Daily Fantasy AFL on Draftstars is back for another round of huge prize pools with over $110,000+ in prize money up for grabs on Saturday.
With so many players to choose from throughout Saturday, we go straight to one of the sharpest players on the platform ‘Tbetta’. Already a Draftstars winner in Round 1, ‘Tbetta’ continues his slate preview in his kooky Space theme, as this proved very successful last week.
MAIN CONTESTS:
$90,000 Main ($15 entry, 150 max)
$10,000 High Roller ($150 entry, 3 max)
$5,000 Fiver ($5 entry, 50 max)
$3,000 Mini ($2 entry, 15 max)
$2,500 Buck Hunter ($1 entry, 100 max)
$2,000 Micro ($0.50 entry, 100 max)
SATELLITE:
COLL vs PORT – Fine.
ADE vs RICH – Fine.
WBD vs STK – Roof.
FREM vs NTH – Fine.
INNER CORE:
FWD
Round 2 is where casual players chase the last week’s scores, and the sharper players avoid the flashes in the pan. Charlie Comben ($6,450 FWD/RUC) and Lachie Jones ($6,070 FWD/DEF) have high scores and low price-tags sitting next to their names, but I don’t see the former playing a full game in the ruck this week or the latter bagging another 3 majors against the Pies. I’m still mildly interested in Liam Henry ($6,660 MID/FWD) after the wing role came to fruition last week, while Toby McLean ($7,450 MID/FWD) deserves to be popular with Adam Treloar on the side-lines for a week. North dominates the mid-range with Liam Shiels, Tom Powell, Harry Sheezel and Jack Ziebell all pickable, particularly the former skipper with that slutty 2021 defensive role locked down. I expect we’ll see players like Nat Fyfe & Liam Baker bounce back after shocking season debuts, with the overpriced Premium player bracket framing them as interesting spend-down options.
Fremantle’s coach hit back at critics of Nat Fyfe today.
Full story via @JonoBaruch 📝: https://t.co/clJkYfAewS pic.twitter.com/MeMuGdZgmP
— Fox Footy (@FOXFOOTY) March 23, 2023
MID
Oskar Baker ($6,000 MID) had his moments last week but fizzled a little as a salary-saver, eking out a middling 55 points. I’m not jumping off quite yet though – the bargain-basement price-tag and a juicy match-up against the leaky Saints is a classic DFS combination. On the flip-side, Ryan Byrnes ($8,580 MID) is my pick to burn the score-chasers, while I have concerns about Jason Horne-Francis’s ($10,010 MID) fantasy ceiling if a BOG performance last week netted him just the 90 points. I liked Bailey Smith and Jack Macrae last week so I love them here with a better match-up and no Adam Treloar watering down their midfield minutes, especially with the question marks over the historically safer options north of the $16k threshold. The role of Seb Ross looms as an interesting sidebar on this slate, having the potential to rack up the footy (five scores of 109+ last season), but also having a history of doing shutdown roles – the Saints are down their pair of first-choice options in Marcus Windhager and Jack Bytel, after all.
DEF
The $6k-$8k looks absolutely littered with landmines in defence, with only Jase Burgoyne ($7,660 DEF) piquing my interest after scoring 81 on the Pies last year. Even Liam Stocker’s ($7,850 DEF) salary screams “trap” to me, despite a friendly role and an 81-point effort in Round 1. Ultimately, I’d much rather concentrate on correlating backs instead, as I’m sure it hasn’t escaped anyone’s attention that the winners of both the multi-game slates last weekend pulled off the classic DEF stacks. In the same vein, last week’s studs in Nick Daicos ($15,010 DEF) and Scott Pendlebury ($14,050 DEF/MID) should be avoided with brutal match-ups on the other side of the stacking coin.
RUC
We’re looking at a Goldstein ($11,590 RUC) chalk slate this Saturday, although there are plenty of solo ruck options to pivot to if you want to zig while the field zags. While it’s largely been nil-all draws between Marshall and English historically, both are coming into their primes and have ceilings that most ruckmen can only dream of thanks to versatile stat profiles. Reilly O’Brien is a left-field option with a great record versus Richmond, averaging 117 against them across his last four attempts. Meanwhile, all eyes are on Samson Ryan ($6,000 RUC/FWD) to see if he can eclipse his -2 point career average.
Todd Goldstein after Xerri goes down in the first quarter pic.twitter.com/VoVINaVLFZ
— Free Kick Liam (@lmtom1) March 18, 2023
BLACK HOLES:
Harry Sheezel ($9,520 FWD/DEF)
This is a common-sense play – whenever you see a young player break some kind of record on debut, it should be an extremely obvious clue that it’s bloody difficult to replicate. Take last year for example; Nic Martin pumps out a monstrous 130 on debut, then backs it up with a 71 a week later. Jack Hayes brute-forces his way to 111 in his first AFL game the day prior, then manages just 61 in Round 2. I loved Sheezel’s game last week and the role was absolutely gorgeous for fantasy footy, but Fremantle isn’t West Coast and lightning doesn’t strike twice in real life.
Ben Cunnington ($14,080 MID)
I adore Cunners as a bloke and a footballer, but I simply don’t love his role at this price-tag. 50% centre bounce action sounds like enough for most, but for a player like Cunnington who has always relied on contested possessions and tackles to score, half a game in the forward 50 just doesn’t cut the mustard. I’ll be waiting for his price to come down before revaluating mid-year, where hopefully his match fitness has increased, and his midfield time follows suit.
STAR SIGNS:
Cold Pies
The Power picked up right where they left off last season in Round 1, zapping the life out of the Lions to outscore them by a whopping 1129 to 1649 on the fantasy scoreboard. They might not be playing in their backyard again this week, but with Port easily boasting the greatest fantasy differential of any club last year, this trend is too robust to disrespect. Leave the Pies in the freezer this Saturday.
Xerri Ripe
The heir apparent looked every part the solo ruckman Alistair Clarkson yearned for this year, with Tristan Xerri racking up 9 hitouts and 5 touches in a flurry before disaster struck in the form of an in-tackle ankle twist. So it’s back to Plan B, and what a back-up plan it is! Todd Goldstein is fresh off a BOG performance in the 2’s scratch-match and struts back into a solo ruck role. Goldy’s last four scores as the solo ruckman reads 90, 91, 89 and 84, making him an excellent cash play even with the tough Darcy/Jackson match-up.
GALAXY CLUSTER:
Western Bulldogs – DEF Stack
The lack of quality St Kilda forwards to quell, the soft DvP to start with and the reliability of the Marvel Stadium roof keeping the weather out meant that Fremantle defenders were always going to score well… but even I didn’t think it would be that well. Luke Ryan (13 marks, 156 AF), Brennan Cox (20 marks, 141 AF), Hayden Young (13 marks, 118 AF) and Jordan Clark (11 marks, 103 AF) all went so bonkers that you simply couldn’t win the slate without at least one or two of these picks. Expect their backline Bulldog counterparts to be extremely popular this Saturday, and for good reason.
Fremantle – Full Stack
If you were unlucky enough to watch the North vs West Coast game last weekend, you’d cash out all your life insurance, your superannuation, your kid’s university fund and whatever you have left in your crypto wallet, then slap it straight down onto Dockers stacks. If it were possible for both teams to lose, they would have. North basically shoved it down the throats of Jeremy McGovern and Tom Barrass all day to gift wrap them 10 marks apiece, so this could be the rare occasion where the “run it back on the guys who scored 140+ the week before” play is the correct call on Ryan, Cox, etc. I’ll be looking to link them up with Fremantle’s on-ball brigade as much as possible, while the cheaper small forwards are also in play to cash in on the Roo boost.
📊 Stat watch
Brennan Cox has now equalled the Club record for most marks in a game, currently held by Luke McPharlin (20).
The all-time record in an AFL game is 24.#AFLSaintsFreo | #foreverfreo pic.twitter.com/pGHhA3NKgZ
— Fremantle Dockers (@freodockers) March 19, 2023
Port – MID Stack
Collingwood gave up more points to MIDs than any other team last year, so you’d be silly not to look at Port’s young midfield unit. Connor Rozee ($15,410 MID) is the big name, but I like Ollie Wines a lot at $14,750 and a pair of under-priced wingmen in Bergman and Duursma for the correlation play. Travis Boak’s continued absence (although he could still be the sub) is great news for the midfield splits of Zak Butters, Jason Horne-Francis and Willem Drew if you want to get greedy.
MULTIVERSE THEORY:
In a parallel universe:
- Tim English finds another way to continue his diabolical Saints record of 56, 67 and 58 in the last 3. We’ve had a half-time injury, a forward role and ruck-sharing so far, I wonder what’s next…
- Sheezel’s 34 touches debut catches the attention of the Fremantle Opposition Analysis team, bringing in Bailey Banfield to tag the second-gamer…
- Caleb Daniel sneaks into the midfield with Treloar missing and some pre-season experimentation in the role…
- Samson Ryan breaks the slate at basement price in the ruck, building off the confidence he gained from a whopping 1.36 PPM in a last quarter cameo in the pre-season hitout…
Tbetta.
Ready to go? Draftstars multi game Saturday slate will close at 1.45pm AEDT. ENTER NOW!
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