case with Mark Seaby and Shane Mumford recently. There’s no question that the multiple All-Australian is about as cheap as you would ever have got him in the last five years though, so if you have faith in him then this is the week to grasp Big Cox with both hands.

Alan Didak stands out to me as the other big name of those whose price has plummeted in the first five weeks. Plenty of fantasy coaches are having big problems with their mid-priced forwards with the likes of Patrick Dangerfield, Ben Warren and Sam Wright not being rotated through midfield as had been advertised in preseason. A double trade to upgrade one of these to Didak would seem like a solid option, especially in SC.

A number of coaches were waiting out the first month or so of the season on Marc Murphy while he recovered from his preseason injuries and the absence of Chris Judd, but it is Bryce Gibbs who has fallen further and seems to have benefited more from the return of the Juddster. Those who are looking to offload Luke Ball or David Armitage and can reach Gibbs would get him at the right time this week.

Loop De Loop

Josh Hunt is the biggest quandary in this week’s list of topped out prices. A terrible performance against Carlton may have stemmed the flow of cash into his price, and a lot of coaches (like me) are chafing a bit at seeing him rack up points as an eighth back, with the likes of Ashton Hams, Phil Davis and Matthew Dea on the bubble this week. Those of us who also have Matt Maguire as a ninth back can make a very strong case to elevate Maguire to #8 and sell off Hunt for a rookie at #9. On the other hand, Hunt has the Tigers this week, who are the league’s most generous in giving up points to medium-sized defenders, as one look at the DT Breakdown and SC Breakdown will show. Hunt may be allowed another week at least, if you can handle missing out on the half-dozen back rookies on offer.

Carl Peterson seems to have done his dash, and may well be dropped this week after two indifferent performances. Fantasy coaches would send him on his way with a round of applause though, for a job well done of six-figure profits in both comps. Anthony Morabito has put in consecutive sub-50s after his near-BOG performance against the Cats in round 3, so it’s probably time for him to be sold off. Ryan Bastinac‘s DT journey still has a way to go but a 30-point discrepancy in his SC output in the last two weeks means his turkey is just about cooked in Supercoach.

Finally, the aforementioned NicNat is rapidly approaching a stall in his moderate rise this season. If you can’t reach Cox this week, you may struggle to find cash to upgrade him to a gold premium. You never know with NicNat, but with a six-week stretch coming up of Sandilands, Jamar, Gardiner, Kreuzer and Ottens, the game in two weeks against the Hawks looks like the only one where he’ll dominate. His price actually dropped this week in DT already!

Time for some questions for you lot in the comments to ponder. Can you trust Hunt to beat his breakeven against the Tiger rabble? Is Maguire really all that dependable as a #8 back? Is Dids a forward premium worth having or are there better options? What are you NicNat owners going to do now? How about Dangerfield, Warren and Wright owners… will there be any after this week? Let me know below.