Just letting you guys know, it seems our hosts are been having issues all day. Fingers are crossed that they get it sorted soon enough!

So I’m just gunna put this question out there:

If there was a hypothetical new SC-type game created, what features would you like to see?

Would you change scoring? trading? run with a different salary model? Perhaps change the structure and benches?

Personally, I’ve got a number of different ideas that I would like to see, but I’m wondering what you guys would like?

So, I’ve gone with the idea that because my team is off the rails, I’m gunna try out this MPP thing to see how useful it proves as the season rolls on. Maybe even get an idea for how it’s going to work out next year.

To that end, I’m going to need to post *exhales* my team. Feel free to level as many “that’s crap” comments as you want, but try to be gentle cause I hurt easy and I carry a big ol’ banhammer.

Team over the break
(more…)

Well, it seems we’re bigger than we’re allowed to be.

I’m currently negotiating a new server which should make us faster, and also not suspended.

I’ll let you guys know the deal when I do.

Alright, now I get a lot of questions asked.

Many of them more frequent than others. Well, it’s gotten to the point where I need to put together an FAQ for the site.

But before I tell you all what I think you need to know, I’m curious to find out what your questions are?

So drop one in the comments- And I’ll more than likely get it into the FAQ.

(Really, I’m just struggling to come up with questions. I’ve got:
1. How do I upload my team(s).
2. What is a Breakeven.
3. What does a Real Value do?
4. How is it that you’re so ruggedly good looking?
5. When are you going to fix [so and so]?

Surely there is more right?

So, there’s a lot of nicknames for players being bandied around these days.

It’s been suggested that we open a thread so that we can consolidate them all.

I’ll start it off with some of the more popular nicknames:

Tom Rockliff: The rock lobster, the lobster
Cyril Rioli: Delicious.
Robert Relton: The commentators dream
Alwyn Davey: Jack Rabbit
Alan Didak: Bang bang, Diddles
David Mundy: Crab
Brett Peake: Brett Potato
Mark Seaby: Captain Ahab
Alex Silvagni: SNOS, SCOSOS
Nick Malcesci: Eski, Malsexi

So, it’s started off- now it’s your turn! If we come up with enough, I’ll see if I can’t hook up some kind of directory.

By popular demand (or at least one), and because Walesy was nice enough to make a footy tipping competition (sponsored by Footy System Bet), Knighty’s footy tips are back for 2010 (I love referring to myself in the 3rd person). Round 1 is the hardest round to pick, so I normally just go for the obvious picks. There’s plenty of time to get creative with tips when you know how the teams will perform. Tips are once again in bold, and this year I am also including a highest SC scorer pick just for the Footy System Bet TooSerious Footy Tipping competition.

Thursday 25 March

Richmond V Carlton,

Top Scorer: M Kreuzer, Carlton, 136

Richmond is likely to miss Foley and Cousins in the engine room, but really who needs to analyse this game-its Richmond playing! Last time they played Chris Judd and Marc Murphy tore it up for the Blues, but with Judd missing and Murphy recovering from a hip problem, I’m tipping Kreuzer to be the highest scorer by demolishing Richmonds weak ruck division (which is on par with the rest of the team by the way).

Friday 26 March

Geelong V Essendon

Top Scorer: G Ablett, Geelong, 164

As much as I really really want Essendon to win, I can’t see them getting close to Geelong. Hey, I’d be happy coming within 10 goals of them given our record. Here’s some advice-unless you support Geelong, the Saints or the Bulldogs, tip with your head not your heart. Ablett to dominate as per usual with the only impediment to a really high score being the Cats dominating so much they all steal points off each other. In fantasy news, don’t be surprised if Hille is held quiet and Podsiadly is given lots of cheap goals in the square as the Cats act like they are on a training run. Prove me wrong, Bombers!

Saturday 27 March

Melbourne V Hawthorn

Top Scorer: Sam Mitchell, Hawthorn, (151)

Should be called  Casey V Box Hill with all those injuries, but its still an easy round. Repeat it with me: NEVER PICK MELBOURNE. Enough said. Rookies to do OK, but not great. Oh, and any fit Melbourne players who aren’t picked may as well retire, because if you can’t get a game here there’s very little future for you (you hear me Simon Buckley?) Next tip.

Brisbane V WCE

Top Scorer: T Johnstone, Brisbane, (144).

Please don’t laugh. I seriously think Johnstone will have a good game. He got 156 last year and had a pretty good preseason. Don’t pick him, but I don’t think he’ll do that badly this game. Its at the Gabba, so you have to go with Brisbane.

*Sounds of retching* I just realised what I wrote up there…

Sydney V St Kilda

Top Scorer: N Dal Santo, Saints, (150)

History suggests this will be a close game. I agree with that, but I just see the Saints having that tiny bit of extra class that will get them over the line. A great match to have a flutter on with Footy System Bet.

Sunday 28 March

Port Adelaide V North Melbourne

Top Scorer: Dom Cassissi, Port Adelaide (130)

Port should win this courtesy of that great thing called home ground advantage. I can’t wait to see how ‘Alfred’ Hitchcock plays on the big stage, but apart form that I have no idea who will score well. I say Cassissi because he’s the first Power player who popped into my head, but Brent Harvey also traditionally starts strongly. Porbably be better off playing with your Sideways Radio cars instead of watching this match.

Bulldogs V Collingwood

Top Scorer: D Cross, Bulldogs (140)

Match of the round by a long way. Call your friends and family over (using TextOut SMS of course) to watch this one, because it should be a beauty. Last year these guys were both preliminary finalists, and we will see straight away how BBBBH (the extra B is is for BYOBB, and that extra B is a typo) competes against a quality team in the real season. Could be a preview of September action right here.

Fremantle V Adelaide

Top Scorer: Kurt Tippett (147)

On preseason form, injuries and home ground advantage I should tip Freo, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Stop Pavlich, stop Fremantle has always been the way, and Nathan Bock has Pavlova’s measure.

Captain Tips:

1. Gary Ablett

2. Daylight

3. Your next best midfielder, Goddard, Riewoldt. Just pick your best player, there’s no science this round.

Agree? Disagree? Sick of my blatant advertising of Footy System Bet and Sideways Radio cars? Why don’t you text someone who cares with TextOut SMS. Or leave a comment, thats good too.

DISCLAIMER: Knighty is in no way responsible for any failures in footy tipping competitions and loss of money/pride/other things because of this.

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!

Hey the draw is out.

Web address: http://www.afl.com.au/fixture/tabid/10586/default.aspx

For what it’s worth I have done an analysis on this.  Best viewed in Comments section as otherwise it clashes with other text…

I calculated each team if they play every other team once (16 for Melbourne, 1 for Geelong.)

Then I added points for all their double up teams (e.g. 16 for Melbourne, 1 for Geelong)

Then I added 8 points for home games vs a team travelling interstate, 4 points for home games vs neutral team.  I also subtracted the reverse for away games.

Here’s the results.  Unsurprisingly despite being given press saying they have the easiest draw, Collingwood and Essendon the Melbourne-based warrior teams have been stitched up.  Though they don’t travel much, they play all the top teams twice and that makes a big difference.  The Pies actually do badly because though they only play 4 interstate, only twice do they play a non-Victorian side in Melbourne – the others they have to play only once and only away (the worst thing possible)

The best draw, well that’s for the Power North Brisbane and Richmond.  Remember this when picking fringe players for your SC team.

So don’t be fooled by media outlets.  This is one of the biggest fallacies about the draw in recent years – that it’s fair or reasonable or anything other than something to give the clubs the most money.  All driven by money, not by fairness.

In 2009, Geelong had a much harder draw than St Kilda and were arguably a better team in H&A last year but the results didn’t show that.  Collingwood had a very soft draw and were overrated coming into finals.  In 2008 Geelong won 21 H&A games but had a remarkably soft draw.  The draw makes a difference, but when September comes around, remember the impact of the draw and this should improve your finals tipping strike rate.

Anyway here’s my analysis for what its worth.  (The games 1-7 below are not in order other than alphabetic.)  Also there is a tiny bug in the results.  Anyone who finds it gets kudos from me.