Late Week Pickups – Round 17
Each week I’ll be looking at players who are sitting in the free agency pool that can be used in your matchup that can give you a little extra scoring power. When using these players, I use Ultimate Footy’s ownership of 75% or less to give everyone a go for those that play in bigger leagues.
Nic Newman: Still at a lowly owned 56%, Newman is the obvious replacement for Jarrad McVeigh who broke his collar bone last week.
Up against the Kangaroos this week and Jacobs likely to tag Parker and Heeney coming back from a concussion injury, Newman could see more time playing in the middle. We have seen from his time he is a ball winner and given the opportunity will score well. Having said that Newman has played the Kangaroos once where managed to score a lazy 151 in Supercoach and 135 in AFL fantasy. Whilst I wouldn’t be putting the C on him, he is definitely worth picking up.
Darcy Parish: While he hasn’t had the breakout, many predicted he would mainly due to injury, Parish has scored well in the 8 games he has played and was building nicely until injury put a hold to that.
In 71% of teams, I’m expecting Parish to come in and play the Jake Stringer role of mid/forward. In his game in the VFL last week Parish collected 31 possessions, 5 marks and 2 tackles. Up against the easy beats in Gold Coast and an easy win for the Bombers, I’d be expecting 80+ from Parish.
Tom Hickey: The ruck merry go round continues down at St Kilda. Tom Hickey is back in the team this week and if you need a ruckman like me after Big Boy had his face caved in then you couldn’t be worse off with Hickey.
In 75% of teams, Hickey has a decent record against the Blues, scoring 91 and 139 in Supercoach in his last 2 games and 97 and 106 in AFL Fantasy. It may be a one-week proposition as we have no idea what Alan Richardson is doing and neither does he to be frank. Hickey is averaging 14 possessions 3 marks and 25 hit-outs a game this year.
Ben Jacobs: The tagger seems to be back in vogue this year. Not only are they shutting down their opposition, but they are winning their own ball as well. Whilst I’m not a fan of the tagger personally, Jacobs has had a pretty good year knocking out 3 tonnes in all formats this year.
Up against the Swans and in just 64% of teams, this game is likely to be slow and congested which is perfect for Jacobs, you can expect plenty of tackles from him in this game.