Round 3 of the 2024 AFL Premiership Season is Easter Round and has been spread over five days. This means our Super Saturday slate this week is a more simple two game slate, but it still gives us plenty to dive into for daily fantasy. Things get underway with a crucial match between Essendon and St Kilda at Marvel Stadium. Both sides are sitting on 1 win and will be keen to get another win as they hope to contend for finals in 2024. Later Port Adelaide will host Melbourne at Adelaide Oval in an exciting matchup between two sides that would have premiership aspirations.
Draftstars continue to offer massive prize pools with the Saturday main contest being worth $60,000 along with their usual variety of alternate contests:
- AFL $60,000+ Saturday
- AFL $5,000+ Saturday High Roller ($150 Entry)
- AFL $2,000+ Saturday Fiver
- AFL $3,000+ Saturday Mini ($2 Entry)
The AFL Star contest is back for 2024 and Draftstars are offering the biggest prize pool in Australian DFS history with a $1 million guaranteed final with $250,000 top prize! There are qualifiers and satellites running for every AFL match, while there will also be a sprinkling of qualifiers across other sports such as NRL and NBA.
Meanwhile the 1000 AFL Target contests are set to return to Draftstars for the first time since 2018. Enter the contest and hit the 1000-point barrier with your team to scoop the jackpot!
Betting Markets
Odds provided with thanks to PlayUp
Essendon ($2.15) vs St Kilda ($1.68)
Points: 165.5
Line: St Kilda -6.5
Port Adelaide ($1.48) vs Melbourne ($2.59)
Points: 166.5
Line: Port Adelaide -12.5
If you’re looking to bet on the AFL this season, then you can bet with PlayUp by using the same account that you have at Draftstars. PlayUp are Australian owned and offer a strong range of AFL betting markets and offers, including Same Game Multis.
Additionally, we have a full Betting Previews for both games where we provide our best bet for the game as well as a great value Same Game Multi!
Weather
Marvel Stadium
No weather issues here as the roof can just be closed.
Adelaide Oval
31 degrees and sunny. Going to be an absolute corker of a day with no risk of rain. The heat will be the only concern but by night time will likely have cooled a bit.
Where to Attack?
Essendon have been getting destroyed by opposition forward lines, especially from a fantasy perspective. Over the last 10 games, dating back to last season they given up over 7 points above league average to general forwards and 8 points above league average to key forwards. With St Kilda going in a 6 point favourites this looks to be a great spot to stack up their forward line.
Melbourne on the other hand have a history of giving up points to defenders. Over their last 10 games they have given over 7 points per game above league average to general defenders.
Game Script – Port Adelaide backs, St Kilda forwards
VALUE PLAYS
Tim Membrey ($9,370) / Mitch Owens ($9,930)
As noted above the Bombers have been taken apart by opposition forward lines. Membrey has not had a bad start to the season but with no Max King this week he will likely fall back into the role as the number one target up forward for the Bombers making him attractive at under $10k.
Meanwhile Mitch Owens is an absolute young star up forward for the Saints. As we saw last week, and last year, he has over the 90-100 point range as a ceiling and given this elite matchup for his role I love stacking him up with other Saints forwards on this slate.
MID PRICED PLAYS
Kane Farrell ($10,840) is now one of the main players that the Power like to get the ball to coming out of the back line as we saw him taking the most kick ins for the team last week. He has started the season on fire posting 81 and 108 fantasy points. As noted above, Melbourne have consistently conceded points to backs over the past season and I will be starting my Port back stacks with Kane.
Marcus Windhager ($10,580) With Brad Crouch out of the lineup, it was Windhager that moved to his more natural inside midfield role last week attending over 80% of the Saints centre bounces (up from just 17% the week before). This led to a starring role where he racked up 24 touches, 7 clearances and 83 fantasy points. In this role we have seen 100+ upside in the past from Windhager and this matchup should be favourable to seeing such a return at this mid-price point.
From a betting perspective over 81.5 fantasy points looks like an attractive bet.
PREMIUM PLAYS
Max Gawn ($16,250) is relishing the number one ruck role all to himself again this season and has been back to his best averaging 110 points per game through three games. This is an elite matchup for Gawn against Port who have continuously struggled in recent years to contain rucks. Port have given up almost 5 points per game above the league average to rucks across their last 10 games going back to 2023, and while they have brought in Ivan Soldo this year to help sure up the position it still should be a favourable spot for Max.
Dan Houston ($14,130) continuing with the theme of attacking Melbourne with defenders, Houston is a great upside play for tournaments. We have seen 150 point ceilings from him in the past and he has yet to really break loose in 2024. I will be looking to stack him up with Farrell in sides to take advantage of the leak against the Demons.
Suggested Draftstars Lineup
Cheat Sheets
AFL Data Projections - 2024 Rd3 Easter Saturday Downloadable File (.xlsx)
