Friday night football for Round 3 of the 2025 AFL Premiership Season is a blockbuster with Carlton and the Western Bulldogs squaring off at Marvel Stadium. Both teams will be gagging for a win as they both have finals expectations in 2025. Carlton have had a devastating start to the season with back to back losses, while the Western Bulldogs are 1-1 after dropping a nail biter to the Magpies last week.
As always this is all about the daily fantasy and this massive Friday night game draws another massive $75,000 prize pool at Draftstars in their main contest. In addition, there are a variety of alternate contests:
AFL $75,000+ Blues vs Bulldogs
AFL $5,000+ Blues vs Bulldogs High Roller ($150 Entry)
AFL $3,000+ Blues vs Bulldogs Mini ($2 Entry)
The AFL Star contest is back again for 2025 and Draftstars are once again 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.
Betting Markets
Carlton ($2.10) vs Western Bulldogs ($1.75)
Points: 172.5
Line: Carlton -3.5
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Additionally, we have a full Carlton vs Western Bulldogs Betting Preview where we provide our best bet for the game as well as a great value Same Game Multi!
Where to Attack?
The Western Bulldogs have historically conceded points to defenders in recent years and Carlton have loved to possess the ball through this part of the ground, which creates an obvious target.
Meanwhile I love the Carlton key forwards on this slate with the Bulldogs often giving up points in this area of the ground, and the Blues game style angled to the bigs given the star studded lineup they typically field.
When it comes to the midfield, this should be an even contests with both sides fielding very strong players at the position.
Game Script – Carlton backs and forwards,
VALUE PLAYS
Charlie Curnow ($9,980) has had one very tough game. He came back to play against the Hawks but hopefully should have blown the cobwebs out. It is very rare that you get him priced under $10k and the Bulldogs have historically had trouble with key forwards. Furthermore with Harry Mckay out you can expect Curnow to be the number one target for the Blues going forward.
Buku Khamis ($7,450) is still priced well enough as a back that makes him a value play in this single game slate. We played him last week at near the minimum and returned a 57 point game, which was solid in that game. Once again we are struggling for obvious value so Khamis is in play, even better if you are stacking up other Bulldog defenders with him.
MID PRICED PLAYS
Sam Docherty ($11,980) didn’t exactly set the world on fire last week with a 70 point game, however it was against what will likely be one of the harder teams in the league to score against in the Hawks. I will look for him to have closer to a 100 point game in this matchup against the Bulldogs, which would be a solid return at this price point.
PREMIUM PLAYS
Ed Richards ($13,420) is a mainstay in the midfield for the Bulldogs right now given they are missing the Bont and Treloar. He attended a team high 22 centre bounces last week and returned 92 fantasy points. He has well over 100 point upside and is still nicely priced at under $14k on this slate.
Tom De Koning ($15,490) has been absolutely dominant this season as the sole ruck averaging a ridiculous 119 points per game through the first two games. On this single game slate against Tim English he should have every opportunity to dominate the ruck contests, and will spend more time rucking than his opponent who splits the duties with Sam Darcy and amazingly enough, Joel Freijah.
While Sam Darcy in the ruck would be another option, the Blues defense will be well suited to give the Western Bulldogs key forwards trouble.
Suggested Draftstars Team
