Mid-Season All-Australian

A combination of running out of ideas and inspired by Browny’s All-Australian Team on The Couch on Monday Night we thought this week we’d take a look at who are the current top point scorers in the TBP Model by position for season 2016 (minimum 10 games to qualify and then all based on averages).

So without further ado, here is the current TipBetPro All-Australian Team.

Backs – Our model favours creative, “attacking” defenders and so it is no surprise that Alex Rance and Josh Gibson stand out as the best in that department when it comes to KPDs. GWS duo Zac Williams and Heath Shaw are joined by the Dogs Matthew Boyd and Carlton’s Sam Docherty as our best small/medium defenders whilst much improved Jasper Pittard earns himself a spot on our bench. If are theoretical opponent has a tall forward line, we might consider West Coast’s Jeremy McGovern but with so many good small/mediums we have left McGovern out of our team. Meanwhile veteran Corey Enright was extremely unlucky to miss out on a spot with Pittard only just edging him from a spot on our bench.

Midfield – Soooo many good midfielders! Paddy Dangerfield and (perhaps surprisingly to some) Scott Pendlebury are TipBetPro’s number 1 and 2 ranked player both overall and in season 2016 and thus get the two rover spots. That duo are followed by Josh Kennedy (of the Sydney variety), Jack Steven (who we perhaps have misplaced on the wing) and Gary Ablett whilst Dan Hannebery is a clear stand out as the number 1 genuine winger in the competition. So many players unlucky to get a birth as midfielders unsurprisingly dominate our model rankings. Rory Sloane, Dustin Martin and Marcus Bontempelli stand out as the most unlucky players not to make our team so we have got them on our emergency list instead (and Joel Selwood can consider himself unlucky to not even be an emergency!)

Ruck – We have two rucks. Why? Well Nic Naitanui is 4th and Max Gawn is 6th in the TipBetPro player rankings this season and we’re not prepared to leave one of them out. If we could justify getting a 3rd in (Todd Goldstein is 12th) then we would (with Naitanui’s injury I suspect next time we do this we will have Goldy in the team).

Forwards – It has been a great year for tall forwards and so we’ve “gone tall” with Josh Kennedy (this time of the West Coast variety), Buddy Franklin, Josh Jenkins all making our starting 18 and Gold Coast’s Tom Lynch on the bench. The small/mid forward line was trickier and we’ve had to make some tough decisions here. Some may say that Dayne Zorko and Robbie Gray aren’t true forwards but with both players averaging at least a goal a game, we have justified sneaking them in (Dustin Martin misses out on one of these spots with only 6 goals from 12 games this season). They are joined by stand-out small forward Cyril Rioli to leave a host of players in the unlucky basket including Toby Greene, Brent Harvey and Eddie Betts.

So what do you think? What have we got right and who is wrong? Can a system that has two Suns, only one Cat and no Roos really be right? As always love to hear your thoughts.