Of course not, it’s a very hot condiment.
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I’ve set up autopick because the options for my last choice are equally as bad as each other… so whenever Speedy is done, it’ll go straight back to wez
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Sorry. Was having an unexpected arvo nap 
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You are up again @wezza
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picking faster than i can update my spreadsheet!
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Almost there…
ANNOUNCE LTI selections!
Getting through this in less than a week is very impressive. Well done everyone
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I’m not on top of the LTI list atm. I know a few names have been thrown up in this thread but I’ve been busy and skimmed over them.
If you want someone listed, best to PM me with the player as the subject so I don’t miss a post.
Remember: they must have been on your keeper list .
let’s wrap it up.
Well done everyone.
I’m fairly happy with my draft haul. I was aiming for young topend talent and to get 2 top 6 picks from this years AFL draft was a real bonus.
I certainly made mistakes. The biggest one was Mumford at pick 56.
For two reasons. Firstly there are rucks that will actually play and secondly Harrison Jones went the next pick who I would have loved on my list.
Looking at my team it’s much stronger than when I inherited it two years ago and I also added Soldo and Sicily primed for 2022. I’m really stacking up for a tilt in 3-4 years.
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My aims were to get the best young talent available, which I feel I have done with the likes of Campbell, Bruhn and Pedlar with my first 3 picks. Laurie could be a really decent prospect and I like what I’ve heard about Zane Trew at the Eagles. I also wanted to get some rucks in so Ceglar and Ratugolea should prove to be adequate. I wasn’t sure on Vardy’s job security at all.
Went heavy on defenders at the back end of my draft haul, looking to add some rebounding HBF types. Idun seems like he should get chances at GWS, Hibberd is a safe veteran to add. All in all I think I did OK.
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I got a really solid year out of Pig last year after drafting him in the 70s or so and I was very close to retaining him as my 6th defender but went for for Stephen Hill instead in the hope that might be used a bit more as a set up player. Of course that would require him to be fit…
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Maximo Park, in their classic “Apply Some Pressure”, sing:
“What happens when you lose everything? you just start again. You start all over again”
With that in mind, we went scorched earth at the Notorious B.I.X over the past year. With the departure of Isaac Smith, we now only have one player over 26 - our coach and saviour Paul Seedsman.
10 picks in the first 66, with 6 in the first 30 - excellent timing in a year when noone played last year. That being said, we feel like I may have some talent here. We had a focus on mids, picking Tom Powell, Finlay Macrae, Connor Downie and Alex Davies early. Lachie Jones is a future captain of the B.I.X and defender, and Oliver Henry up forward. CCJ as a ruck prospect, and then 2 flutters on the jones brothers, Chayce and Harrison. Im worried about Chayce, but high draft pick at a team who has to play the kids, so at least I will find out one way or another.
Paul Seedsman picks himself.
Hoping to be competitive occasionally, but expecting a long year. At least this time the rebuild is thorough.
Best 22:
Duggan, Quaynor, Hayden Young, Hardwick, Markov
Kelly, O’Meara, Seedsman ©, Powell, Brown (T), McInerney
Darcy
Dow, Brodie, Warner, Himmelburg, Macrae
Bewley
Bench: Budarick, C Jones, O Henry, L Meek
Bench: Fogarty, Logue, Weightman, Lachie Jones, Downie, H Jones, A Davies, CCJ
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Right, since it appears to be draft review time…
High Fyfe 2021 draft review
Come Back Hirdy is taking major steps in response to the promise his team showed during 2020, in which they were minor premiers and runners up. “Yeah nah, we expect to finish in the bottom four most years, so I’ll be doing my best to make sure that’s where we are in 2021. There’s plenty of work to do, but this horrific draft was a good start.”
Pick 17: Xavier O’Neill (West Coast)
O’Neill had six disposals in his most recent AFL game, causing some to question whether he was taking performance-lowering drugs. But he’s been cleared by ASADA, who found that he’s just not very good at football.
“He would have definitely been available with a fourth-round pick, but we didn’t have one of those, so I made the call to take him in the first round,” said Come Back Hirdy, neglecting to mention that he had two third-round picks at his disposal.
Pick 45: Finn Maginness (Hawthorn)
“To be honest, I thought he was one of the Finn brothers, and was hoping he’d bring a guitar into the change room and stop Charlie Dixon playing heavy metal. We all hate it, but nobody wants to bring it up because he’s a pretty big guy.”
“Imagine my surprise when it turns out Finn’s his first name, and he’s an undersized ‘inside mid’ who’s probably not even in his real team’s best 30 players.”
Charlie Dixon at last year’s Mad Monday
Pick 50: Jake Bowey (Melbourne)
“Same joke as the Finn brothers one, except with David Bowie.”
Bowey is primed to make an impact in his first year. Weighing in at less than 70kg, that impact is expected to be in the form of dents in the floor of the gym from dropping weights that he can’t lift.
Pick 107: Todd Marshall (Port Adelaide)
Is Marshall going to be the rare key position forward who’s also an excellent scorer? No. But was he the best available at the pick who suited the team’s needs? Also no.
“I’m mostly hopeful that @saladin will make an outlandish trade offer mid-season since he loves Marshall so much.”
Marshall and teammates after learning that he was drafted by High Fyfe
Pick 125: Tom Fullarton (Brisbane)
That Fullarton was picked up at all is clearly a sign of the inflated values of rucks in this league.
“I agree,” said Come Back Hirdy, breaking continuity because a real interview would have happened before the article was written. “But if he gets a game in the seniors he may get in Joe Daniher’s way a bit, and it’ll be that much sweeter knowing he’s on my team.”
Pick 129: Callum Wilkie (St Kilda)
“I thought if you’re going to pick someone from St Kilda, you better pick a tall, since they’re liable to set fire to anyone short.”
This pick marked three key position players picked in a row, showing that Come Back Hirdy still knows nothing about fantasy football.
Pick 142: David Cuningham (Carlton)
Worst pick of the draft, since it introduced the Fark Carlton stench into the club.
“We’ve had the deep cleaners on speed dial since COVID hit. We might have to get them on retainer to follow David around.”
“We’ll make sure they wear appropriate PPE”
Pick 146: Oscar McDonald (Carlton)
Arguably a less smelly player since FC only picked him up a few days ago. But still a bemusing pick given he has two scores above 60 in the past three years. And one of them was 61.
“We thought Fark Carlton might play him in the ruck or up forward. So he’s a chance to get dual positions and be an abject disappointment as a forward or ruck as well as a back.”
Pick 147: Lachlan McNeil (Bulldogs)
Who?
Pick 173: Jack Petruccelle (West Coast)
He’s not very good at fantasy football, but he is quick. In fact, it is said that there is only one thing in BBFFL#2 quicker than Petruccelle: the speed at which he’s thrown on the trash heap after round 1.
Gearing up to press the delist button
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gold.
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Brilliant 
This was outstanding.
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Last call on LTI nominations. PM me.
9pm AEDST cut-off tonight (March 15th 2021.
After that, I’ll hand the list of approvals to Red and the LTI draft can happen when he wishes.
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Saracens Draft Review, 2021.
The Lead-in
Lets open with an upfront admission: Our trade period was literally a non event. Partially due to brain paralysis, frankly. Been a lot going on this year and i struggled to have any sort of useful ponderings on trade scenario’s , wants, win-win proposals etc. Interestingly, only a couple of people came to me as well, so perhaps I wasnt the only one struggling with it all. When i logged in late in the Trade period and saw the bewildering flurry of trades posted, draft picks flying everywhere like a paint-ball tournament , I knew that i was well out of my depth this year. I struggled to get my head around the what , the who and in some cases the why, let alone try to get involved in any meaningful and considered way. Which was probably for the best, we’d sacked the trading department in the Covid cost cutting anyway.
But this mental incapacity wasn’t the sole reason for the inactivity. We had managed at times to get a meeting of the coaching group ( via zoom of course, with masks just to be sure) to evaluate 2020 and where we are heading. After a failed tilt for a flag via the 2019 midseason trade period, the club has been in a covert rebuilding mode. So covert that even we didn’t fully realise it was happening at first. But it seemed warranted, as a list that looked pretty good on paper failed to fire in 2019 , and then spluttered and stumbled through 2020 in similar vein. And yet, something weird happened. We won a final, carrying a ragtag motley crew of kids and journeymen fill-ins whilst some injured stars looked on. Speculative players like Shoenberg and Sholl stood up late in the year to lift us to an unexpected 6th position. What then to do? As it turned out, nothing. Well, very little. Digging deeper into the list revealed some cause for optimism on certain players. Whatever was happening at Collingwood, it certainly hadn’t worked for Tom Phillips. But his move to Hawthorn boded well for a possible return to big scoring. In a similar boat was Fantasia. The added bonus there was that Essendons strange decision to play him completely out of position (and whilst out of form. And injured. And unhappy) handed him Defender eligibility. Port won’t do that, but a rejuvenated Fantasia offers the prospect of a season of good scoring that can be assigned to the back end of the ground. Zerrett didn’t seem happy last year either, he may rebound. Stringer looked good early, got injured and then struggled from there as the club imploded around him. Atkins was out of favour at Adelaide but GC got him for a reason. The word out of Sydney is that Mills is destined for the midfield, the Crows have trumpeted Sholl moving up onto a wing. All in all, it seemed legitimate to expect a rise in output from some of the list.
So, we wrote out the Keepers to get an idea of what the 2021 lineup could look like.
B) Fantasia, Mills, Francis, Sholl, DBJ
C) Zerrett, Steele, Hopper, Selwood, Atkins, Rowbottom
F) R Marshall, Stringer, Rozee, Bolton, Phillips, Shoenberg
R) Lycett
Bench: Bytel, Flanders
It’s actually not a bad list. If everyone played to their potential, it could score extremely heavily. Yes, Selwood will be an interesting watch, but we have a pretty handy group of kids coming through.
So we opted to hit the draft with the aim of semi having a dip at the flag (if everything falls into place) by targeting players that can help now, without sacrificing picks and players for an outright tilt via trade. And keeping the window open for hopefully a year or two. We’d look for youth, but preferably not too young overall. Players entering their 3rd,4th,5th years were right in the hitting zone.
So , a few cups of coffee to try to de-paralyse the brain and off to the draft we go.
The Draft
Round 1. Dylan Moore (Haw).
Honesty time here. This pick landed at an awkward time for me re work. I was under the pump, and didn’t want to hold the draft up. But Moore was the prototype player i thought our strategy should be looking at. He was a deadset points machine as a junior and iirc i took him late in my first draft, but as is so often the case I took him far too early in terms of his career. But now, he’s had multiple years in the system, Hawthorn look ready to play him and there’s a spot on a flank for him. Reasonable chance he’s dual position by years end. Even so, I very nearly bailed on the whole strategy of this draft. I likely would have done had Perkins or Cox been available, lol. If I’d taken more time, Thilthorpe would have been hugely tempting. In the end, I committed to Moore and the die was cast.
Round 2. Sam Berry.
There were so many unknowns about this years crop of draftee’s that i was reluctant to rely on them outside the top few, which I’d already chosen to bypass. Not so for two in particular - Luke Pedlar and Sam Berry. I was determined to grab one at this pick if possible. I thought Ace may have intervened after Smooth took Pedlar, but he didn’t. Berry is as tough as a cats head, wins his own footy and all the news out of Adelaide was that he’d been super impressive in an intraclub. He then backed that up with a great performance in a Sanfl trial game and Nicks saw fit to pick him for their practice match. One for the future, but may well get games very soon.
Round 3. Tom Cole.
We wanted and needed a defender. Several, actually. Dual position status in the list was helpful but tended to favour the C/F flexibility. We’d zoned in on Cole early and watched the other keeper lists with interest. LIke Moore, he has some senior footy, is about to enter his fifth year and showed a bit last year as well. It didn’t hurt that he scored nicely against Freo in the practice match either. Tom Highmore was in our thinking here, and Cam Poulton was scribbled in a note for the middle picks if we’d missed Berry/Pedlar. A fairly simple selection in the end to take Cole.
Round 4: Ben Long
I took the time to evaluate the list a bit at this point and was still concerned about the Defence. Highmore had vanished a few picks prior. I hadn’t realised that Long was available until i started trawling the spreadsheet. The Paton broken leg seemed to offer more opportunity to Long and I was pleasantly surprised to find that he’s only 23 years old. In theory, his prime years beckon, and opportunity looks to have increased. I think he plays most weeks and ticks a couple of boxes for where we’re at, especially with Mills a chance to be pure C next year. I’m confident in Cole, but Long offers 2nd insurance for the now.
Round 5. Kozzie Pickett.
Might be my favourite pick of our draft. The previous two selections were in large part structurally based. This was a pick for raw talent. Younger than my stated strategy of 3-5 year players, but 100 percent will be in the Demons best 22 by years end (possibly by round 1, tbh.) and is being lined up for midfield minutes. Had a death in the family that saw him return home in January, but is back and played very well against Box Hill in the midfield last week. I was concerned that he’d be gone, and worried that Ivan taking Marlion might herald a run on raw talent so I was very pleased he got through.
Very real chance to be a long term keeper, we think.
Round 6. Robbie Tarrant
Trickiest pick of the draft this year for us. Agonised over what the list was looking like, and he clearly doesn’t fit the broad aim we had going in. But he does kinda fit if things fall our way and we get through for a finals campaign. He’s a lock for Norths best 22 every single week if fit, he actually scores ok for a key defender, and there may be scope for a small increase with Corr arriving at the Roo’s to help him out in defence. He’s a plug and play insurance policy for when injury inevitably strikes. Others in the thinking here were Zach Guthrie ( arguably higher ceiling but less job security) and a couple of ruckmen. That was the true cost of this pick.
Round 7. Josh Treacy
The least satisfactory pick of our draft. In Marshall and Lycett we have a very strong ruck division. But Marshall is injured for the first few rounds so i wanted a backup option. We very very nearly pulled the trigger on Briggs ( astonishingly, not considered a Ruck just yet by UF!? WTF? ) at the Tarrant pick. He was gone by this pick. So was Jenkins. Phillips much early. Bix had the foresight to list Meek as a keeper and then grabbed Coleman-jones early. It came down to Josh Treacy, or Fullarton. Neither are ideal, but Treacy may actually get some footy as a forward for Freo, the Ruck eligibility a bonus. We felt out of options here, but it was our own fault.
Round 8 Francis Evans
Evans looked pretty good against Essendon and fits our mantra of multiple years in the system. Not sure how good his scoring can be, but he appears to be first in line for a spot as the small forward at the Cats, and they often get good outcomes from leaving guys in the two’s for a year or so.
Round 9. Hugo Ralphsmith
The smokey selection. I have to have one, or more, every year. We fought the good fight this year, tried to stick to script, but at some point i had to grab a flyer. I was tempted to take Hugo last year, but he was coming from a long way back as a 1st year player at Richmond, and in the end he didn’t travel to the hub anyway. But i kept an eye on Richmond talk about him this preseason and it’s been promising. I’m 90 percent sure that I’ve gone at least a year too early - I always do that - but I got the chance to see him live against our VFL side and there was enough to get me to hit the selection button. One to watch mainly for 2022, and maybe a sneaky chance to get a game if Houli is still injured early in this season. Dual position status is nice, and may end up with “Def” as well!
Round 10 Caleb Marchbank
The pure pigheaded, stubborn selection. This guy can play. I’m convinced of it. He can score well. I’m convinced of that too. I going to get something from him, one day, I refuse to concede. Of course, he’s returning from yet another injury. I considered Phoenix Spicer, and a couple of others who are still undrafted, but when push came to shove, I couldn’t admit defeat. Get well, Caleb.
So there it is, some typical elements of a saracens draft, some pure talent and youth, but also a more calculated plunge on some unknowns about to enter their definitive years. I’m pretty happy overall, though we’re vulnerable until Marshall is fit in the ruck. But if this all goes somewhat to plan, we may threaten for the trophy, and we’ll have some very tricky keeper selections to make next February.
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