AFL Fantasy finals time is here!

Hopefully you have secured yourself a spot in the all important top eight and are battling it out for a premiership. If not, don’t despair, show that you are the best of the rest and win the bottom half finals. However, just because it is finals time don’t go thinking that things will be all rosy, as usual we have some issues to deal with this week.

First and foremost you want to be setting up your team for a victory this week. This is particularly important if you are in a knockout final, but if you are in a qualifying final you want to win to get that all important week off! Then you don’t have to worry about next week and can build your team for the Preliminary Final.

This week you may be faced with a couple of premium dilemmas. Firstly we know that Nic Naitanui will be missing from our teams again this week for personal reasons. So if you have him, you need to trade him out this week. Thankfully he has been on a good run lately and his price is up there with some of the top ruckmen.

The obvious trade that most in this situation will be making is to Sam Jacobs. He is priced at $16k lower than Naitanui at the moment.  Other cheaper options you may consider would be Max Gawn who you could use both up forward and in the ruck depending on how your team is set up or your could pick up Sandilands who is $2k cheaper.  If you have some cash in the bank (about $100k to be exact) I would be upgrading to Stefan Martin. He is averaging just under 110 and is second only to Todd Goldstein who you could also trade to, but will cost you an extra $180k.

Your other problem may be that of Adam Treloar. Now he is out for at least this week and his value of $555k means that you can select most other midfielders if you have about $50k in the bank. Your key targets here would be guys like Swan, Pendlebury or Dangerfield.  However, these guys are in a lot of teams. The more unique options that you could consider would be Hannebery (in 11k teams), Montagna (in 4k teams) or Gaff (in 3.5k teams), these guys are averaging 110, 112 and 107 respectively.

One thing that you may want to do when you are trading is look at your opponent’s team and look for any unique that might hurt you. What you can do then is potentially trade that person in so that you eliminate the problem, or you could go a little riskier and actually try and bring in a premium unique who you think will outscore them and then this may just give you the edge in your matchup.

Whichever way you go, the key at this stage of the year is trying to maximize your team’s performance. Some people this week have been talking about strengthening their bench. For me that would be only to be considered if the rest of your team is absolutely perfect.

Good luck for this week everyone and hopefully you are all in the top four and heading for a preliminary final! Don’t forget to stay close to social media Friday so that you can catch any late news, you don’t want to get caught out with a donut in a final if you can avoid it. See you all next week.