It's Preliminary Final weekend for the 2023 AFL Premiership Season and, if you're big on fantasy AFL, that means it's time for the $750,000 AFL Star Final at Draftstars. That's right, a massive $750,000 prize pool is up for grabs in the biggest daily fantasy sports contest ever seen in Australia! Those lucky players who landed one of the 215 golden tickets on Draftstars throughout the season, now have the chance to compete for the whopping $200,000 first place prize and a place in Australian DFS history!
The contest will take place over two days, covering both Preliminary Finals with Collingwood hosting the GWS Giants at the MCG on Friday night, and then Brisbane hosting Carlton in the twilight match on Saturday.
We break down the two-game slate and provide a few a strategies for those players who are nervously setting their lineups for the $750,000 AFL Star Final!
Betting Lines
Collingwood ($1.53) vs GWS Giants ($2.45)
Line: Collingwood -10.5
Points: 167.5
Brisbane ($1.37) vs Carlton ($3.02)
Line: Brisbane -18.5
Points: 169.5
You can place your sports bets at PlayUp using the same account and funds as your Draftstars account. Sports betting and DFS all in the one place!
Weather
Melbourne (Friday) - Partly cloudy, 16 degrees.
Brisbane (Saturday) - Partly cloudy, 23 degrees.
Weather conditions look perfect for finals football over the weekend with no rain expected during either game.
AFL Star Final Stategy
Got 3 Tickets? Separate Your Game Scripts
In a three-max entry competition, if you are fortunate enough to have landed three tickets, then building your teams to maximise your chance at hitting the top of the leaderboard will be key. As a result, focus on building teams that are not correlated together rather than having three teams all stacking the one side. For example, you could go with one side as a Brisbane stack, one side as a Collingwood stack and one as a Carlton stack (as a point of difference) and that would ensure that one bad result isn’t going to sink all three tickets.
Brisbane Stacks
Brisbane are over 18 point favourites in this matchup against Carlton and should be in the box seat reach the Grand Final. The Lions are in incredible form going 10-2 from their last 12 games and they easily defeated Carlton earlier in the year by 26 points down at Marvel Stadium. Up at the Gabba, fresh off a week’s rest, almost everyone will be expecting them to take care of Carlton relatively comfortably as the Blues are coming off two straight, hard-fought finals and likely have a fuel tank on empty.
Highest Ceiling – Josh Dunkley ($15,760)
Dunkley is the second highest priced player on this slate for a reason. He has posted a season high score of 172 points this season and, low and behold, it was against Carlton. If you are looking to spend all the way up for the biggest ceiling options, the decision comes down to Tom Green at almost $17k against the Magpies at the MCG, or Nick Daicos in the $15k range in his first game back from injury. Given the situations, I would be taking Dunkley at home as the biggest favourite on the slate and a history of going big against the opponent every time.
Fade – Josh Kelly ($14,810)
Kelly has recorded just one ton from his last six games and continues to be played on the outside for the Giants.
Value – Will Hoskin-Elliott ($9,660)
This might not be the type of value play you would make on a regular slate, but in the Preliminary Finals, there will be very limited options for value plays. Hoskin-Elliott has seen a role shift in recent weeks moving to half back and along the wing, and this has resulted in back-to-back scores of 94 and 92 points. At almost 10x for his price point, this will likely be a very popular play on this two-game slate.
Point of Difference – Jordan De Goey ($13,150)
Jordan De Goey has not been setting the world alight from a fantasy perspective in recent weeks, however he brings solid upside at his price point. When Collingwood faced GWS earlier in the season he posted a massive 120 points and he has been one of the most consistent players when it comes to centre bounce attendances for the Magpies this season providing plenty of opportunity to hit his ceiling.
Suggested Draftstars Lineup
Good luck to everyone playing in the $750,000 AFL Star Final this weekend!
Remember you can bet on who you think will win the AFL Star Final over at PlayUp. They have a range of markets including overall winner, Top 5 and Top 10 placements as well as some interesting Group betting. There have been some big movements in this market throughout the week, but there's still some very talented DFS'ers offering some value. Remember to consider which players have 1, 2 or 3 tickets as this will affect their chances and their prices on PlayUp!
