Alrighty, it’s the last weekend of footy before lockout. Meaning this is our last chance to see anything before getting our team locked in for the year.

Also, it’s this week that is usually a good indicator on what a team thinks their best 18 will look like.

So the final challenge matches are out, let’s see what we’ve got.

BRISBANE LIONS V HAWTHORN

Brisbane Lions
1. Mitch Clark, 2. Albert Proud, 4. Travis Johnstone, 5. Brendan Fevola, 6. Luke Power, 7. Jed Adcock, 8. Matt Austin, 9. Ashley Mcgrath, 10. Daniel Rich, 11. Justin Sherman, 12. James Hawksley, 14. Brent Staker, 16. Jonathan Brown, 17. Jared Brennan, 18. Todd Banfield, 20. Simon Black, 21. Daniel Merrett, 22. Tom Collier, 23. Matthew Leuenberger, 24. Joel Patfull, 29. Andrew Raines, 30. Jack Redden, 31. James Polkinghorne, 32. Cheynee Stiller, 33. Amon Buchanan, 35. Michael Rischitelli, 36. Matt Maguire, 38. Tom Rockliff, 39. Josh Drummond.

There are some definite rookie priced options on the table up in Queensland. It’ll be great to get a look at their gametime this weekend.

Hawthorn
2. Jarryd Roughead, 3. Jordan Lewis, 4. Rick Ladson, 5. Sam Mitchell, 6. Josh Gibson, 7. Michael Osborne, 8. Xavier Ellis, 10. Chance Bateman, 15. Luke Hodge 18. Brent Guerra, 19. Jarryd Morton, 20. Rhan Hooper, 23. Lance Franklin, 25. Ryan Schoenmakers, 26. Liam Shiels, 27. Stephen Gilham, 28. Garry Moss, 29. Tom Murphy, 30. Campbell Brown, 31. Matthew Suckling, 34. Brent Renouf, 39. Ben Stratton, 41. Taylor Duryea, 42. Wayde Skipper, 45. Jarrod Kayler-Thomson, 48. Carl Peterson.

Lewis and Ladson not being injured makes for some great news for Hawk fans.

JKT should be on our radars as well!

CARLTON v ADELAIDE

Carlton
1. Andrew Walker, 2. Jordan Russell, 3. Marc Murphy, 4. Bryce Gibbs, 5. Chris Judd, 6. Kade Simpson, 7. Brock McLean, 8. Matthew Kreuzer, 10. Richard Hadley, 11. Robert Warnock, 12. Mitch Robinson, 13. Chris Yarran, 15. Steven Browne, 16. Shaun Grigg, 17. Setanta O’hAilpin, 18. Paul Bower, 19. Eddie Betts, 23. Lachie Henderson, 26. Joe Anderson, 29. Heath Scotland, 30. Jarrad Waite, 31. Marcus Davies, 32. Bret Thornton, 33. Ryan Houlihan, 34. Simon Wiggins, 39. Sam Jacobs, 40. Michael Jamison, 44. Andrew Carrazzo, 45. Aaron Joseph.

Jarrad interests me the most here. 25ppg underpriced at the moment, if he can come close to that, he’s a bargain.

Adelaide
3. Brent Reilly, 4. Kurt Tippett, 6. Jonathon Griffin, 8. Myke Cook, 9. Tyson Edwards, 10. Jarrhan Jacky, 11. Michael Doughty, 12. Daniel Talia, 13. Taylor Walker, 14. David Mackay, 16. Phil Davis, 18. Graham Johncock, 20. Ivan Maric, 25. Ben Rutten, 26. Richard Douglas, 27. Scott Stevens, 28. Jack Gunston, 31. Rory Sloane, 32. Patrick Dangerfield, 33. Jared Petrenko, 35. Shaun McKernan, 36. Simon Goodwin, 37. Trent Hentschel, 38. Tony Armstrong, 39. Will Young, 44. Nathan Bock, 45. Ricky Henderson, 46. Chris Schmidt.

Phil Davis is back!

SYDNEY SWANS v NORTH MELBOURNE

Sydney Swans
1. Mark Seaby, 2. Rhyce Shaw, 3. Jarrad McVeigh, 4. Dan Hanneberry, 5. Ryan O’Keefe, 6. Craig Bolton, 9. Nick Malceski, 11. Ed Barlow, 12. Josh Kennedy, 15. Kieren Jack, 16. Gary Rohan, 17. Tadhg Kennelly, 18. Jesse White, 21. Ben McGlynn, 24. Jude Bolton, 25. Ted Richards, 29. Martin Mattner, 30. Lewis Roberts-Thomson, 31. Brett Kirk, 32. Lewis Jetta, 33. Jarred Moore, 37. Adam Goodes, 39. Heath Grundy, 40. Nick Smith, 41. Shane Mumford, 42. Paul Bevan.

Rhyce Shaw’s inclusion into the Swans backline will be interesting to watch. What effect will it have on the other Swans back there? Namely Malceski, Kennelly and Mattner.
Seaby and Mumford are still of relevance.
Rohan and Jetta get another week to shine!

North Melbourne
1. Hamish McIntosh, 3. Brady Rawlings, 4. Liam Anthony, 5. Ben Warren, 6. Lachlan Hansen, 7. Jack Ziebell, 8. Daniel Wells, 9. Andrew Swallow, 11. Michael Firrito, 12. Lindsay Thomas, 13. Leigh Adams, 14. Gavin Urquhart, 15. Ben Ross, 17. Nathan Grima, 16. Scott Thompson, 18. Josh Smith, 19. Sam Wright, 20. Drew Petrie, 22. Todd Goldstein, 24. Levi Greenwood, 25. Robbie Tarrant, 27. Aaron Edwards, 28. Ryan Bastinac, 29. Brent Harvey, 30. Daniel Pratt, 31. David Hale, 33. Matt Campbell, 39. Leigh Harding, 42. Scott McMahon.

Bastinac being named is nice to see!
But it’s Norths Mid-Pricers that have got me watching closely. Warren, Ziebell, Wright, Greenwood and Campbell are all very interesting right now.

We’ll take a look at Saturdays teams as they are announced!
…

As for right now though, who interest you? Who will you be watching closely?

Time and time the question comes up- What the heck are we suppposed to do about rucks this year?

Never before have we been this spoiled for choice in the rucks. It was lock in Cox and the flavor ruck of choice, and it’s gangbusters from there.

This year, we’ve a great supply of premium rucks to chose from, all with their unique downsides, and nice handful of bargain rucks- who as with all players returning from injury, look to carry their own risks.

Tonight we have myself, lucas and last years SuperCoach Chris weighing in on the discussion over the break.

(And read the post under this one for a league update as well as a brand new FREE competition!)

Read the rest of this entry »

So, the league codes have been sent. We’re now officially closed off to making any new leagues.

We have three TooSerious50 leagues and one TooSerious20 League.

Currently, we have 7 openings left in the TooSerious50 league, and 6 unpaid positions.

In the TooSerious20 league, we currently have 1 unpaid position.

So get those payments in guys! I would hate to have to bump you for someone else!!

Now, we have some big news. The TooSerious leagues now have a sponsored grand final prize.

So I will now be refering to them as the TextOutSMS TooSerious Leagues.

The good people over at TextOutSMS have been kind enough to offer 1000 free SMS’s to the grand final winners of the TooSerious50 leagues, and 400 free SMS’s to the grand final winners of the TooSerious20 league.

So get over there and have a look, they offer some fantastic deals with SMS.

So thank you!

Now, to all of you who have read down this far, I would like to announce a new competition.

A free, sponsored competition by the good folks down at Sideways – Radio Controlled, Dirt Racing, Road Racing, Drift Cars, Crawl Cars, Slot Cars | Racing

So, the fine folk down at sideways have offered a corporate package for ten people, worth $500 to the winner of the Sideways Cup.

So, what is the Sideways cup, and how do you enter?

The beauty of the Sideways cup is that it will operate outside of the SuperCoach leagues.

To enter, simply log into your TooSerious account, click on the account tab and enter your Supercoach number into the SuperCoach ref field (Then save).

What is your supercoach number I hear you ask? To find yours, simply log out of your Supercoach team, and go to the ranking page: http://supercoach.heraldsun.com.au/?p=topcoaches

Here, you’ll find a textbox you can use to search for your own team. I’ll search for my team- TooSerious.

Now that you’ve done that, you’ll find a link to your team. Provided you have logged out, it should look something like this: http://supercoach.heraldsun.com.au/?p=other_teams&tid=24&lid=1 – You can see that by hovering over the link to your team.

now, the 24 mentioned above is your SuperCoach number, and it’s that number that you’ll need to plug into the Accounts Tab.

And that’s it. I’ll take care of the rest!
(Though if you want to make my life easier, you’ll send an email to too.serious.team.management@gmail.com with the title TooSeriousSideways with your TS account name in the email!)

Once that’s done, I will track every player who’s registered for the competiton.

The highest round score for the year will score themselves the Sideways prize.

So check out their site! Heck, head down there and check it out for yourself! It looks like a heck of a lot of fun to be involved in!

And get your entries in before round 1, cause that’s the deadline to sign up!

With any luck, we’ll get other prizes in for this competition, so check back regularly!

And tell your friends! Your family! Your “wives”! Share the love!

So, just the two seen games this week, but I’ll try to post anything I find on the challenge games

Though I hear that the Collingwood/Richmond game was essentially a seconds mate. Ball cleaned up though- as he should have.

Tonight, the Doggies snuck over the line against Port.

It was great to finally get a look-in at Gray. And man, slow down mate! You don’t need everyone to jump on board!

The biggest stories would have had to have been BBBBBH (The extra B is for BBB) and Higgins though.

Baz is looking freaking great with that Doggies midfield delivering to him. I can see him fighting for a spot in my squad with Murphy as the bargain-priced forward who’s expected to go down throughout the year.

And Higgins. 62 points in a half of football. Not a bad return!

What do we think about Banner, Hitchcock and Moles? Any other them do enough to cement a spot in your squad?

Banner still has a lot of chips left from his last two performances for mine.

Ah well, bring on the Dockers! Let’s see what Barlow can pull out against an awesome Saints outfit. Or if Morabito can do anything to redeem himself!

Oh, and just quickly, I’m currently bringing in the last guy for the $20 league. But there will be a big post this weekend about the leagues. Happy news.

Alright, it’s ugly, and it may or may not help you, but it’s up for general consumption.

The Season Ticker. Just click the ticker tab and you’ll see it in all it’s technicoloured glory. (ps- if someone wants to suggest less obnoxious colours, feel free- I’ve gone with generic colours to start with.)

Anyways, the nuts and bolts of things.

Firstly, it’s based on the last 12 weeks of games. So it will change week by week.
It’s based on the positions provided by the prospectus- not by Virtual Sports- So I’m hoping that adds to it’s accuracy.
It rates things based on a teams performance in relation to every other team. So if a team has come up against a firing Cox twice within the 12 games, it’s going to rate them harshly.

So, I haven’t had too much of a play- but at first glance, I can see that Geelong looks nice- while the Hawks look to have an ugly start.

Meanwhile, Cox look a tasty prospect from day 1 while Fremantles defenders and mids might find themselves in for a little pain at the start.

One thing of interest. Sydney crushed rucks last year. I wonder if that is a game style thing, or a Jolly thing- and I wonder if that will translate to Collingwood?

Anyways, have a play. Let me know what you think about it.

OK it’s time to put something out there for discussion and it’s a further refinement of a ranking system I devised earlier.  It’s still got some tweaks needed, but effectively it rates players on their 2009 efforts, takes into account price and score fluctuations (generally the more consistent the better), uses some durability data from 2008-2009, and tests this against the 2010 price.

I’ve tried to keep this system out of my hands as much as possible and let stats do the talking, but in any system there must be bias.  Mine is probably the player’s overall performance and 2009 (as distinct from 2008) performance.  If you didn’t play 2009, too bad.  (It means you’re in line for the 2nd year blues!  Haha!).  Note also that I have not taken into account such things as preseason injuries or suspensions leading into the 2010 season.  Effectively these stats could have come out the day the price points were reached for the 2010 SC year.

To regular watchers of price valuations and the consistent players, the results probably won’t shock you much.  I will list the top 20 in overall (out of 1000 points), then the top 5 in each category I rated them on (Scoring Consistency, Price Consistency, Value, Durability and Captaincy Suitability).

OVERALL
1) JIMMY BARTEL 871
2) Brett Kirk 866
3) Nick Riewoldt 852
4) Chris Judd 851
5) Ryan O’Keefe 845
6) Marc Murphy 843
7) Jude Bolton 842
Joel Corey 841
9) Brendon Goddard 839
=10) Daniel Cross 837
=10) Joel Selwood 837
12) Luke Power 831
=13) Simon Black 829
=13) Leigh Montagna 829
=13) Corey Enright 829
16) Brett Deledio 827
17) Shane Tuck 826
=18) Dane Swan 824
=18) Cameron Bruce 824
20) Nick Dal Santo 823

Scoring Consistency (/100)
1) Gary Ablett (OA23) 100
2) Leigh Montagna 99
=2) Dane Swan 99
4) Chris Judd 98
=4) Marc Murphy 98

Price Consistency (/100) – (Showing only top 10o players only in this category though other players were part of the top 5 they were largely outlier values such as Mark Jamar from Melbourne.  Top 100 are more useful to look at.)
1) Marc Murphy 84
2) Jordan Lewis 79 (OA 81)
3) Brendon Goddard 78
4) Nathan Bock 76 (OA 54)
=4) Bret Thornton 76 (OA 61)

Value (/100)
1) Jarrad Waite 88 (OA 69)
2) Luke Hodge 87 (OA 47)
3) Wayde Skipper 86 (OA 450)
=4) Shaun Burgoyne 85 (OA 103)
=4) Brett Kirk 85
=4) Matt Maguire 85 (OA 444)
=4) Sean Rusling 85 (OA 451)

Durability (/100)
1) Dane Swan 100
=2) Brett Kirk 99
=2) Luke Power 99
=2) Corey Enright 99
=2) Brett Deledio 99
=2) Marc Murphy 99

Captaincy (/100)
1) Gary Ablett 100
2) Jimmy Bartel 98
=3) Leigh Montagna 97
=3) Ryan O’Keefe 97
=3) Adam Goodes 97
=3) Brendon Goddard 97

Other players values on request.

Holla all.

Live scoring is updated to the next round of the NAB.

I’ve also put in a feature that will allow you to go to past or future rounds. Which will prolly go alright.

I am stoked to get another chance to see the Hawks, Coasters, Ports, Sydney, Kangers and Freo- In fact, I think 21 of my current list is playing, so that makes me smile.

Tonight we have the Hawkers lining up against the Doggies. Should be one *hell* of a match.

Can Buddy do what he did last week against *not* Richmond. And how’s the Hawks midfield going to hold up against some real quality opposition. (Sorry Richmond. )

And a Bulldogs gameplan when *not* playing in a swamp- how will that work?

There’s a lot of potential premiums out there tonight, and I know I’ve got 5 of them playing. Let’s see how they are used.

So, i’ve been asked, how’s the SuperCoach leagues going?

So, here’s the official update.

I’ll be sending out the league codes next weekend. I’ll also be closing off any new leagues at that time, so we’ll have a definite list on how many leagues we’ll be running.

Currently the leagues are running as follows.

TooSerious50 Leagues- 26 people, plus whichever writers we get in.
So essentially, 2 leagues. Maybe a third if we can get enough signing up.

TooSerious20 leagues- 13 people, 2 places left.

LeagueOfLeagues- 9 people have applied. Since I haven’t had any solid details on in yet, I’m thinking I’ll send out the league code next weekend and we can work out payments from then.

So get in peoples. We want to fill these leagues. So if you have anyone you can get in, then get them in!

Also, I’m thinking I’ve got a DreamTeam league. So I’m thinking, if any of the regulars here has a free league open, drop me a line- I’ll send out the league code.

For details on how to join the leagues, or for a more detailed description on each of them, please, read over here.

Also, just a quick note on the EPL- I’m imagining that everyone is swimming in more cash than they need? Cause with the AFL season arcing up, I’m losing the inspiration to keep it up to date. Anyone want me to keep going? Still trying my darnedest in that iinet comp-though it’s not looking great for us. Darn Whirlpool!

Why use TooSerious?

So, why is TooSerious one of the biggest fantasy football support sites on the internet?

To answer that, you’ve got to ask yourself the following question: What makes for a good year in Supercoach?

Two things play a huge part in your year.
1) Your starting squad.
2) How well you trade throughout the year.

So, how can we help? Well firstly- your starting squad. We have made it our duty to provide excellent analysis of which premium players will do you well, which mid priced players look to be stepping up and which rookies will give you the best chance to cash up.

Ok, so I would love to take *all* the credit for that, but we’ve also got a fantastic array of writers on board as well as a fantastic community backing it up. Just take a look through the comments, any of them really, for an inciteful and intellegent discussion on Supercoach.

Now, while we offer advice, we also have a tab up the top there called stats. Under here, you can find a history of every player playing the game- as well as snapshots of how they were going in years gone by. We’ve got the usual stats as well as your more fantasy specific stats like highest/lowest salary/points. Standard deviations as well as handy “average against” including a players last 3 game average over the past three weeks, against the team they’re coming up against and at the ground they will be playing at.

Now, I’m hoping that that will be enough to get you a decent starting squad. But once you’ve got one of them, the rest of your season will come down to Team Management. Which is the area that we shine.

The first place to look is over on that stats tab. Over there, the first thing to notice would be the breakeven column. This column informs you what score a player will need to get in order to hold their current salary. Next are the salary movement fields (next round, Two Rounds, Three rounds and Movement (3 rounds)). These fields will give you a fairly accurate approximation of a players salary if they manage to get their average. I say fairly accurate, because salary movement cannot be perfectly predicted because it depends on what the league scores in relation to their salaries. Needless to say though, it is accurate enough to get a great idea on which players to jump on.

However, if this isn’t enough, next to every player, you will find a little calculator. Clicking here will enable you to enter your predicted score for a player, for the rest of the season, in order to see what effect that will have on their salary. This can be a fantastic tool for working out when a player is reaching their peak, or bottoming out.

And as we all know, Supercoach is won by trading out your cashcows when they are at a peak price and trading in your premium players when they are at their lowest.

Outside of that, there’s also other handy stuff that pops up. You’ve got the ability to enter in your team which will help you track injuries as they are updated round to round. (players are coloured in red when injured and orange for the rounds that they are due back (because we all know that not everyone comes back when they are supposed to; Ottens and Stevie J say Hi) – check out the last few years, with the exact cause and duration of the injury availiable when moused over). When I’m not lazy, I’ll get the teams entered in each round so you can easily see which of your players have or haven’t been named that week.

We also have the gameday pages. Here we have a pre-game page for each game (which can be a fantastic tool when selecting a captain (well if you don’t have Ablett.)). Here you will also find our live scoring which will track your team as well as the scores from every other player out there.

So there you go, a quick synopsis on how using TooSerious will improve your game, both in the preseason and throughout the year.

And of course, since we are constantly evolving, we’re always open to suggestions on how we can improve this place for you all. So if you have any ideas, or even if you would like to try your hand at writing an article or two, then drop me a line.

So, just a quick post to keep the NAB talk in the right threads.

Seems Ball is doing his darnedest to remove himself as a point of difference in my team. And Heater is doing nothing wrong so far. (Though we all know how *he* works.)

Armitage has me cursing his three games last year! He wold have been a fantastic pick up if he wasn’t so highly priced. Particularly with Ball being out of that midfield now.

It was certainly interesting to see Cloke have 7 shots at Goal last night- with a very Buddy-like kicking performance, it’ll be interesting to see if this year is finally the year he steps up.

Tonight is the Sydney/Carlton game. A game where both teams rucks structures could be *very* important this year.

Anyways, Go NAB!