Adelaide Crom… Not a terrible season as they continue rebuilding under one of my favourite coaches in the league, Matty Nicks (go back in time for some context on my hate-hate relationship with the bloke!). Their on field form was promising but how did they fare from a pure Fantasy lens?

In these reviews, we will take a closer look at each club’s Fantasy snapshot for season 2022, whilst I nominate players for MVP, best rookie and biggest flop. I will also provide my two cents on what to look out for in 2023!

Most Valuable Player (MVP)

R.Laird. Period. What a season the “Desk Pig” put together! Proper ridiculous some of the number he was conjuring up. Had an eight round patch with a lowest score of 124. Gives you Dane Swan vibes just thinking about it! Capped off a piggish season by being named Captain of the Fantasy Fanatic’s All-Australian team. Thoroughly deserved R.Laird.

Best Rookie

With Crom in a rebuilding phase, Nicksy wasn’t afraid to play his youngsters and as Fantasy coaches we had some decent rookies at out disposal! Josh Rachele burst onto the scene with a 5-goal debut and 100 Fantasy points. He crashed and burned after a second ton in R4 (101) with many coaches cashing in leading up to the byes. The back half of the season saw the emergence of the likes of Patrick ‘Pew, Pew, Pew’ Parnell, Josh ‘Frankie’ Worrell and in my opinion, the pick of the bunch Jake Soligo! Soligo was mainly deployed off a wing following Crom’s midseason bye but slowly folded into the midfield rotation with bulk CBA’s in the final two rounds. Taking out his R1 (17) and R2 (11) scores and Soligo averaged a solid 64 Fantasy points. That’s enough for the Fantasy Fanatic to name him Crom’s Fantasy rook of the year.

Biggest Flop

Coming into season 2022, there was plenty of hype around the return of Matt Crouch. He was supposedly a “heavily discounted” premo, or at the very least a nice stepping stone to an uber premo! I’ll be the first to admit I got sucked right in to the Crouch hype, even advocating him as a “lock and load”… Couldn’t have been more wrong if I tried. Crouch only managed the one ton in the first seven games, before being given the ass by Nicksy, finishing the season with just 11 games to his name at an average of 88 Fantasy points. A flop in every sense of the word!

2023 Watchlist

Crom’s midfield mix will be interesting watch over the pre-season with the likes of Benny Keays being pushed out in favour of youngsters Schoenberg and Soligo in the final month of season 2022. Sam Berry is another who put together an underrated season, averaging a solid 84 and chalking up back to back tons in R18/R19. If the tackling machine can take a leaf out of Rory Laird’s ball-winning playbook, he is one to consider heading into 2023. Given what we saw with our million dollar men (Steele and Touk) in season 2022, it’s hard to justify coughing up >$1m to start the “Desk Pig” in 2023! Outside of the on-ball brigade, If Crom do start troubling a few of the top sides, expect opposition outfits to put more time into Jordan Dawson and his lethal left boot.

So there you have it folks, the first of the Fantasy Fanatic’s 2022 Reviews! Stay tuned for more new content, Brisbane Lions are up next.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! Feedback, comments and banter welcome.

Cheers legends,

Fantasy Fanatic #70