Round 18 of the AFL Premiership Season for 2022 returns to the traditional Friday night start as the Western Bulldogs and St Kilda will fight for their finals lives in a critical match at Marvel Stadium. St Kilda are one win ahead of the Bulldogs in 9th place and a loss for either team will make it difficult to make the finals with just 6 rounds to go.

Draftstars have delivered with a monster $75K main and various qualifiers to the $500k AFL Live Final Qualifier contests. Check out our article here with all the info regarding the AFL Live Event.

  • AFL $75,000+ Bulldogs vs Saints at Draftstars
  • AFL $10,000+ Bulldogs vs Saints High Roller ($150 Entry) at Draftstars
  • AFL $5,000+ Bulldogs vs Saints Fiver at Draftstars 
  • AFL $5,000+ Bulldogs vs Saints Mini ($2 Entry) at Draftstars
  • AFL $3,000+ Friday Buck Hunter ($1 Entry) at Draftstars
  • $50 AFL $500k Qualifier at Draftstars
  • $20 AFL $500k Qualifier at Draftstars
  • $5 AFL $500k Qualifier at Draftstars


In addition to previews for each and every slate this season, Daily Fantasy Rankings will continue with our AFL Resources page. This section provides you all the data you need to build your best line-ups. It includes daily cheat sheets for Draftstars, Player Correlation tables, Player Out tables, Scores Against tables, Tagging information, statistical breakdowns and much more!


CLICK HERE TO ACCESS OUR CHEAT SHEET FOR TONIGHT
 


Smatho and Roody have put together an episode of the Draftstars AFL Show as they breakdown the Friday Draftstars Contest!

 

 


Betting Odds

Odds: Western Bulldogs $1.62 vs St Kilda $2.30
Line: Western Bulldogs -6.5
Total Points: 170.5

Bet now at Ladbrokes!


Weather

We can get straight to football breakdown on this slate as with the game being played at Marvel Stadium the weather will pose no issue at all!! Let’s play fantasy.
 

Where to Attack?

Let's take a closer look at our AFL Data Tools to find any trends that might help us construct winning lineups on Draftstars for this match.


This will be a very interesting field battle as you can see both St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs have been comfortable giving up space to opposition’s defenders this year while cutting off the centre of the ground. This has resulted in both the Bulldogs and Saints giving up over an average of over 4 points per player to opposition defenders according to our points against data tools.

In my opinion it will come down to who wins the midfield battle, where both sides have been solid all season. I will be structuring my line-ups with midfield stacks from one team and defenders from the other, and this matchup I like the Western Bulldogs midfield and Saints defenders.
 


The Bulldogs have been leaking points to forwards this season and this has spiked somewhat over the last five rounds as you can see from our data tools above. In particular, they have given up high scores to the top three scorers from the positions, which means even though the Bulldogs are favourites it is not unlikely that a Saint forward will be one of the higher scoring players on the slate.
 


The Western Bulldogs, behind Tim English, continue to give up one of the highest amount of points in the league to rucks. This season they have conceded 87 points per game to the opponents number one ruckman, which is the fourth highest mark in the league. The challenge is that St Kilda split the ruck time between two players, which always makes thing difficult from a fantasy scoring perspective.


Game Script –  St Kilda backs, Western Bulldogs midfielders


VALUE PLAYS

Rhylee West ($8,490) finding the value plays on this single game slate will be difficult, as both sides a relatively set through the midfield. I do like the form Rhylee West has been in in recent weeks, posting a 74 and a 112 in his last four games to go with 65 and 54 point outings. At this price in a single game, none of those scores will kill you, while his upside is clearly GPP winning potential. My favourite aspect is that he doesn’t rely solely on possessions to get his fantasy scores with 5+ tackles in each of his last three games, which gives him a solid base for a big score if he can hit the scoreboard.

Max King ($7,860) as I noted above, our data tools indicate that forwards can get on top of the Western Bulldogs and I love the potential for Max King to put up a score against a relatively short Bulldogs backline. King’s price point is very low, which means even a 75 point outing like he had two weeks ago against the Blues is enough to return almost 10x on his salary.


MID-PRICE PLAYS

Paddy Ryder ($9,800) might be an unusual option here, however I think there are better positions to spend up on in this matchup than the ruck. English is the third highest priced player on the slate and is drawing one of the toughest matchups in the league for a ruck against Ryder and Marshall, while Marshall is just expensive enough that he worries me at his price with Ryder playing.

As you can see by our ruck analysis tool, Ryder is taking the majority of the ruck contests when he is playing, and he has shown 100+ point upside for a price point of just under $10k.
 


PREMIUM PLAYS

Jack Sinclair ($15,670) has been phenomenal this year, and just consistently tops the 100 point mark. From his last 8 games he has only gone under 100 points on one occasion and that was when he was tagged by Sydney. His upside is in the 130 to 140 range and as noted above, this is an elite matchup for backs. I will be linking him up with other lower priced St Kilda backs in my line-up construction and take advantage of the position correlation.

Bailey Smith ($15,930) returns from his suspension this week and has a lot to prove. I am expecting him to immediately show up with a huge game after what has been a controversial and difficult time for him over the past month. Also I absolutely love this matchup for Smith, he will spend plenty of time playing on the outside and this is a role that St Kilda have been killed by all season, conceding 226 uncontested possessions per game, which is fourth highest in the league.


Suggested Draftstars Team

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