daily fantasy sports articles

The 2019 AFL season is just around the corner and we will get you prepared for the year ahead in style with DFS previews on all 18 AFL teams!

Collingwood is the next team on our list to preview and will be sure to be popular with fantasy enthusiasts given the wealth of guns at their disposal. After a surprise run to the Grand Final last season the Pies will be looking to go one better in 2019.

COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES

LIST CHANGES

The biggest acquisition during the off season was the return of Dayne Beams after four seasons in Brisbane. Beams has averaged over 100 fantasy points in 7 of the last 8 years with the only season he didnt being 2016 where he managed just 2 games. The biggest impact of this acquisition from a fantasy perspective is whose scoring will suffer as a result of Beams returning. Monitor their roles early in the season as Taylor Adams, Adam Treloar, Steele Sidebottom, Tom Phillips and Scott Pendlebury will all now have to share possessions and midfield time with Beams.

FINDING VALUE

Finding early season value plays may be difficult from Collingwood with their midfield already overflowing with premium top priced players. An area to look at will be players who have had lengthy injury battles but now look to fit for the 2019 season.

Jamie Elliot looks set to return for round 1 after not playing a game in 2018. In the last three seasons he played in he averaged over 75 fantasy points in each, and in the Magpies first JLT game he returned 66 points from just 64% game time. Monitor his round 1 price.

James Aish is another player who looks to be fit and ready for the 2019 season. In 2018 he appeared to be finding his feet in the Collingwood side averaging 79 fantasy points through five rounds before injury struck in round 6. After returning in round 21 he averaged just 66 points to close out the year indicating he could be underpriced to start the year. Aish had 23 touches and 86 fantasy points in Collingwood’s first JLT match playing an outside role.

TAGGING

Levi Greenwood is the resident tagger for Collingwood and he was used 4 times during the regular season and again in the Grand Final. Greenwood was extremely effective in this role holding opponents to 15 points less than their season average.

On the Magpies side Steele Sidebottom has become the clubhouse leader for drawing a tag after he showed signs of susceptibility to it during his massive 2018 campaign. He was tagged 7 times during the year and averaged just 85.8 fantasy points during those games, which was over 17 points less than his season average.

POINTS AGAINST

Collingwood were one of the hardest teams to score against in 2018 conceding the 6th least fantasy points on the year. They really stifled teams through the midfield giving up the 4th least points per game to midfielders at a measly 83 points per player per game.

If you are looking for an area to target the Magpies it is via the backline. Collingwood gave up the second most points to backs in the league in 2018 and this included a top 3 defender average of 88 fantasy points per player per game.

CORRELATIONS

In AFL players scores are highly correlated to each other, which can be crucial to building winning sides in the daily fantasy format. We can look how each player's scores correlate with their teammates to identify which players you should/shouldn't look to play together in the same lineups.

The below table highlights all the player correlations from 2018. A score of 1 means two players have a perfect POSITIVE correlation, meaning players will score HIGH and LOW together. A score of zero suggests no correlation between the two players. A score of -1 suggests a perfect NEGATIVE correlation, meaning when one player scores HIGH, the other scores LOW, and vice versa. Generally a correlation begins to be significant above 0.3 (or inversely below -0.3), at which point they should be considered in lineup building.

We remove injury affected scores to avoid skewing of the data, and a minimum of 6 games played is required for a correlation to be displayed. 

Brodie Grundy and Taylor Adams developed a strong correlation during 2018 with their work complementing each other at the stoppages and through the midfield. If you are looking to stack these Magpies in your rosters however, beware of including Adams and Steele Sidebottom in the same side as these two gun midfielders were negatively correlated in 2018 - look at using Adam Treloar instead.

The Daily Fantasy Rankings "Dragon" has scoured the Australian sports betting markets and found some great value picks for these games. Check out his picks for the day below and click on the links to follow his betting plays!

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