Career High SuperCoach Score: 134 Vs Carlton (2016)
Career High AFLFantasy Score: 127 Vs Western Bulldogs (2017)
Career High SuperCoach Average: 86 (2017)
Career High AFLFantasy Average: 84.7 (2017)
Impact on New Club
Seven, Four, Four and twenty-two. No, this isn’t the upcoming Powerball numbers, but rather the total of games played for Joe Daniher over the previous four seasons. Joe’s impact on the club will clearly be linked to the ability of him to get out on the field.
Thankfully, the club’s recent history with Lincoln McCarthy and Grant Birchall should give Lions fans (and Joe) hope they can get him cherry ripe. Should this take place the Lions have just netted themselves one of the most damaging key position forwards in the game with only Jeremy Cameron, Tom Hawkins and Tom Lynch the only clearly well ahead of him.
Joe’s a damaging field kick, a strong overheard mark and can more than hold his own in a physical one on one contests. His introduction into the Lions forward line is massive as it allows Eric Hipwood to no longer get manned up by oppositions best key defender.
Equally, the always aerially damaging Dan McStay get the third-best tall. These flow-on effects (along with the impact of Joe himself) will make what an already potent forward line (especially when you include Charlie Cameron and Dayne Zorko) even scarier for opposition sides was.
Impact on Old Club
It’s a dichotomy as it’s both a major problem and a minimal impact. The reason for the latter is that Daniher has only played 15 games over the past three seasons. For Essendon, they’ve had more time playing without him than with during that time.
As a result, the club has had to adjust with no Joe. Positively, they’ve learnt to deal without him. Negatively, there isn’t anything on the list currently that fills me with confidence in the tall forward stocks.
Essendon has already let some reasonable covering options depart in the past with the serviceable Mitch Brown and Shaun McKernan being delisted from the club.
Alot of responsibility might land on the shoulder of hot and cold medium forward Jake Stringer, third-string tall James Stewart and young key tall Harrison Jones. T
he Bombers best bet might be finding a way to move up the draft and give themselves a chance at one of Logan McDonald or Riley Tilthorpe. The big issue with that being all of Sydney, Adelaide, Hawthorn & North Melbourne all have a pick ahead of them, and equally, all could use one of the best key talls in the draft.
I know this is coming across negatively on the Dons, but sadly I don’t see the key stocks on the draft board available, nor do they appear to be in the mix to trade any in to fix the lack of key position posts upfront. It could be a painful few more years Bombers fans.
Fantasy Summary
Everything with his fantasy relevance Daniher hangs on his ability to be fit and healthy. As we’ve discussed, the Lions have a strong recent record of helping players overcome ongoing injury concerns.
From a SuperCoach and AFLFantasy perspective, one only needs to look at his 2017 season to see his potential. In AFLFantasy he averaged just shy of 85, it featured eleven scores 90+ including seven tons. And for SuperCoach he had nine scores 90+ including six tons.
Given he only played four matches this season, he’ll receive a discount on top of his lowly 48 average of 48, which is about 35 points below his peak season of 2017.
He’ll present plenty of value in all formats of the game, and as a late-round draft pick he could easily pop into a top 25 ranked forward.
Brisbane have indicated that he’ll play a split forward and ruck role. Meaning, he’ll get a nice little scoring boost with the occasional hitout and clearance opportunity. The other factor, is we expect several last seasons big forwards to disappear.
It means we might need to look at these stepping stone forwards more closely in salary cap formats of the game. It’s something to ponder for now anyway.