Phillip "Molly" Malone is one of the most prolific Web pundits on Aussie Rules footy with his blog Mollyzine and podcast Molly's Monday Machination. He's an engineer and a Hawk fan, and you'll see his name everywhere.
#49: Round 21 2008, with snagadelic live on Talkshoe
It’s the final week of the regular AFL season, and of course that means finals… and guess who won the prelim between Molly and m0nty in the Website Owners league! Hint: he has a big red beard…
We have a guest this week for the first time in a long while: snagadelic, whose team Tanks A Lot is in the Eliminator final with The Convicts, coached by BradFisherman. We chat with snagga about his starting team, his trading trends, his overall fantasy philosophy and his prospects for knocking off the all-conquering DT-leading Convicts outfit which is also #1 in the race for the car at the top of the Dream Team rankings for 2008.
One of the big surprises with The Convicts is how the starting strategy of the team was in direct opposition to the supposed elite strategy of guns-and-rookies; BradFisherman started no rookies in his initial 22, avoided the big-ticket busts, and had quite a few dud mid-price choices to begin with. This was in stark contrast to last year’s Dream Team winner Peckin Away, coached by Steve Morfesse, who started five rookies in his 22 this year. This causes a long conversation about structures.
As an aside, m0nty reveals a new page on FanFooty called Champion Data Brownlow Voting, which collates Super Coach scores and allocates 3-2-1 votes for each game according to the ranking points to mimic the real Brownlow. This has traditionally been a significant pointer to the actual Brownlow votes, and no surprises as to who is leading the 2008 tally!
To round out the discussion on last year’s winners, we go through this year’s offering from 2007 Super Coach winner Casha, who interestingly also started zero rookies in his 22 to begin with.
After m0nty mentions briefly his membership of the leading league in the $20,000 Premium Dream Team competition, he listens dutifully as Molly explains his trade dilemma: he has two trades left (!!) and wants to replace Matthew Pavlich and Heath Shaw. After much debate, he decides on a Crow and a Cat to slot in.
Finally, in the captains segment, there are some very tasty games to chew over, including Geelong toying with the Eagles at Skilled, Carlton’s mids up against the Hawk cluster, and the Richmond vs Melbourne clash in which both sides should play kick to kick.