TooSerious

For those who take it way too seriously

Welcome all to the pre-season wrap-up of the Best Buys.

Over the break youll find a summary of the most fantasy-relevant players from each team (in my opinion), excepting Sydney and GWS after covering them last week.
As it is the pre-season the summaries are quite short and there are plenty of them. I have used the official SC scores from NAB rounds 2, 3 and 4 as these were the "full-match" games and provide the best estimation of current form. During the regular season Best Buys will be a lot more focussed, and contain more details on less players. The pre-season edition is designed to give you a wide array of potential players for your team and make selecting a few smokies a little easier. As always the key to the article is in the thumbs, so join me over the break for more.

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After a long off-season I have to say, Im bloody glad to be getting the NAB out of the way and moving onto the real stuff. With the partial lock-out last week we have the chance to re-assess our line-ups and patch up a couple of glaring holes that may have arisen, and should put most teams in good stead for the lock-out proper. This means the thumbs are more important than ever, and gives us a great chance to see what people think are the best ways to shore up our squads. As always if you have a selection dilemma, put it to the vote! Yes-no questions work best for the format and can provide some valuable insight into how the community of TS see your current choices. EG "Pendlebury (thumbs-up)or Ablett (thumbs-down)?" gives people a chance to let you know what they think without having to fully review your squad and is a great help to many. So for any queries about your squad, chuck em below, and see what TS reckons. Good luck all in the upcoming games, and Im looking forward to your company over what promises to be a ripper season.

DEFENCE
ROOKIES
Sam Shaw (ADE) DEF 113k
Sam Shaw is one of two rookie Sams at the Crows, and both seem to be similar...
Supercoach Season Preview 2012 - Western Bulldogs

2012 Supercoach Player Ranking Chart

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2012 List Analysis:

Western Bulldogs went into the 2010 team as the premiership favourites.  They made regular Preliminary Finals.  They were a very respected team.   Unfortunately, they have slipped recently, and its not considered to be any chance at all of premiership success this season, nor are given a realistic chance of making the finals.

Im not sure where they are in the rebuild, but one thing I am certain of is that they will need to get Brian Lake (and another quality tall defender) up and firing.   And a tall forward stepping up will be very important.   Liam Jones, your time is now.

It appears McCartney is going to have a chip and charge game similar to Hawthorn used by their team.  All very well to go slowly into the forward line if you have Roughead, Franklin, Hale and Rioli.   Another thing altogether when you have Giansiracusa as your only premium forward, and his best football is behind him.  Im thinking it will take a few years for the McCartney game style to bed in successfully.

The Bulldogs list rating is 32 and they have a depth of 16.  This places them 14th for their best 22, and 17th in terms of depth.   This means that the pundits placement of the Dogs in the lower half of the ladder is bang on target in relation to the list.   The Dogs with little depth will be needing to blood youngsters.  This offers a likely opportunity for players such as Clay Smith, Zephaniah Skinner, Tory Dickson, and maybe a few others.

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While we still have the <a href="http://tooserious.net/forum/afl-group2/rmt-forum14">RMT Forum[/url] these days, last weeks RMT thread was well and truely smashed.

Considering the majority of our teams are still potentially up in the air, it only seems right to crack the thread open for a do-over.

So if youre interested in getting your team a once over from many others (or yanno, youre just interested in a sneaky peek at some decent teams), jump in and have a looksee.
We had an awesome first round of playoffs this week and now we are down to 4 teams in each league. We had two games (out of 6) decided by less than 5 points and both winners were the teams that finished the regular season lower on the ladder out of the two sides. A week ago, there was a bit of discussion whether the 5 point headstart for the team with better reg season record was enough or not - most arguing the later. If the headstart was larger, the two losers may well have won, so its something to consider for next season. Last season we ran a couple of votes to decide how much the headstart should be and 5 points was what was voted in by the 20 league members.

I am going to exclude the teams that had the bye from the following records as it would take too long for me to add up their scores for the week. The highest score came from a team that didnt make the finals - well done to Cobra_Magic, of division 2, for your score of 1728, which was the only score above 1700 for the week. The highest scoring loser was joellamerton, also of Div 2, with a score of 1601, which would have won all other finals bar 1. The lowest score out of all finalists was nicksnow, again from Div 2, with 1072 - maybe he forgot that we had playoffs, or there was match fixing going on :mrgreen: It was actually a lower score than all teams that didnt make the finals as well. As mentioned above, there were 2 extremely close games this week... In Div 1, LiQuiD_SiXx pipped bgt2110 by just 4 points; however that was trumped in the Premier League where Owen beat chris88 and smittys07 by the smallest of margins - just 1 point! I dont think we have had a margin of just 1 point all season - full on for it to happen in the playoffs. And a big thank you to the teams involved for giving <a href="http://tooserious.net/ts-fantasy-nba-playoffs-are-here#comments" target="_blank">updates throughout the day today[/url] as well. I loved reading them as I was not able to watch the fantasy cast today....
WOOHOO!!!

Well, sort of. Yes, its the launch, but its not the OMG, Lock it in and let everyone else know how awesome your team is launch.

Still, it is awesome, so make you you join us in the live chat tonight for some good ol fashioned footy talk.

The link pops down at the top of the screen there, or you can just <a href="http://tooserious.net/live_scores.php?page=gameday&id=10250966&process=live">Click here[/url]
TS Best Buys?  Nope, you read it correctly: TS Best Bets is a new addition to the TS Community that will feature the best offerings in the market for AFL based wagers each week.  Many of you out there like to put a lazy $20 on the nose or in a 5 leg multi each week, and this post is designed to help you with your selections.

The m-far-sis will be on statistics, taking out the bias and personal opinion as much as possible, and promote discussion on where the best value can be found.  Given there is only one game this weekend, and the result is already guaranteed (or is it???), this first edition will focus on many of the season-long bets that are on offer: who will be premiers?, make the top 4?, the wooden spoon - and of course the individual medals and this weeks game are there too.

See you over the break!

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2012 Premiership Winner

Past 5 winners:

2011 - Geelong
2010 - Collingwood
2009 - Geelong
2008 - Hawthorn
2007 - Geelong

To win a premiership - you have to be strong in all areas of the ground.  Geelong have been able to take out 3 of the last 5 cups with the only deficiency being an elite tall forward, yet their goal-kicking midfielders and plethora of elite small forwards was about to counter this.  Collingwood have been strong in all parts of the ground over the last 2 years, whilst the Hawks poor ruck division is a key factor in them only making 1 GF throughout this period.

The captains have rated Hawthorn and West Coast the most likely teams to make the grand final, yet the agencies still see it as a three horse race between the 3 teams who have shared the cup over the last 5 years.  For the Pies ($3.50), they have the downside of a new coach - although Geelong have proved that this isnt necessarily a downfall after taking home the cup in Chris Scotts first year.  The Pies also won the flag in the year before last (as Geelong did in 2009), yet they didnt have to lose their number 1 player (again - this has to be an...
Its been a bit of a rush job this week trying to get this out as Ive had some..ahem..studying to do the last few days, but its all taken care of now..I think! Anyway join me over the break for a preview of this weekends games...<!--more-->

Arsenal v Villa

Five weeks ago Arsenal were 12 points behind Spurs now they’re ahead of them and up to third place. No small thanks to Vermaelen who has twice popped up to score the winner. RVP assisted for the Everton winner which is now his 36th goal or assist of the league season.

Arsenal now have a great chance to consolidate a place in the top four with a home game against Villa, while Chelsea and Spurs face off at Stanford Bridge.

Villa – on past performances- will be happy to sit back and hit on the break, which is where Arsenal have often been vulnerable, but three points to the home team should surely be a formality.

Arsenal have no new injury problems while N’Zogbia is doubtful.

Chelsea v Spurs

Chelsea will consider themselves unlucky to lose at Man City after conceding two late goals. Still, nobody has picked up so much as a point there this year. Before that game, Di Matteo had won four games on the bounce, the whole time rotating the squad in a way that would make SAF and Mancini blush.

Spurs have been on a horrible run ever since Redknapp has been linked to the England job. It shows how much of a poisoned chalice the job is that it’s affecting things before he’s even taken it. They managed a point against Stoke after a late VDV goal. Adebayor remains doubtful which could see VDV moved back into the middle where he belongs. Terry  is back for Chelsea, while Ivanovic will most likely miss out.

Liverpool v Wigan

Coates – the half Uruguayan/half Scot (no seriously) – scored an<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj9umu0H5hI"> outrageous goal[/url] against QPR that showcased his Scottish side. It really was an absolute peach of a  goal but was in vain as his defence let in three goals...
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OMG, its like finally here! The opening bounce of the first-ever ORFFL Premiership Season! Im more excited than Big Kev (may god rest his giant bones)! Join us over the break for match previews, instructions on how to enter your line-up and ever, ever so much more!
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First of all, I dont think Ive used that many exclamation marks in a paragraph since last week. Apologies. That must have been very arresting for you.

Secondly, some house-keeping. Yes, there was an ORFFL Challenged Cup GF played on the weekend. However, in true pre-season comp fashion, Ive decided to change the rules for the last week. Why? The answer is two-fold. Scraping DT/100 stats off Freako is a pain in the arse for me to do, and perhaps more importantly, no one gives a proverbial about DT/100 now that the "fine people" at the HUN have released SC scores for the NAB Cup. So taking these two factors into consideration, Ive decided to do the scoring on Best 15 SC basis. And the winner is…

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Warburton Wanderers 1340 Def. Torrumbarry Thunda 1324

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Congratulations EV! May it be the first piece in a cabinet of silverware!

Commiserations SKT! May the pain of losing fuel your premiership dreams!

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Thank god thats over with though, now onto the real thing. Walesy, techno-wizard and all round top-bloke that he is, has set up a page so that we can put in our line-ups each week. What a guy! <a title="Click here to pick your 15" href="http://tooserious.net/ORFFL.php">http://tooserious.net/ORFFL.php[/url]

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And just to remind everyone, if you want to field (including emergencies) a Sydney or GWS player this week, you have to pick them BEFORE SC LOCKOUT. You cannot select them after theyve played.

Secondly, if you do not pick a team at all, you will receive no points. Further to that, there may be some AndyD/STrigg like discussions about your ongoing role...
Wow, it doesnt feel right typing that! Can you believe that in just a few short days, the 2012 season will be kicking off!!

Bloody pumped!!!

So lets fire up the ol team chat and get it on!
Welcome once again to the Best Buys.
Its a little bit late this week due to the SC scores only coming out yesterday, and just to make sure tha masses have some more info on the guys in this weekends game, Ive decided to do a brief Sydney Special. I will have a look at 15 or so of the better options for The Giants and throw in a few Swans while Im at it.
Next week there will be a full NAB wrap-up (excluding GWS and Sydney) but for our look into the Sydney-siders join me over the break.

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The stats used here are quite basic and meant as an indicator of form over anything else. All aspects should be considered when selecting your starting line-up but hopefully some of what is here should help. The "dollars per point" rating is provided by the HUN and is based on the players price divided by their average over the full NAB cup games. It does not take into account TOG or substitutions so if considering a player a little more research is recommended.

These players are listed in order of the HUN released "dollars per point" stat starting at the top, meaning that the higher the player is listed the better value for money they appear to be from their average over the 3 full-game NAB rounds.

Tomas Bugg (GWS) DEF $113k
Bugg missed NAB 2 but played well in 3 and 4, scoring 58 and 87 points respectively. The fact that he did only play the two games means he has the highest average for any GWS rookie priced at $113k, which as a defender this makes him almost a must have for your team. Should get plenty of games (for a GWS player) and should be able to score consistently well. Lock.

Devon Smith (GWS) FWD/MID $131k
Smith has impressed many with scores of 89 and 74 in his two games, which as a GWS forward is even better. The ball may not be in the forward line that much this year but runs through the midfield should help with his output. Best forward option from the Giants based on pre-season form.

Anthony Miles (GWS) MID...