Paul Montgomery, a.k.a. m0nty, is a co-founder of FanFooty, the fastest-growing fantasy football site for Australian Rules (AFL) football. He lives in Geelong, and barracks for the mighty Hawks.
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.
Sorry in advance to all you Cat fans out there, but m0nty and Molly are PUMPED and STOKED about the Hawks playing in the Grand Final, so apologies for all the badmouthing they are about to do to your beloved boys. (more…)
The Saints and Dogs have survived the repechage so it’s onwards and upwards to the bronze medal playoff for them! Go for bronze, boys! (Who says Hawks fans are arrogant?)
When we get onto talking about this week’s prospects for Finals Dream Team, we start once again with the backlines. Corey Enright, Andrew Mackie and Darren Milburn are all fine prospects, as are Luke Hodge, Grant Birchall and Brent Guerra from the Hawks. Hard to go past Brendon Goddard, Sam Fisher and Jason Gram from St Kilda, while Jason Blake, Raphael Clarke and Lindsay Gilbee are all discussed in detail.
Onto the midfield, and it’s very hard to go past the Cat triumvirate of Gary Ablett jnr, Jimmy Bartel and Joel Corey… and not many will be leaving them out! Cameron Ling and Joel Selwood are even putting in strong cases to be the fourth Cat picked in your engine room. The Hawks are more even, with Sam Mitchell, Brad Sewell, Jordan Lewis, Clinton Young, Michael Osborne and Chance Bateman all vying for selection, while at the Saints there are also good reasons to pick Nick Dal Santo, Lenny Hayes and Leigh Montagna. Molly isn’t so hot on the Dogs though, with Daniel Cross, Matthew Boyd, Adam Cooney and Ryan Griffen all likely to struggle.
In the rucks, Brad Ottens will probably score the best of the lot, but can you find a spot for him among your six allowed Geelong players? The media are talking up Robert Campbell to play back this week, which would mean the selection battle between Simon Taylor and Brent Renouf would take on a new dimension. Justin Koschitzke is always a fantasy factor, while Molly argues the toss for Will Minson to be a stronger prospect this week than Ben Hudson.
There are plenty of choices to be had in the forwards this week, but only seven spots you can fill. Steve Johnson and Cameron Mooney have to be considered from Geelong with Mathew Stokes and Tom Lonergan also possibles. For the Hawks it is almost illegal not to pick Lance Franklin, while Jarryd Roughead, Stuart Dew and Cyril Rioli are selectable too. Apart from Nick Riewoldt it’s difficult to build a case for Stephen Milne and Adam Schneider outside the Dome. Finally, at the Bulldogs, Brad Johnson, Daniel Giansiracusa, Robert Murphy, Jason Akermanis, Josh Hill and Mitch Hahn all have claims.
We’re the only fantasy footy show in town this week, and with more than 50,000 entrants in the Finals Dream Team competition there is plenty to get stuck into. M0nty is suffering through a flu, which surprisingly he did not get barracking at the footy on Friday, but he and Molly were both there and they quickly put a lid on Hawk Talk.
The boys go through each position in order: defenders, midfielders, ruck and forwards. Particular time is spent on Nick Maxwell, Andrew Gilbee, Jason Gram, Jason Blake, Shane O’Bree, Amon Buchanon, Jarrad McVeigh, Daniel Cross, Darren Jolly, Justin Koschitzke, Will Minson, Paul Medhurst, Leon Davis, Dale Thomas, Tarkyn Lockyer, Barry Hall, Ryan O’Keefe, Nick Riewoldt, Stephen Milne, Robert Murphy and Jason Akermanis.
As an aside, m0nty asks Molly about some Melbourne players: Nathan Jones, who disappointed everyone with his drop-off on what had promised to be a breakout year; and the half-back rebounders Paul Wheatley and Brad Green, who might have delighted their fantasy owners with their unaccountable Joel Bowden-like stat-whoring antics but didn’t really do much for the Demons’ chances of winning matches.
Finally, all the captaincy candidates are in the Saturday game so that means Dane Swan, Lenny Hayes, Sam Fisher and Brendon Goddard.
Yes, it’s the 50th show… may we get to 500! M0nty didn’t make it up to Melbourne to be with Molly, but that just means they can both hit the spreadsheets harder this week in preparation for Finals Dream Team.
Before that, however, the boys go through the winners of all major fantasy AFL competitions for the year, as well as some minor ones. Last week’s guest snagadelic managed to get up for the Eliminator prize - well done mate! - while his grand final opponent Matt, known as Brad Fisherman on BigFooty, consoled himself with winning the Toyota Aurion for the overall Dream Team comp (watch him on the final DT Talk episode of the year).
M0nty has some big news of his own… his league won the $20,000 prize for Premium Dream Team! He’s pretty stoked with that, which kicks off a discussion on whether PDT will overtake “normal” DT in fantasy coaches’ minds as the most important competition. The winner of the $5000 team prize in PDT, demondomination, is now pimping himself out as a DT tutor on BigFooty… with a premium to teach m0nty a thing or two!
Elsewhere in fantasy comps, members of the EliteDre@mTe@mers group won the Yahoo, LG and Geelong Advertiser comps, while the leader of the Fox Sports comp (which continues through finals) is also an EDTer. Finally, the winner of FanFooty’s Lethal League comp is grimlock, yet another EDTer, and members of EDT filled the top three spots!
Finally the boys turn their eyes, and their helper programs FFGenie and Too Serious, to the subject of Finals DT. Every possible configuration of players is gone through with a fine-toothed comb… suffice to say that you won’t find a more comprehensive analysis of this competition anywhere on or off the Net.
We’ll be podcasting all the way through the finals to help you with your Finals DT selections, so keep listening all the way through to the granny!
