Round 9 of the 2024 AFL Premiership Season delivers a regular four-game Super Saturday slate this week. Things get underway with juicy fantasy game with Hawthorn hosting St Kilda down at UTAS Stadium. Then there is an exciting game from a football perspective with Essendon hosting the GWS Giants at Marvel Stadium with both teams fighting hard for a top four position on the ladder. Then at night time we get another two potential fantasy-stacking games with Gold Coast hosting North Melbourne at TIO Stadium and Richmond playing Western Bulldogs at the MCG.
Draftstars continue to offer massive prize pools with the Saturday slate offering a $60,000 prize pool along with their usual variety of alternate contests:
- AFL $60,000+ Saturday
- AFL $5,000+ Saturday High Roller
- AFL $3,000+ Saturday Mini
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
Hawthorn ($2.51) vs St Kilda ($1.51)
Points: 159.5
Line: St Kilda -10.5
Essendon ($2.36) vs GWS Giants ($1.57)
Points: 178.5
Line: GWS -8.5
Gold Coast ($1.10) vs North Melbourne ($6.50)
Points: 169.5
Line: Gold Coast -42.5
Richmond ($3.12) vs Western Bulldogs ($1.35)
Points: 167.5
Line: Western Bulldogs -18.5
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Additionally, we have a full AFL betting previews for every match where we provide our best bet for the match as well as a great value Same Game Multi!
Weather
Launceston – 19 degrees and partly cloudy, no rain
Darwin – 35 degrees and sunny
Melbourne – 19 degrees and partly cloudy, no rain
Perfect winter conditions for football on the Eastern side of Australia this Saturday and an absolute corker in Darwin. Expect no weather conditions to impact the games, but there may be a bit of dew making things slippery in Darwin.
Where to Attack?
The obvious game stack play here is Gold Coast against North Melbourne. The Suns are a massive 42 point favourites in this matchup and it's no surprise that North, currently sitting winless and last on the ladder, have given up the most points in the league to key forwards. In addition to this you can also stack up inside midfielders and wingers/attacking defenders against North making for some perfect lineup builds.
In the other games, stacking up Hawks or Western Bulldogs half backs is an obvious play with Richmond giving up the most points in the league to the opposition's designated kick-in player and the Saints giving up the most points in the league to general defenders.
Game Scripts: Gold Coast forwards, inside midfeidlers, Western Bulldogs / Hawthorn half backs
VALUE PLAYS
Todd Goldstein ($8,280) has taken over the number one ruck duties for the Bombers right now as Sam Draper is out of the lineup. Peter Wright will pinch hit as well, but last week Goldy saw 81% of the centre bounces and took advantage of a positive ruck matchup against the Eagles to notch up 82 fantasy points. This week he has the best matchup in the league this season against Keegan Briggs who is giving up over 12 points per game above league average.
Blake Hardwick ($8,950) looked to be seeing more of a utility role switching from forward to back and with Sicily out he could be more permanently playing his traditional half back role this week. If he plays in that region of the ground at this price point, he is absolute steal and he draws an elite matchup against the Saints who are giving up the most points in the league to general defenders.
If Hardwick’s role makes you nervous, I still like Hawks backs and would be looking at D’Ambrosio ($9,370) or Scrimshaw ($10,970) as a couple of well priced options.
Ben King ($9,240) stands out as the number one key forward for the Suns on this slate. As we noted above, North Melbourne are the best matchup in the league for tall forwards and King should have every chance to kick a bag in this matchup if the Suns get on top as expected.
The only risk is that he is yet to really have a big fantasy scores this season so if you are looking for alternate option up forward you could look to bargain basement Jed Walters ($6,000) in the same game, or potentially move to the Western Bulldogs Jamara Ugle-Hagan ($9,850) who also has an elite matchup against the Tigers.
MID PRICED PLAYS
Ed Richards ($11,880) has seen plenty of midfield time during the previous games that Tom Liberatore missed attending 76% and 92% of their centre bounces in rounds 6 and 7 respectively. This should open up plenty of scoring opportunity for Richards in a positive matchup against the Tigers. Furthermore, if he is swinging to half back during the other minutes, it is also an elite matchup for that role with Richmond giving up to most points to the designated kicker and above average to wing and general defenders.
Richards is a mid-priced play, but if you are looking to further capitalise on this matchup you can spend up on Bailey Dale ($15,370) who takes the majority of the Bulldogs kick ins and has returned 160, 134 and 105 from his last three games.
PREMIUM PLAYS
Touk Miller ($15,550) / Sam Flanders ($16,460) are my two premium picks that I like in the Gold Coast side against North Melbourne. Flanders has been gifted an elite role across half back and has posted scores of 125, 126, 112 and 104 from his last four games. Meanwhile, Miller is priced under $16k, which is a positive for this elite matchup and helps with Gold Coast game stacks.
If you are looking to get away from the Suns with premium players, I would be going towards Jack Steele ($15,820) against the Hawks as they have been getting deciminated by inside midfielders I recent weeks.
Suggested Draftstars Lineup
Cheat Sheets - coming soon!
