THE clock is ticking to improve our teams!

With most teams now fully rookie free, round nine ought to have been one of the highest scoring rounds of the season. For a lot of teams, that proved to be the case, with the score needed to stay inside the ranks of the top 100 coaches sitting at a whopping 1561, up from 1440 in round eight. That was driven by some remarkably consistent high scoring among the most highly owned $1 million players among the top 1000 coaches who: averaged 111.3 points for the round and had a single score below 100.

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That single sub-100 score from a premium player was Tilly Lucas-Rodd’s 62, which leads us on to the second theme of the week: underperforming defenders. Throughout the season, there has been a back-and-forth battle between the defenders and forwards to take the mantle as third highest scoring position (midfielders first and rucks second). Up until R9, it had been the defenders with the ascendency, however, that wasn’t the case for the round, with a highest score of only 90 (from lowly owned Kangaroos Eliza Shannon and Erika O’Shea), and well below expectation efforts from premiums, such as the aforementioned Lucas-Rodd, Maeve Chaplin’s 58, and Cambridge McCormick’s 39. Finding ways to shift cash around in defence to find the defenders on the rise will be a key strategy for coaches racing to the finish.

Finally, our hearts go out to Piper Window, Maddison Gay, and Chloe Molloy and any owners of these popular trade targets in the past fortnight, with coaches looking at forced trades for round 10 owing to some untimely injuries. For those in need of a silver lining, Gay in particular has managed to hold her value above $1mil, so a downgrade from her could be the source of cash to facilitate some handy upgrades elsewhere!

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Top five price rises

1. Eliza Shannon (DEF, $631,000): +$155,000
2. Sarah Rowe (MID, $678,000): +$152,000
3. Tyla Hanks (MID, $1,056,000): +$132,000
4. Mon Conti (MID, $1,322,000): +$129,000
5. Erika O’Shea (DEF, $848,000): +$128,000

Top five price falls

1. Alison Drennan (MID, $576,000): -$183,000
2. Dayna Finn (MID, $1,082,000): -$139,000
3. Anne Hatchard (MID, $900,000): -$131,000
4. Georgia Clayden (DEF, $558,000): -$117,000
5. Mia King (MID, $1,007,000): -$114,000

Top targets

Niamh McLaughlin (DEF, $736,000, avg 73.1)
How fast the tide changes… After Fantasy coaches jumped off in droves following a forward role and calf concern that left McLaughlin scoring 24 in round eight, McLaughlin looked back to her best in round nine. The rebounding defender was impressive off half-back, going at 95 per cent disposal efficiency for her 21 disposals and even pushing through the midfield again in the last quarter. Hopefully the experimentation is over, and McLaughlin can maintain some level of consistency over the last three rounds of the season. At her best, she is one of the top three defenders available to us, which is a bargain at just $736k.

Mon Conti (MID, $1,322,000, avg 106.9)
The top five Fantasy mids are absolutely flying, making it tough to differentiate our midfields. But for those needing the extra push to climb into the top 100, Conti is one of the few midfielders not only able to keep up, but with the ceiling to boot. Now past the difficult North Melbourne match-up, Richmond has a great run for midfielders in its last three games against Collingwood, Fremantle and Gold Coast. Conti’s score of 156 a couple weeks ago places her comfortably among the game’s best scorers, and with just four coaches in the top 100 on board, Conti is an expensive yet unique option to end the season.

Alice Edmonds (RUC, $979,000, avg 80.3)
If you’re struggling for cash, a ruck downgrade is a unique way to differentiate your team and free up some cash. Edmonds is a highly reliable scorer, and with fantastic match-ups against Geelong and St Kilda to come – both fielding less experienced rucks – Edmonds will be primed to cash in on the Fantasy points. A downgrade from Lucy Wales would net over $300k, which opens up plenty of options when trading injured players like Window and Molloy who have dropped a bit of cash recently.

Imogen Barnett (FWD, $849,000, avg 74.7)
Outside of a solitary score of 35 in round seven, Barnett has been one of the most reliable scorers in 2025. The Collingwood ruck has scored between 67 and 81 in seven of the remaining eight games of the season, plus a pop score of 103 against the usually difficult Hawks. Thanks to that one low score, Barnett is notably cheaper than she should be and a handy pickup for coaches that have been struggling with consistency at F5 thanks to late outs and poor scores from key forwards.

Sell

Piper Window (DEF, $786,000, avg 71.8), Maddison Gay (DEF, $1,012,000, avg 80.5), and Chloe Molloy (FWD, $768,000, avg 76.7)
We are going to call these trade outs the Hospital Wing. Window was concussed by a hit to the cheek from Cathy Svarc and also needed surgery on that cheek, so misses round 10 at a minimum. Gay has had a flare up of her ACL strain and signs point towards her being shut down for the season now that Essendon’s hopes of making the finals are shot. Molloy is managing back soreness and Sydney has already announced that she will be sitting out this weekend’s game against Melbourne. Window and Gay should be considered must trades, with Molloy’s one-week return timetable meaning that you will be able to look at any bench options for coverage before trading her out.

Cambridge McCormick (DEF, $729,000, avg 69.4)
In the last two weeks, McCormick has done an exceptional job at blanketing two of the AFLW’s best mobile tall forwards in Jesse Wardlaw and Aisling Moloney. As much as that benefits GWS, the role of lockdown key defender has severely hampered McCormick’s chances of scoring. Emily Pease is the Giants’ sole kick-in taker, and the new hyper-defence role for McCormick is taking her away from the intercept mark and handball receive areas of the defensive half.

Kate Hore (MID, $1,087,000, avg 92.6)
Between rounds four and seven, Hore averaged 106 Fantasy points with a high of 138. In the two rounds since then against Essendon and Fremantle, both soft midfield match-ups, Hore has only averaged 84.5, which is well below par given that most owners have had the Melbourne captain at M5 in the hopes she can it match it with the much more expensive top five uber-premium midfielders. With Sydney, Brisbane, and Geelong to finish the year, all considered difficult scoring opponents, and with Hore’s time inside forward 50 increasing in the last fortnight, the time is now to jump across to a midfielder with a better run upcoming. 

Sarah Goodwin (DEF, $923,000, avg 67.3)
For any coaches who have avoided the Hospital Wing trio, Goodwin presents as an interesting way to generate cash this week. Since this midfield role started back in round five, Goodwin has scored in the 70s three times, a 117 against the Suns, and then her lowest score of the run this past round with a 64 against West Coast. North Melbourne looms large, and given the Crows need to match the superstar firepower of the Roos in the centre bounce rotation, there is an increased chance that Goodwin sees a less prominent clearance / hitout target role in the midfield, possibly pushed to a more purely defensive spot, or out onto the wing to allow for Anne Hatchard and Chelsea Randall (injury permitting) to enter the midfield rotation again. Given the gap between her and some of the solid $700k-$800k defensive targets, now could be the ideal time to jump off.

Top rookies

With just three rounds remaining, the role of our benches is changing a little. The chances that they make enough cash to affect an upgrade is incredibly low, so we are only looking to maximise the money we can make in the downgrade and provide back-up scoring in case of a late out. A promising fixture means Emelia Yassir (FWD, $394k) could be a handy bench scorer, and the potential surprise return of Chloe Scheer (FWD, $426k) could be an option to look at as a Friday night loop this week. However, as most coaches are looking to put their cash on field coming into the end of the season, you may be better served by the following players around $300k:

1. Arianna Clarke (FWD, $300k)
2. Zoe Besanko (RUC, $300k)
3. Aisling Reidy (MID, $300k)
4. Zoe Wakfer (DEF, $300k)
5. Tara Harrington (MID, $300k)

Captains

Last week was one where the big five mids all performed, with the lowest score of the five (Ash Riddell 111) still being the equal 11th highest score for the round. Outside of Ebony Marinoff, who gets to face off against the suffocating midfield of North Melbourne (albeit down Mia KIng and rotational option Eilish Sheerin), the uber-premium mids all have solid-to-excellent match-ups this round. For round 10, it is hard to go past the spectacular form of Laura Gardiner, whose last three average of 139.3 Fantasy points sits 20 points per game higher than the rest of the competition, made even better by the possibility that coaches can use a VC loophole. The next four are very hard to split. Bowers against GWS could be a spectacularly high score given the Giants’ leaky defence, but they don’t always play high tackle games. Picking between Riddell, Marinoff, and Jasmine Garner is made difficult owing to the likelihood for specifically targeted gameplans aimed at stopping the operation of the midfield groups by both teams in a head-to-head battle of Grand Final aspirants. The allure of Bowers’ match-up and Riddell’s scoring after Mia King went down injured (69-point second half) push them up to the top. 

No.1: Laura Gardiner (v Melbourne)*
No.2: Kiara Bowers (v GWS)
No.3: Ash Riddell (v Adelaide)
No.4: Ebony Marinoff (v North Melbourne)
No.5: Jasmine Garner (v Adelaide)

* = VC option

Other options to consider: Eliza West (v Port Adelaide)*, Gabby Newton (v GWS), Aisling McCarthy (v GWS), Tyanna Smith (v Carlton), Mim Strom (v GWS), Zarlie Goldsworthy (v Fremantle), Georgie Prespakis (v West Coast)*, Matilda Scholz (v Hawthorn)*

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