THE PLAYERS must have known it was the first round of finals because it’s fair to say they stepped up! An impressive nine players managed to score over 140, but what was even more impressive was an unprecedented five of them went over the magical 150 mark.

Fantasy Pig

Seb Ross is often a forgotten man in Classic, but he is certainly a Draft hero and never more so than this week. The star Saint was on fire against the Dogs despite the lopsided affair with an impressive 40 touches and nine tackles, but it was his ability to hit the scoreboard that made all the difference with three goals helping him to a round-high 160.

Honourable mention: Clayton Oliver has been in and out of the rolling top-eight midfielders all year and it will be hard to see him leave after a phenomenal game against the Suns. He was doing a bit of everything on his way to 154 from 31 possessions, 11 marks, seven tackles and two goals. He should certainly be high on radars for the remainder of the finals series despite not having the gift of playing the Suns again.

FROM THE TWOS Who put their hand up in the second tier?

Rage trades

Gary Ablett was a popular trade in this week on the back of some outstanding form but unfortunately let his coaches down against the Tigers with a sub-par 76, a shadow of what he has produced recently. He was able to find a bit of the ball with 24 touches, but his mark, tackle and goal count was where he lost out, recording an uncharacteristic one, four and zero respectively.

Honourable mention: Rory Laird apparently didn’t get the memo regarding finals, churning out a disappointing 67 in the Showdown. Tagged by Darcy Byrne-Jones, Laird was almost unrecognisable, collecting just 18 possessions. His trademark marking game was missed from a scoring perspective, managing just three to go with three tackles. No doubt the little champ will bounce back next week.

THINGS WE LEARNED First-year Cat is already elite

Piglet

Ryan Abbott made an awesome, long-awaited debut for the Cats with an impressive 93. The mature-ager has been in outstanding VFL form and transitioned beautifully with 27 hit-outs, 10 possessions and a whopping seven tackles. He went at 80% with the ball and it will be interesting to see how long he hangs around with the pending return of Rhys Stanley.

THE RUN HOME How the contenders are shaping up

Trade targets
  • Ryan Abbott
  • Alex Johnson
  • Josh Dunkley
  • Brodie Grundy
  • Taylor Adams
Fantasy mailbag

Cry me a river Justin ‘Vanilla’ Timberlake.

Gaff made this a little easier… but I would go Macrae.

Typical and predictable play by the Fantasy Gods … they can never leave a coach completely satisfied - sicko’s.

Have mercy.

Fair chance if you tied in one, you would tie in the other haha … but wow, that is brutal! Hurn has such a good recent history in the Derby as well! Horror story.

For more, follow myself @RoyDT

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