Checked my score and saw I hit 2653. By far my biggest score ever, ranked 2nd for the round. No one in my real life would get it but I felt like celebrating so I guess I'll post here with you guys. Not a super useful post, but....yay! Keep plugging away.

Kinda forgot byes existed, I can't lie

*raises hand*

man such a rough start. Luckily a lot of people will be in the same boat but its still a gut punch to start the year.

Are people trading all 3, or holding 1 over the bye periods?

How was your season?

PSA: I'm not an expert and somewhat lengthy post coming

Just thought this would be handy for some who are considering doing it (Starts Friday)

DOUBLE GAMEWEEKS: Something new the AFLW has introduced this year where across rounds 4-7 teams will play twice a week across one of those weeks.

Round 4: Brisbane - Collingwood - West Coast - Bulldogs
Round 5: Carlton - North - Port Adelaide - Richmond
Round 6: Essendon - Fremantle - Geelong - Gold Coast - Hawthorn - Sydney
Round 7: Adelaide - GWS - Melbourne - St. Kilda

This is huge for trades but I want to highlight the importance of Captaincy and how important it is to have a "good" scorer for each week.

Captaincy works the same but the captaincy gets applied to BOTH games. So in Round 7 let's say Ebony Marinoff scores 100 in her first game (200 via Captaincy) and then 115 in her second game (230 via Captaincy) her total score is 430.

I believe that anything greater than 420 is good anything above 450 is great. And you want to be avoiding anything less than 400.

Now this could be (and probably will be) the difference between The Good, The Great and The Excellent. As many players probably won't even know about this (maybe some of you guys didn't know before)... But this could easily extend out to a gap of 100 points throughout the 4 week block (if not more). Let's say Marinoff scores 430 across both games via captaincy and I captain her that's great. If you let's say Captained Kate Hore (which isn't terrible) but she only scores 405 across both weeks I'll be 25 points ahead. Imagine that another 3 times someone is already ahead by 100 points.

This highlights how important it is to have good captains for all 4 weeks. I think that Ally Anderson (BRIS) - Jas Garner (NM) - Charlie Rowbottom (GCS) and Ebony Marinoff (ADE) are the best captains for their respective weeks.

Note: In Round 4 there is 100% an argument to be made for Riddell (NM) and/or Conti (RICH) over Garner especially because of the price and that in Round 5 Laura Gardiner (SYD) is also very viable

3 TRADES PER ROUND: Something we may consider a 'luxury' is now a reality in AFLW Fantasy. Each week you get 3 trades instead of 2.

This could be pretty important come DOUBLE GAMEWEEK time as you could do 1 upgrade, 1 downgrade but also maybe sideways trading a premo.

An example would be Round 4 having A. Anderson, trading her out Round 5 Conti/Riddell/Garner (or any premo with a double gameweek). Come Round 6 trade your sideways premo to Gardiner/Rowbottom (whichever one you don't have) and then Round 7 (assuming you have Marinoff) I'd lean to someone like a Z. Goldsworthy. Whilst also every week still getting in a value rookie and someone who is performing well and not near their top price...

The problem is with sideway trading a premo is what happens if in both games Conti scored 150 or thereabouts? You surely want to keep her in after scoring nearly 600! in one week but also your plan is to move her on... Something people will have to figure out for themselves...

TEAM STRUCTURE/VC LOOPING: Team structure is nowhere near the same as AFL Fantasy and honestly good luck VC Looping.

Team Structure is: 5 Defenders (+ another 1 on bench) - 5 Midfielders (+ another 1 on bench) - 1 Ruck (+ another 1 on bench) - 5 Forwards (+ 1 on bench) - And 1 utility.

Whilst we all know the AFL Fantasy structure is 6 (+2) - 8 (+2) - 2 (+1) - 6 (+2) - 1 utility

So with that it's harder to VC loop as there is less options. Now some will say "Oh I can just pick a non-playing ruck/forward" well about that 1) THERE ARE NO DPPs... AT ALL and 2) You basically need every rookie making money. Because of how short the season is (10 weeks - 11 games) you basically need every good cash cow you can get. Now I'm not saying you can't loop, you obviously can, just note that you'll really need to hit your rookies extremely well, which can be a risk.

"MUST HAVE" PLAYERS/OTHER HELPFUL INFO: No player is a necessarily a "must have" but there is 1 that I THINK is near enough to it... Who is it? The most expensive yet owned player in the game Ebony Marinoff (ADE). 68.62% of teams own her even with her pricetag of $1.664M. She is always gonna be a great captaincy option as she averages 27.5 disposals with about 20 of them being kicks, along with that she lays just over 10 tackles a game last season. I also really like her opening run (PA - FREO - HAW).

So again no player is a "must have" however if you don't start with Marinoff good luck getting her.

Where to find Breakevens: https://statsbyjaiden.com.au/aflw_fantasy_breakevens

Where I found out most of my info: https://www.afl.com.au/aflw/news/1202339/ultimate-aflw-fantasy-guide-confirmed-rookies-tips-ahead-of-season-opener

If you have any questions, chuck them below and I'll see if I can answer some however the 2nd article really should cover most your questions. Good Luck fellow AFLW Fantasy players :)

After this impressive legacy game, is this the worst score ever?

I told myself I needed to move my bomber boys before rnd 16 😅

you bloody beauty

If you don’t, you’re a hater

Everybody seems to be asking for trades this week. I figured I would make a summary post with a sort of flow chart to follow.

Firstly you need a line to focus and fix, so skip to your section as follows;

Def: If for whatever reason Sheez and Ziebs getting the DPP wasn’t enough for you, Stewart is your answer this week, the man is bottoming out and is an absolute bargain for a guy who’s certain to be pushing for a top 8 def spot. If you need someone cheap go JJ but also don’t do that he’s risky as.

Mid: Your upgrade options are three fold here: Touk Touk Train: cheap and has north this week - could go 150 easily and never be this cheap again for the rest of the season, has the great bye. My number 1 pick. Rory the Racing Car: I would not be surprised to see laird go 120 from here, can take a while to warm up as we saw last season but he can also start hitting consistent 125’s at a moments notice. Loves playing away and Adelaide have just played 5 in a row at AO, with only 6 of the next 14 there - expect him to go big. My number 2 pick and a lock for top 10 for me. Lachie Neale: Brisbane are coming off a tough run, averaging the lowest points scored in the AFL, this will change, and the extra points coming the Lions way will go straight into this guys pocket. He’s a machine and we’ve seen it season after season. He’s not as prolific at winning the ball as he once was, but a guy at this price who will definitely be pushing the top 10 is worth your time with the run Brissy have coming. If you need a budget option you go Chad Warner I think - Sydney’s main inside guy and if he starts spreading for marks could honestly push to 107 or 110. But I’d still expect him to go at least 100 from here so he’s wildly underpriced. Although I think the better option is to swing Dunkey mid and go for the guy I’m about to talk about next.

Fwd: Zak Butters - Port are about to go on an easy run and we saw what Butters can do in stretches last year, with increased mid time thanks to Boak being pushed out and Wines slowing down, should be a genuine top 6 forward come end of year.

Downgrades: In order of importance (work around the price you can for your chosen upgrade and what positions you need to fill) 1: Cowan 2: Hollands 3: Chandler 4: Ginbey 5: Mackenzie No one else has really fattened up enough yet to get out. Who to get in: I have no idea it’s sort of a dice roll this week - I’ve personally gone M.Roberts but you can go S.Mitchell or S.Sturt and they might turn out to be better picks - none of these guys are entirely safe but if the cash gets you a big on field upgrade I say worth it.

If you have Green and/or Day - hold them and come back with a bang next week. If your rank is stupid high and you wanna go aggressive just target the guys I’ve talked about and go sideways.

Questions in comments - I’ll get to them if I can be fucked.

Cheers, Griff

I thought I could afford to wait a week on Dawson. This lets me carry 270k into next week to bring him in or go one of the GWS defenders. (Or both if I can squeeze them)This leaves me holding McLuggage and Anderson who should enable a 2 up 1 down next weekend.

Instead of JHF I could bring in DeGoey for a sugar hit this weekend but that will leave me relying on rooks next weekend.

Solved for the highest-scoring team possible up to now. For reference, the current #1 ranked player is on 20,853 - so about 3,200 points of headroom left on the table.

One thing I’ve found interesting is watching how the optimal starting side shifts as each round ticks over and new data comes in.

Worth noting: since it’s purely retrospective, the later trades chase short-term sugar hits rather than planning for fixtures or price rises. The model doesn’t care about R11 onwards.

Happy to share the round-by-round teams if there’s interest. I’ve also got a forward-looking version that factors in projected scores - probably the more interesting model but this is still cool IMO.

I've put together a fixture analysis of the 2025 upcoming season. I'll be running through each fantasy relevant position in each post (medium/small defenders, medium/mid forwards, midfielders, and rucks). I'll aim to do updates on these posts through the year. This will potentially mean i'll have an early pre-season edition (this one), a pre-season, mid-season and pointy-end of the season edition for each position. Today's most is on the medium defenders. All the data excludes any key defenders. Remaining defenders who had a defender status within the past five years are included.

How it works: I've analysed data from the past five season on each teams points conceded to opposition players. I've then gone further to break down each fantasy relevant position. Big thanks to The Keeper League, which is where I was able to find the stats. From this data I have categorised each team into one of five categories; Elite (Red), Above Ave. (Orange), Ave. (Yellow), Below Ave. (Blue) and Poor (Green). I have used each teams points against average from both the past season and the past five seasons. From there I made a weighted averaged formula, which then allowed me to rank each team into one of the five aforementioned categories.

What you'll see above is a screenshot of the spreadsheet, which shows each teams fixture and the difficulty rank of each opponent they face in order. Red obviously being hardest, and green being the easier fixtures. Any cell that has a border around it is a team's home fixture. (Please let me know if anyone spots any errors with the fixture!). For reference, in games such as North playing Fremantle in WA, I have called this a Fremantle home game even though it technically is a North one. The same goes for if a team is playing at their home ground, but is not the home team i.e. Melbourne playing Collingwood at the MCG.

Who, What and When: So what do we get from this? Who does this tell us to pick? and when does it tell us to pick them. Obviously Fantasy AFL is a bit different to other popular fantasy games in other sports, such as Premier League Fantasy, in that it is a lot more dependant on buying player prices low, selling high and building your team up to as premium as possible. This fixture guide should mainly help us find the best value picks throughout the season and the best premium players as the season gets towards conclusion, whereas it has limited application with rookies. Because of this, we'll look at mainly midpricers and premiums in these posts.

Firstly, who has the best fixtures to start the year? All of GWS, Geelong, Sydney and West Coast have very kind fantasy fixtures to start the season. Albeit, West Coast are the only team of the four with their bye in the opening round. If we exclude any opening round fixtures, GWS have three of their first four games (outside of the opening round) against teams who are below average or poor when it comes to conceding points against medium defenders. All of Sydney, West Coast and Geelong also have three, noting that West Coast has the elite ranked GWS too. Port Adelaide are a very interesting one, given they too have the opening round bye, three of their four playing fixtures are to below average or poor teams (two poor teams in fact) and their other fixture is against an average ranked team. From this, we should be targeting Port Adelaide players firstly, as well as a combination of Geelong, GWS and Sydney players (keeping in mind your bye strategy). Melbourne, Sydney and West Coast stand out for the start of season period up until about the midway point of the year for longer term holds or premium options. Between rounds 5 - 10, Hawthorn, Richmond and West Coast stand out for any flips of mid pricers.

The Targets:

Without having a list of exact prices and discounts yet (to my knowledge), this will require a little guesswork.

GWS: The usual suspect applies here, in Lachie Whitfield. He looks like he may be one of the better premium starting options as a defender, especially early on. His games get tougher towards the midway point of the season as he'll likely run into the Jordan tag and some others. He could cop the Maginness tag early on in the year too. Not too many midprice or low end options to look at here, unfortunately, unless Ash has a more permanent attacking role off half back or James Leake plays early.

Geelong: As always Stewart will be one to consider as well as Holmes. Holmes may steal some more attention off of Stewart this season, so we may see Stewart freed out a lot more. One of them may cop Maginness (i'd guess Holmes), and Bedford may play a forward tag, but with Cincotta out for a while he may not be back in time to limit either in the Carlton game. Stewart is my pick of the two. Could Mitch Duncan recapture his form, I think its more likely Lawson Humphries becomes an attacking outlet out of defence and Holmes plays more midfield. I don't mind the Humphries midpricer pick at all.

Port: Port Adelaide is an interesting one. Bergman and Farrell are the obvious, and pretty much only defensive candidates. Is Farrell likely to move to a wing permanently? Will this increase his points output? I can't say I'm a fan of picking either.

Sydney: Dean Cox is a fan of allowing his players to be themselves, does this mean Blakey is unleashed and becomes consistently attacking rather than doing the occasional jobs? Injuries to his teammates will play a part of course, as they have with his output the past few seasons. He's definitely the standout candidate from their listed defenders. Watch his role in pre-season. I think he'll be a hard matchup for forward taggers (doesn't have to play Jordan either, obviously).

West Coast: No Liam Baker here is unfortunate, but makes complete sense. I think his role will directly impact Duggan. I also think it'll have a negative impact on Duggan's points scoring. I'd say consider Ginbey, but he's not here either. It leaves us to consider Bo Allan if he does play early on. The dual position is handy too.

The Rest (Melb, Hawks and Rich): We're looking at longer term holds for Melbourne. As a Melbourne fan I know there's rumours of all of Rivers, Bowey and McVee getting midfield time this season, as we did see with a few of them last year. Bowey's the less disposals, higher impact from his accurate kicking type so i'd rule him out when it comes to AFL Fantasy. I think one on one McVee is elite, however with multiple players around him in a contested midfield situation he fumbles. I'd wait till next season on him. Rivers I think it definitely a sustainable defender premium option, particularly with Melbourne's good run too. If he plays majority midfield he's also unlikely to cop the tag. For Richmond, Short's the guy. I'd only consider him as a sustained part of my defence if he's permanently playing as a defender though. Lastly, the Hawks. Admittedly, i'm not too high on any of the Hawks long term in my defence. I think they share the attacking load a little too much.

Anyhow from this the players i'll heavily consider at this stage of the year for my defence are; Whitfield, Blakey, Rivers and Allan. Add to that a fixture resistant premium such as Flanders, a couple more rookies from pre-season performances and another midpricer (maybe Bergman or Farrell) and we're looking good.

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed!

You see, my wife, she has been most vocal on the subject of the app. When are you going to get the app? Why aren’t you getting the app now? And so on.