I'm sitting at 3/0/5 down back myself right now, and I have looked at 2/0/6 (which I did last year and got middling results). My big problem with 2/0/6 is that I don't think we will have the quality rookies to do it once the round 1 teamsheets come out. A lot of people are counting on Luke Ryan getting named, and I don't think that's happening now. Nic Newman is another one we probably need to get named and he may just be on the fence with how he's performed this preseason so far; we need to see something from him in JLT3. EVW is probably a lock, but Hibberd may or may not be best 22 at North. His JLT2 was at least better that his JLT1 so he's trending up. Hampton and Tom Stewart are looking like locks as well. I also need to see Scharenberg score better before I put him in my team at 160k.
So, for me, I only have 3 rookie backs I think are locks right now (Hampton, Stewart, EVW), which means I need those 3 premiums to not expose another rookie on ground...AND I need 2 of Hibberd, Newman, Ryan, and maybe Joel Smith to get named to fill out my interchange. On top of that, I have no bloody idea about the midfield rookies right now so I may need Hibberd on my midfield bench. This is all speculation until teamsheets come out, but it seems to me that 3-0-5 is stretched pretty thin with rookies right now, so 2-0-6 is a structure I haven't been toying around with much lately.
A couple notes: Jarrod Berry going down in preseason hurt (both for having defense rookies available and for not having someone to swing to the mids for Hibberd because none of these other rookies has DPP), but I guess he should be a good downgrade at some point. I also haven't really considered the more expensive guys like McGrath or even Keefe because I don't think the cash generation will be there. If you're considering them then you probably could go 2-0-6. TBH, though, I'd go midprice with Thurlow before McGrath, but I might be in the minority on that one.
