TooSerious

With teams having to select 8 midfielders in 2013, the midfielders priced at around $500K-$560K will most likely come into play again. Most teams will try stacking their midfields with as many premiums as possible but can you afford to have 5 midfielders priced at 620K+ and then try get quality team elsewhere? From early preseason talk, it seems most players are considering running 2 or 3 rookies as usual in midfield, as that is where all the big points are scored you don't want to fall behind 8-ball early on by playing too many rookies in there.
Today I decided to take a quick look at 2 midfielders priced at around $550K that have showed signs of big breakout year and could save you fair amount cash to use elsewhere.Whilst they probably arent technically 'mid-pricers' they fit the bill as breakout candidates and that what aim of these articles are about.

RORY SLOANE
2010: 75
2011: 88
2012: 106
2013 Price: $567K
In 2012 had somewhat of breakout season, which saw him top the ton on 12 occasions. In those 12 he had 5 scores over 120 including season high 178 against Fremantle in round 10. He was remarkably consistent; in further 5 games he scored over 86. That's 17 of his 21 games he scored over 86. The good thing about this is he has ton of improvement left in him and his 4 scores in 70's brings his price down to very tasty $567,000 in 2013.
Sloane is now entering his 5th season and is in the age bracket where they start to play their best football. Adelaide have really good draw and will be fighting it out deep in September so they should get good piece of the Supercoach pie.
Downside to Sloane is fact Adelaide has few star midfielders including Scott Thompson and Patrick Dangerfield who are likely to steal points off him. But keep in mind Scott Thompson isn't getting any younger and they might look to ease him back and let Sloane pick up the slack. Other good thing with star midfielders alongside is that they will get tagged before Sloane,...

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<p style='margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica;]Part V and we begin to move into the final 6. Not to denigrate or diminish the chances of those ORFFL clubs mentioned previously, but for mine these 3 clubs mentioned in this preview have seriously strong claims to the The Jar in 2013. If I wasn't the coach of who I'm the coach of, I would be scared.


<p style='margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica;]But I am and I'm not. Read on.[span style='line-height: 20px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;...

The AFL are running a third comp this year, sitting beside Dream Team and Elite. This one they are calling Match Day.

Not 100% sure if it's an every week thing, but they plan on running over 'a selection of blockbuster matches throughout the home and away season, plus all finals matches'

It's selecting 8 players from the 2 teams, 2 Defenders, 3 mids, 2 forwards and a ruck.

More details can be found here.

Souinds a hell of a lot like our old iScent competition, which for mine, was a hell of a lot of fun- so I reckon it'll get picked up by most Dream Team players who already have a stake in logging in anyways.

With new rule changes in Supercoach in 2013 which will see us only select 6 forwards on field each week it is going to become crucial that we select the right players from the start. One thing that is different this year is all the forward/rucks that have been added. I think the F/R’s are going to be more useful than the M/F’s this season and loading up with rucks and ruck/forwards could give you a real head start on rest of the competition. Why I hear you ask, well take a look below at the yearly averages from forwards and rucks from last year. (I’ve added in the new M/F’s for this year as a guide) Lance Franklin (F) – 115.50 Nic Nat (R/F) – 114.20 Ivan Maric (R)- 113.43 Aaron Sandilands (R)- 112.58 Dean Cox (R/F) – 112.27 Mathew Pavlich (F) – 111 Patrick Ryder (R/F) – 105.47 Ben McEvoy (R)- 104.19 Jarred Roughead (R/F) - 103.7 Sam Jacobs (R)- 102.10 Taylor Walker (F) – 100.19 Paul Chapman (M/F) – 100.10 Dayne Zorko (M/F) – 100 Jimmy Bartel (M/F) – 98.58 Cyril Rioli (M/F) – 98.55 Tom Rockliff (M/F) – 97.27 Jarred Waite (F) – 97.18 Stevie J (M/F)– 96.57 Dale Thomas (M/F) – 96.41 Jordan Lewis (M/F)– 95.95 Nick Riewoldt (F) – 95.89 David Hale (R/F) – 95.62 &#160; As you can see 8 of the top 10 are rucks or ruck/forwards. Only Lance Franklin and Mathew Pavlich were able to score as consistently as them. We have all seen the somewhat ridiculous amount point’s ruckman get from hit outs, which means even if they have a bad game they normally score 80-90 still. One tactic this year could see teams load up with Cox, Nic Nat, Ryder, Roughead in their forward lines and run 2 premium ruckman with couple cheap basement priced R/F that allows you to swing them into rucks if needed. You could also play under-priced Todd Goldstein &amp; Shane Mumford who both averaged 90-91 last year, which was remarkably down on their 113 averages in 2011. Not many forwards over the year have that much room for improvement. At the moment I’ll be running Cox, Roughie, Ryder in my forward...

Spurs v Man Utd 1-1
BAE came off the bench to help set up Dempsey's late equaliser, after RVP's 18 league goal of the season put Utd in front. RVP has now scored in 9 of his last 10 games.
Young was out injured but it still didn't afford Valencia a start. Evans is still injured while Rooney came on for the last 30mins.
Vertonghen dropped to the bench (illness)while Bale has fired blanks in 4 of his last 5 games.
Chelsea v Arsenal 2-1
Arsenal could've snatched a draw after a woeful first half where Mata and Lampard scored. Azpilicueta and Ramires with the assists. Flavour of the week Walcott scored from Cazorla's assist.
Torres started ahead of Ba as he put in another poor display while Mertesacker kept his place ahead of Koscielney. Giroud was CF as Walcott played on the wing.
West Ham v QPR 1-1
It was two new signings Joe Cole and Loic Remy who got on the scoresheet another new signing Chamakh also impressed.
Tomkins played with Collins out injured, Nolan's barren run continues. Nelsen again lined up for The R's while Cisse has gone on a wallet-fattening mission in Qatar until the end of the season.
Man City v Fulham 2-0
Fulham's desperate run continues with two wins in 14 and 1 CS in 15. They offered nothing here. Kacaniklic spent the game on the bench.
Zabaleta was taken off with an ankle injury but it shouldn't be too serious. Aguero played the last 10mins after his hamstring injury with Tevez and Dzeko again starting. Silva was the hero with both goals.
Newcastle v Reading 1-2
Three wins in 18 now for Newcastle as they find themselves in a relegation dog fight. Pardew had his pants pulled down by Remy's late u-turn to join QPR. Cisse could've scored a hat-trick but it was Cabaye who scored before coming off with a groin complaint.
Le Fondre came off the bench to bag a brace as Reading notched a come-from-behind win for the second consecutive game. Harte continues to get a gig at LB.
Liverpool v Norwich 5-0
Henderson, Suarez,...

<p style='text-align: center;]Mid-Price Madness: Potential 2013 Breakout Players
<p style='text-align: center;]By TigersTooTough


Following on from last week's first piece in this series by Stkildathunda, I have put down a little bit on a few players that can potentially breakout this season. Mid-Pricers are always tough to judge, if you are going down that path, and some solid information is needed when trying to find a diamond in the rough. Instead of looking at proven players that are mid-priced due to injury (eg Bock), I have chosen a few players that you may not be thinking about putting in your team, but should at least be in some thoughts. There's a little bit of a Tiger flavour in this, but with a definite finals campaign coming up, it'd be silly to not expect plenty of SuperCoach points going to us

We are two months away from the real season but the NAB Cup is important to the serious fantasy coaches to keep an eye on player roles and what not. Exciting times are coming!!

Anyways, thanks to SKT for letting me put together a little something together and trying something out on the new site. Enjoy!!

Reece Conca(Rich)
$376 600
(2012 Avg. 70.3)
MID: The former No. 6 draft pick played 18 matches last season which is good for a young player. He came to the Tigers with plenty of wraps about him and he has definitely showen signs of what's to come. He mainly played across the defence but didn't do as much rebounding as expected. He averaged 19 possessions which is okay for a player of his experience.

His disposal was a bit of an issue last year. He ranked 15th in the AFL for clangers which isn't a list that you want to be too high on. A positive though is the fact he likes to kick more than handball which is rewarded in SuperCoach.

I expect Conca to be pushing into the midfield more this season and hopefully play as an outside running player alongside the likes of Deledio...

Linsanity 17&#160;&#160; (2-10)&#160;&#160;&#160; 1296&#160;&#160; v&#160;&#160; Anthak&#160; (7-5)&#160;&#160; 1170
The clash between the ex league manager and the current league manager was a hard fought affair with Linsanity coming out on top due to playing 5 games more.&#160; DMC was the best for Linsanity with (207/4), followed by Vucevic (162/4) and Allen (122/4).&#160; LBJ only played 3 games this round but was still able to score 230 pts&#160; and the next best were Lillard (127/3) and Kobe (117/3). &#160; King of Karlos (7-5)&#160;&#160; 1502&#160;&#160; v&#160;&#160; Wade Machine (5-7)&#160;&#160; 1097
Karlos got off to a strong start on day one of this matchup and was able to score a convincing win over Wade Machine.&#160; It now looks like Wade Machine will need a miracle to make the finals.&#160;&#160; The leading scorers for Karlos were Boozer (187/4),&#160; Nelson (186/4) and Walker (162/4).&#160;&#160; Wade (128/3) led the way for Wade Machine this week followed by Barnes (128/4) and Evans (131/4) &#160; Adelaide Maggotz (4-7-1)&#160;&#160; 1210&#160;&#160; v&#160; Fudge’s Sixers&#160;&#160; (2-11)&#160;&#160; 1116
The Maggotz desperately needed this win to avoid going into a relegation battle and were able to get the win.&#160; Harden was the best with (142/4), Faried (136/4) and Okafor (124/4).&#160; Fudge is now facing an uphill battle to avoid relegation and Carter (144/4) was the best this week followed by Dirk (122/4) and Delfino (112/4). &#160; Ruddy’s Cavaliers (6-6)&#160;&#160; 1597&#160;&#160; v&#160; Run TMC (5-6-1)&#160;&#160; 1247
My spies tell me that Owen got married on the weekend which could explain why his team has been struggling over the past few weeks.&#160; Congratulations on the wedding mate!&#160; Ruddy showed no mercy this week and was the leading scorer for this round.&#160; Durant scored a whopping 287 pts from 4 games and was ably supported by Wall...

As some of you guys would already know, last week I was privileged enough to attend the AFLPA's Induction Camp.

Lucky enough to rub shoulders with the best and brightest talent entering the league (And a fair number of former champs).

The day was broken up into 4 distinct sections- the first two consisting of 8 workshops, followed by a panel and keynote speaker, finally finishing in a bit of a workshop.

I'm not going to cover all 8 workshops in depth, as there was a lot of player specific 'you-just-got-into-the-AFLPA-here's-what-you-need-to-know' kind of stuff, but a couple were pretty damn interesting.

The most interesting for mine was Setbacks. Presented by Nathan Brown, it revolved a lot around that horrid leg break that he picked up in 2005, but went on to describe just how difficult and lonely it is to rehabilitate such a long term injury.

He then went on to discuss the various other types of Setbacks that an AFL footballer can expect to deal with. All in all, a good talk.

Tom Steinfort, reporter for channel 9 took a workshop to cover Social and Personal Responsibility.

To sum it up in a nutshell, it's super important to have an on-line presence to interact with us fan, but it's just as important to not be, or say, stupid things!

Common sense stuff really, but it's always fun to catch a few disaster stories. (*cough*Stephie Rice*cough*)

Toby Thurstans and Ed Lower shared a presentation on Off Field Development, essentially sharing their divergent stories where one took advantage of the training and access that the AFLPA provided, leading to a stepping stone int a career after football, which the other- obviously didn't.

I'll let you guess who as who.

Of course, one of the biggest underlying messages through the entire day was that playing football is a job. Not a career. That the average life span of an AFL footballer is just 4.8 years. And that is a massive part of what the AFL provides- the ability to continue with a...

When it comes to Supercoach there are 2 basic strategies you use, Guns and Rookies or Mid-Pricers. The majority of coaches go for the guns and rookies approach as it seems to be the most successful strategy for those going for overall honours. Over the years I've tried both and have found for those that are only concentrating on their league that the midpricers is way to go.

What I thought I'd do over next few weeks/months or for however long it takes me to get sick of writing these, is to highlight potential breakout players to keep close eye on over the preseason for those considering going the mid-price strategy. Let's be honest, everyone basically knows what to expect from the premium players. Gazza, Swan, Pendles, Watson will all score you 115+ every week so there really isn't any point me trying to talk you into those players.

The aim of these is to give you wider range of players to consider, not just the big names. Also thought would try get something up to try bringing some discussion to this awesome new Too Serious!

JACK WATTS
2012 Average: 86
2013 Price: $460,100



I hear you all asking, Jack Watts? Really? Before you completely right him off consider this. In 7 games from Round 8 to 15 last year he averaged 103. During that time he had 3 scores over 100 (150, 111, 104) and his other 4 scores were 99, 84, 87 & 80. I'll be honest here, I'm not an avid follower of Melbourne but from memory these score increases coincided with his move to the backline and this is where he actually looked like a real footballer.

Watts played 15 games in 2012 and scored over 80 in 9 of them. He also had 4 scores in the 70's. His two low scores (52 & 44) came which just happened to be game he got injured in and also his return game from injury.

In 2013 Jack Watts can be selected as Fwd/Def which will give you some added flexibility if you decide to take the gamble. If Melbourne decide to use him in defence than I can...

QPR v Spurs 0-0 Julio Cesar’s outstanding double save from Defoe and Adebayor helped to end Spurs record of scoring in every away game this season. Redknapp probably knows better than most how to keep Bale quiet and it showed. An excellent display from QPR’s back four that at the moment still includes Ryan Nelsen. While Taarabt was again deployed as the main striker. BAE, Caulker and Dempsey were all on the bench. Aston Villa v Southampton 0-1 DGW’ers Saints took the points thanks to Ricky Lambert’s controversial penalty as Villa plummeted into the relegation zone. Rodriguez claimed the assist with a blatant dive which now extends Saints impressive run with only two losses in 11 league games. Boruc continued in goals, while Shaw came off injured and is doubtful for the Chelsea match. Villa are in strife and continue to struggle to score, especially when Benteke can’t find the target. Stoke v Chelsea 0-4 A surprise result here but a very welcome one with many stocking up on DWG’ers Chelsea. Mata was again instrumental with three assists. Walters even more so with a missed penalty and two OG’s. Hazard scored a belter and Lampard scored a penalty. Mata owners will hope he’ll start v Soton after getting subbed halfway through the second half. Cahill was missing for the birth of his baby while JT came on a second half sub after weeks out with injury. Chelsea have now only conceded two goals in five league matches while the previously water-tight Potters defence has now conceded 10 in 3 games. Fulham v Wigan 1-1 Fulham have had a mostly disappointing season but have looked their most dangerous with Berbatov up top and Ruiz tucked in. Frustratingly Jol decided to put in Petric at CF and drop Ruiz back to CM with Berba tucked in. Riise again sat on the bench replaced by Richardson. Karagounis scored for The Cottagers. Wigan were the better team with Di Santo capping a fine...