TooSerious

Here we are, two weeks in and we've managed a first look at every team.



Anyone catching your eye so far? Who have you brought in base on this weeks perform? Who should you?



Let's take a look at what's gone down this week.





Friday, 22th February



North vs Melbourne

Results: North by 2.



North had more of the ball, more kicks, more clearances and more contested possessions- and in the end, more points on the board winning by 2 point, by virtue of a Supergoal.



What we did see though, we North sharing the ball around a lot, which we all know is a goldmine for fantasy sports if they keep it up.



McMahon, SD Thompson, Swallow, Wright, ATLEY and JACOBS all benefitted massively from this, with McMahon breaking 60DT points.



Wright certainly added to his selection credentials under this gameplan, priced at a smidge under $400k, he's steadily increased his average over the past few years and could definitely step up.



The other obvious premium we're looking at here is Swallow. 12 disposals, 4 tackles and 50DT has him once again pushing for selection in my squad.



Sierakowski looks to be teasing again, a 115k defender would be fantastic, and with 9 touches and 42DT, would...

<p style='font-size: 12px; font-family: Helvetica; color: #424242;]If you play in a keeper league, like I imagine anyone reading this is, it's a pertinent question; what is pick 15 in a yearly draft worth? How do you even quantify that?

<p style='font-size: 12px; font-family: Helvetica; color: #424242; min-height: 14px;]

<p style='font-size: 12px; font-family: Helvetica; color: #424242;]Head over the break and we explore what draft picks are worth in the long and short term.

<p style='font-size: 12px; font-family: Helvetica; color: #424242; min-height: 14px;]

<p style='font-size: 12px; font-family: Helvetica; color: #424242;]I've been mulling over this question of draft pick worth for muchof the preseason. On the one hand given that in the ORFFL we're cutting lists down to a maximum of 20, that pick is essentially a R21 pick. We all remember R21 in the original; Lachie Hansen, Liam Jones, Jayden Post were a sample of names called out.

<p style='font-size: 12px; font-family: Helvetica; color: #424242; min-height: 14px;]

<p style='font-size: 12px; font-family: Helvetica; color: #424242;]On the other hand though, where do Lance Franklin's come from?

<p style='font-size: 12px; font-family: Helvetica; color: #424242; min-height: 14px;]

<p style='font-size: 12px; font-family: Helvetica; color: #424242;]This time last year the 18 ORFFL clubs drafted 42 first year players, picking them up on average in the 20th round. 15 GWS pre listed players (including 17yo's and Issy) and 18 players picked in the first 25 of the 2011 AFL ND.

<p style='font-size: 12px; font-family: Helvetica; color: #424242; min-height: 14px;]

<p style='font-size: 12px; font-family: Helvetica; color: #424242;]I bring up the first 25 players picked in the draft as when I began pondering the title question months ago there was a general consensus that there were roughly 25 rookies from the 2012 AFL draft worth picking. Further to that there was the contention that...

Well, it looks like Sportsbet has gotten into the Supercoach gambling market, creating 6 groups across the 4 positions.




So lets take a closer look at these groups, see if we can't find some value.




Group One: Mids




$ 2.75 Ablett

$ 4.50 Pendlebury

$ 6.00 Swan

$ 8.00 Watson

$ 8.00 Dangerfield

$ 8.00 Beams

$10.00 JPK

$10.00 J. Selwood





Ablett, the clear front runner would have won this group by a smidge over 100 points last year. However, considering the high averages at play here, that's only 1 game clear. So had he played 19 games last year (As he's done in the past), Watson, JPK and Dangerfield all would have hit beat.




Definitely worth a sneaky nibble on JPK I reckon, and maybe Beams if he can play all 22.




Group Two: Mids




$3.50 Cotchin




Alright, being a betting man, reckon you'd be crazy to bet against Cotchin in this group




Group Three: Mids




$5.00 S. Selwood

$5.50 Ward

$6.00 Sloane

$6.00 Griffin

$7.00 O'Keefe

$7.00 Judd

$7.00 Sidebottom

$8.00 Redden





Definitely some value here, but boy will it be tough to seperate. Selwood for mine rightfully tops the group, scoring the most this year, with a little room to grow, but then, Ward topped the averages in this group, but missed 2 game- also with some potential to grow.




Personally, I'd rule Griffen, O'keefe and Judd out, making it a group of 5. Definitely would be some worth in getting on a couple of them, but the amount of time they'd be holding your cash would make it not so worth it.




Group Four: Forwards




$2.75 Franklin

$5.50 Rockliff

$7.00 Rioli

$7.00 Zorko

$8.00 SJ

$8.00 Walker

$8.00 Chapman

$9.00 Hawkins





Franklin does deserve to top this group, his average is a mile ahead of his competitors....

It's been a big two weeks of football. Plenty of rookies have been given a crack, while other fringe(ish) players have raised their hand and said: Me too!



Let's take a lightning quick look over the first 9 games of football.



Friday, 15th February



Essendon vs Western

Results: Essendon by 26 points



I wish it was fantasy relevant, but I simply have to open this article with a mention of the 43 year old, Dustin Fletcher out there, doing his part, in the middle of February. Someone must have slipped something very good into his OJ I reckon!



Anyways, for the game, it was a fairly one sided even, with Essendon scoring heavily at the end of both halves. Hoping to see that continued through to the season proper with the Bombers inability to run out games a big factor in the second half of last years.



Plenty of statistics went the Bombers way, with a lot of short accurate kicks promising to deliver a lot of fantasy value next year.



Leading the charge was Dempsey who managed 12 touches and 57DT points off just 79% game time. Fantastic number and a real option if he can pick up how he started last year.



I know I said he wasn't relevant, but he certainly was prevalent, with Fletcher picking up 10 disposals across the backline for an exceptional 53DT.



HEPPELL collected 9 touches, however should be noted that 8 of those were picked up in the second half. He'll be one to ignore at your peril.



Meanwhile HIBBERD and Goddard were both solid in what...

QPR v Man Utd 0-2
Evans, Rooney and Valencia all started on the bench with the latter two coming on just after the hour. RVP came off in the first half with a hip injury which will increase concern that he'll miss game-time next week before Utd's return leg against Real Madrid. Giggs scored on his 999th senior appearance while Rafael scored a peach of a volley.
Fabio was unavailable to play against his parent club but it was still a huge shock to see Bosingwa line-up at RB. Onuoha was on the bench. Zamora lasted an hour before being replaced by Remy. QPR haven't scored at home since Boxing Day.

Fulham v Stoke 1-0

Marc Wilson (3.9mill) made his long awaited comeback after his broken leg. It wasn't enough to keep a clean sheet though and Stoke have still only won one away game all season. Jon Walters - not for the first time this season - failed to score from the spot, preventing Shea an assist on his debut.
Berbatov, with his 9th of the season and 3rd in 6, scored a beauty. Riether played well and set up Berba's goal.

Arsenal v Aston Villa 2-1

For the 3rd league game in a row, Podolski started on the bench, Koscielny was also benched while Jenkinson replaced the injured Sagna. Cazorla was the hero with both goals to take his league total for the season to 10.
Villa looked threatening with Weimann the scorer and N'Zogbia again the provider. Villa are now back in the bottom three.

West Brom v Sunderland 2-1

Lukaka was again excellent and scored a brace. The referee blowing for a WBA free kick too quickly instead of playing advantage cost him a hat-trick. Fellow budget striker Shane Long also started while Odemwingie found his way back from QPR's car park to take his place on the bench. Jones remained on the bench.
Sunderland had both Bardsley and Cueller on the bench as Bramble continued to play and scare the bejayus out of the Sunderland supporters. Graham started alongside Fletcher and Fletch should've notched a couple. Forgotten...

<p style='font: inherit;]Wait what, I missed the start of the round! d'oh!
<p style='font: inherit;]
<p style='font: inherit;]Ah well, join us over the weekend in theChatand we'll see what we see.
<p style='font: inherit;]
<p style='font: inherit;]Will Viney or Toumpas do much? How about that Daw fellow? Will O'Meara live up to the hype? Will Leuenburger get himself an injury? Let's find out.

<p style='font: inherit;]9 more teams this week and another group of wacky lightening round to watch!
<p style='font: inherit;]
<p style='font: inherit;]While it's nice to see them run out there, it really does make me realise just how enjoyable watching a full length game actually is!



<h4>Friday Night (Feb 22), Etihad Stadium</h4>
North Melbourne, v Melbourne (6.45pm EDT), Melbourne v Richmond (7.50pm EDT), Richmond v North Melbourne (8.55pm EDT)
NORTH MELBOURNE

1. Daniel Currie, 2. Brad McKenzie, 3. Ryan Bastinac, 4. Liam Anthony, 5. Ben Jacobs, 6. Lachlan Hansen, 7. Jack Ziebell, 8. Daniel Wells, 9. Andrew Swallow, 10. Ben Cunnington, 11. Michael Firrito, 12. Lindsay Thomas, 14. Jordan Gysberts, 15. Luke Delaney, 16. Scott Thompson, 17. Nathan Grima, 18. Shaun Atley, 19. Sam Wright, 20. Drew Petrie, 22. Todd Goldstein, 23. Kieran Harper, 24. Levi Greenwood, 25. Robbie Tarrant, 28. Will Sierakowski, 29. Brent Harvey, 30. Tom Curran, 31. Cameron Delaney, 34. Jamie Macmillan, 35. Aaron Black, 38. Majak Daw, 41. Aaron Mullett, 42. Scott McMahon, 43. Sam Gibson, 46. Ben Speight
MELBOURNE

1. Jesse Hogan, 2. Nathan Jones, 4. Jack Watts, 5. Jimmy Toumpas, 6. Chris Dawes, 7. Jack Viney, 8. James Frawley, 10. Shannon Byrnes, 12. Colin Sylvia, 13. Jordie McKenzie, 14. Lynden Dunn, 15. David Rodan, 17. Sam Blease, 19. James Strauss, 20. Colin Garland, 21. Cameron Pedersen, 22. James Magner, 25. Tom McDonald, 26. Daniel Nicholson, 27. Tom Gillies, 28. Joel Macdonald, 30. James Sellar, 31. Jack Grimes, 32. Michael Evans, 34. Dean Kent, 36 Aaron Davey, 38. Jeremy Howe, 39. Neville Jetta, 40. Mark Jamar, 42. Jake Spencer, 45. Matt Jones, 46. Dean Terlich, 47. Tom Couch, 48. Jack Fitzpatrick
RICHMOND

1. Chris Newman, 3. Brett Deledio, 4. Dustin Martin, 5. Brandon Ellis, 6. Shaun Grigg, 7. Matt Dea, 8. Jack Riewoldt, 9. Trent Cotchin, 10. Shane Edwards, 11. Jake Batchelor, 12. David Astbury, 13. Ricky Petterd, 14. Bachar...

<p style='font: inherit;]Just finished rolling out the latest TS patch.
<p style='font: inherit;]
<p style='font: inherit;]Footnotes included Individual tickers on each player page, Individual tickers on the team pages, and well, the team pages!
<div>


Now. You might not have noticed, but you can actually click on players names on the stats page to drill into the player. When you do that now, you'll find that each player now has a ticker there.



Now, there is a little bit of data entry I need to do to get it up proper (namely, the rookies are all blank at the moment, but there will definitely be changes to other guys as well).



You can also click on the individual years in order to drill into them.



If you frequented the old TS, you probably clicked on a team image at one stage or another to begreeted with a lovely blankpage- well now, that page is chock full of stuff, including a full team list, ticker and other assorted goodies.



And if you frequent a fan forum for any particular team ,make sure you get it entered in!!



Check it out- as always, report the bugs.



(And just a quick dev list so you know what's in the work)
- Live pages
- Salary Calculators
- Team/Watchlist management (Including ORFFL)

In the great rollout that is TS, we've recently opened a couple of features from the old site, to the new one. Namely, theIndividual Player Stats pageand theTicker




The Player Stats page, is pretty much tried and true from last year. Click on a player on the actualStatspage, then click on the player you're after and bam! You're at their stats page.



Click again on any year for an indepth view. (Team and Individual games, while the link is there- are still a work in progress).



The Ticker once again, is back. This time though, the colour scales - so rather than 5 distinct colours at various intervals, it's all pretty and rainbowy this year.



Just a quickexplanation for how the ticker works. What we do, is determine how many points a particular team gives up, to a particular position, over the past [X] weeks- We then compare that to the league average against that position to know whether a team is leaking points there.



So taking a quick look, we can see that GCS and GWS have been leaking significantly more points than the rest of the league to opposition forwards.



The other big change to the ticker this year, is that we can now tweak [X] weeks. There's 3 options;
[span style='font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.3;]


[span style='font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.3;]Short term: Which uses data from the past 3 weeks.
[span style='font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.3;]Mid term: Which is what was used last year, which pulls data from the last 10 weeks.
[span style='font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.3;]Season: Which, as you might expect, rolls over a 23 week period.
[span style='font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.3;]


[span style='line-height: 1.3;]The main reason I wanted to get this change in is because last year, by the time the Ticker noticed that teams were leaking points to a position, it had been going on for much too long. The new,...

<p style='font: inherit;]Footy is officially back!
<p style='font: inherit;]
<p style='font: inherit;]Yes, it Mickey Mouse LIGHTNING ROUND stuff, and yes, it's not on free to air.
<p style='font: inherit;]
<p style='font: inherit;]But it's footy and it's back and it is being streamed on the AFL site.
<p style='font: inherit;]
<p style='font: inherit;]So, join us in theChatfor some general good times


And, if you have any comments, observations, fantasy developments- drop em in the comments here, least the chat eat them for all time.



:relton:



awwwww.