TooSerious

For those who take it way too seriously

The choice of captains in Supercoach became a difficult exercise during 2010 and moreso last season. Gone were the days of everyone picking Gary Ablett Jnr in their Supercoach team at the start of the season and everyone locking him in as captain every single week.
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Flashback: Round 5, 2008 – Sydney versus Geelong. Ablett had scored 115 in each of his two previous games and was going to be tagged in this game by Kieran Jack. Put the captaincy on Ablett or someone else? History shows that Ablett went on to score a mammoth 254 SC points. Since that moment, for the next season or so, Ablett became everyone’s permanent captain. (A popular alternate choice as captain for that round was Luke Hodge (who had the second best average in 2008). Sadly for those who selected Hodge that round, he only managed 89 SC points against Brisbane).

Ablett would finish the 2008 season averaging 132. His closest rivals were Hodge who averaged 118 and Bartel who averaged 116. In 2009, there was a similar story. Ablett’s average for the season increased to 140 and his nearest rivals were Montagna with 126 and Swan with 123. The “perma-captain” was still alive and well.

In 2010, the field was evened. Ablett averaged 130 for the season but so did Goddard. Swan averaged 127 with the next best being Judd with 119. Last year, 2011, Ablett did not have the highest average for the year. His average of 127 was second to Pendlebury with 129. Cox and Swan both averaged 122.

For the 2011 season, the “perma-captain” was no more. This point was emphasised with Ablett not being picked in many teams prior to the season starting due to the uncertainty of his scoring potential with the Gold Coast Suns.

This season, with the absence of any perma-captain, we have to look for other factors to assist us in picking our captains. The main determining factors include: recent form, form against an opponent, and whether the particular player is likely to be on a winning team. In my...
[span style="">In my previous articles I provided a run-down of the players at Alberton from the main defence training group in part 1, and the midfield training group in part 2. In this, the 3rd instalment of the series, I will scrutinise the players in the forwards training group and then put the rucks under the microscope. So without further ado, I present part 3 of the Port Adelaide Update.<!--more-->[span style="font-weight:bold">Forwards Group[span style="">The main forward group at Alberton, training under the experienced eye of assistant coach Gary Hocking, comprises the following players – [span style="font-style:italic">Brendon AhChee; Mitch Banner; John Butcher; Brett Ebert; Cameron Hitchcock; Ben Newton; Simon Phillips; Jay Schulz; Daniel Stewart; Justin Westhoff; Chad Wingard; Aaron Young; Jarrad Irons (r); Daniel Webb (r).[span style="">As to be expected at an AFL club, several of these players have also spent time training with either the defence, midfield or ruck groups, with several members of those groups also training occasionally with the forward group.[span style="">
Port Adelaide’s forward group want to be a super competitive unit in everything they do in 2012. As a group, they made a decision at the start of pre-season training by “drawing a line in the sand” and put together a set of key values to define how they wanted to be perceived. These values are about accountability to each other and the team, and they are focussed as a group and determined to be a competitive force on the training track and out on the field. Be it training, weights or pilates, they just want to be able to physically challenge the backs in a contest. This competitive determination, as with the defence group, was best demonstrated earlier in the pre-season with the much publicised stoush between Schulz &amp; Trengove. Gary Hocking recalls his time at Geelong where Cam Mooney &amp; Matt Scarlett got involved in a bit of biffo on the track now and then and he says,...
Weve left it a bit late, but its time for the donors to pick the starting team for UCantBeTooSerious MK2. For those that dont know, we had a team last year where all decisions related to it were collectively decided by the TS Donors and it was a lot of fun and really interesting. If anyone is interested in reading a review of last season, head over <a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-season-review" target="_blank">HERE[/url] and have a look see, but in short, we finished 737th overall and won a couple of grannies (although highest OA was always our aim).

This team is just one of the many benefits you get for donating to TS - the other big ones being extra viewable rows on the stats page (a whole team at once! :) ), access to the Donor Forum, and less ads. <a href="http://tooserious.net/donate.php" target="_blank">If you want to donate, click on the DONATE tab up next to the FORUM one, or click anywhere on this text ;) .[/url]

Head over the break for details about the coming season and how you can help to set up the team:::::::::::::

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Unfortunately for me, I dont have time to facilitate this team this season; however JPK has committed to facilitating the weekly discussions and decision making and shanaz has committed to doing the weekly changes to the team. A HUGE thank you to both of you! I reckon its fantastic that this team can continue on for another year.

Before handing over the reigns though, I will be setting the team up this week.

I have made an executive decision (I think the 2nd since starting this team haha) to keep the same team name, so now we just gotta pick our starting players.

We are gonna go with a similar method to last season as it worked really well. Its really quick and easy - much quicker and easier than posting which players you think we should have.

Whether you are a Donor or not, you will be able to participate in this process, so im not gonna let the cat out of the bag here in...
Supercoach Season Preview 2012 - St Kilda

2012 Supercoach Player Ranking Chart

<a href="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/StKilda_SC2012.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-5231" src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/StKilda_SC2012.jpg" alt="" width="484" height="605" />[/url]

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2012 List Analysis:

St Kildas list is WYSIWYG.   You know you will get a lot of quality in the older guys, and a bit of a patchwork quilt about the youth.

Its this factor that makes the Saints a hard team to judge this year.   Looking at their top end quality, there is reason to suggest that on their day they can beat any team in the competition.   The problem is that the best form isnt always there from each of these players for whatever reason, be it age or temperament, and the guys who have to patch the gaps just havent been good enough, an unfortunate side-effect of short-term drafting for a flag.

This season I see Watters working with what hes been comfortable with at Collingwood.  Relentless forward pressure.  Nothing new for the Saints, but at least his open and fresh approach will lift what has been an unfortunate burden on this club under Ross Lyon.  There will be less "us against them" attitude, and though it might hurt them in the short term, in the long run, their players will find turning up to work a lot more enjoyable, and I think that will actually translate to good results.

St Kildas list rating is 44 and a depth of 21.  The list rating is 4th in the league, and depth 8th.  By this measure, and because of a nice early run of matches to get their groove going, I see St Kilda making the 8 again this year.  That means 12-13 wins.   Unless they sort out their KPDs though, thats as far as the journey goes.<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/wordpress/img/trans.gif" alt="" />

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So, last night I managed to sneak along to the HUNs offices to check out their latest, slightly contriversial offering, the behind the paywall, <a href="http://live-footy.heraldsun.com.au/matchpredictor/index/20120120120140101">Live HQ[/url]

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So anyways, the HUN put on a bit of a do, invited a bunch of figures in the online space, a little bit of nosh went alright, then sat us down to take us through the product.

Im gunna break here, the vast majority of what I want to write has been covered very well by the folk at SCTalk, so check out their <a href="http://supercoachtalk.com/superfooty-live-hq/">article[/url] on it first.

Its alright, Ill wait til you get back.

Still reading?

Cools.

Anyways, for my take on it, its mostly pretty standard for what youd expect, stats, a bit of user interaction, and your SuperCoach team plugged in live. Which is nice.

For mine though, the absolute hero of the piece, was the live, play-by-play reporting on what each action is scoring, highlighting of course, when its your player doing the scoring.

Now of course, we know that scores in the first quarter can be altered by what happens later on in the game, so the value of this is always going to be a little questionable - and I reckon the HUN are going to deal with a bunch of question from people asking why their players score has gone down for not doing anything - but for something to run side by side with your usual online viewing I definitely think it can add to the experience.

For me, Ill be firing up the 2 month free trial and seeing how it goes - I mean it all comes down to a personal preference on how much value it adds to your experience, and if after that, the $3 a week isnt worth it, its easy enough to just not follow through with it.

So yeah, while I still love a free internets, it will be interesting to see how this works out for them - particularly when it hits round 12 and people are dropping out of the hunt for the overall...
This season has flown. Last year we had 20 teams and therefore 19 rounds of regular season games; whereas with only 12 in each league this season, we have 8 less games for our regular season. And its done now. There was a dramatic final day today with finals spots and relagation spots still not decided until todays games finished.

The highest scorer this week was a good story - LiQuiD_SiXx (in division 1) was the only team across all three leagues that went into this round still a chance for relegation and also still a chance to make the playoffs, and he rose to the occasion scoring a whopping 1830 and booked his place in the playoffs. The highest scoring loser this week was almost the team against him with 1609, but maxweas managed to lose with a score of 1616 in Division 2 - and a win would have seen him make the playoffs, as the loss left him in 7th spot. The closest game of the round also ties into this result as joellamerton lost to brettmarinovich by just 6 points - they are good mates and JL only needed a win to clinch 6th spot but couldnt do it when youd think a mate may have given them the win, but as it turned out, another of their good mates was the one that beat maxweas and allowed joellamerton to make the playoffs with his close loss. The lowest score of the week went to Walesy in Premier League, coming the week after his 2nd win of the season.

Some interesting points of note to take from the regular season... Firstly, probably the biggest news is that last years champ - dabombers - has found himself in the relegation zone after finishing on a 5 game losing streak. Fez (in Div 1) finished as the only undefeated team and easily had the most points for across all 3 leagues with almost 1000 more than the next closest - HEAVER in Premier league. Interestingly those two were the highest scorers in their respective leagues and finished 1st; however the highest scorer in Div2 was smokinjoemisiti and he could only manage 6 wins and 5th spot on the...
Last year, you might remember, <a href="http://tooserious.net/from-inside-the-world-of-champion-data">Champion Data allowed us to ask them questions[/url], answering honestly and revealing quite a bit about what goes on behind the curtain.

Well, theyve done it again, allowing us to ask some more of what goes on, and to clear up some of the little things that have been on our minds.

As with last year, a massive thanks to Karl Jackson, one of the statisticians at Champion Data for doing this.
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TS: We saw a massive change in the scoring of rucks last year, due to the sub rule and some tinkering on CDs part to their formula. Will that remain the same this year or will their be some adjustments.

KJ: No change to the formula this year, so as long as the number one ruck keeps playing high game time, numbers will stay high.

TS: Looking at the "scoring model" on the SuperCoach site, it looks like the value of clangers has changed from last year (ie: Its now -6 for a clanger handball, rather than a flat -4 for any clanger). Is this something thats happened on your end? Or just the SuperCoach site catching up to previous changes?

KJ: This was just the SuperCoach site not being updated. Changes have now been made.

TS: In the prospectus, weve notice numerous mentions of "pressure acts", are you able to elaborate on that? and do they effect ones SuperCoach scores?

KJ: Pressure Acts are when you put the opposition ball-carrier under pressure by either making physical contact or by reducing their decision making time by corralling, closing in on them or by chasing from behind. At this stage these do not affect SuperCoach scores, since the majority of pressure acts that are “effective” are rewarded by a tackle or smother. They may be included in future seasons.

TS: Will there be any attempt to look at the "burn rate" of midfield possessions that lead directly to the hot...
Supercoach Season Preview 2012 - Sydney

2012 Supercoach Player Ranking Chart

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2012 List Analysis:

Leading up to playing one of the most important matches the code has experienced in over 100 seasons, the Sydney Swans have remarkably gone under the radar again.  They are well coached, have a great bunch of young players ready to take the next step through probably the 2nd best drafting team in the business (after Geelong, on par with Collingwood), and must be itching to get stuck into their cross-town rivals at ANZ Stadium this Saturday night.   They will flog them the first time to show who is boss.   Not so sure in 3 years time, but given both sides I see as being on the up, we could see some classic AFL matches in Sydney for years to come.  Music to the ears of all ex-pat Victorians living as "Yankees".

Sydney will need to change their style to incorporate more of their younger players this season, and it may come at the expense of victories and SuperCoach points, but it is essential that they find out the true potential of players such as Parker, Gordon, Rohan and Dennis-Lane before other teams poach them offering game time.

Sydneys list rating is 42 and they have a depth of 20   This places them 7th for their best 22, and 10th in terms of depth.   It means they are about on par with Richmond as a list goes.  What is unseen in all these ratings is the list of players ready to go to the next level, and also the importance of a winning culture.  Sydney has this in bucketloads, Richmond is building their own foundations from scratch.

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While we have the <a href="http://tooserious.net/forum/afl-group2/rmt-forum14">RMT Forum[/url] these days, one of the things weve done in these parts, now that the NAB is complete and we have a very good picture of what we need to know, is to create the Rate My Team megathread!

The thread where anyone and everyone can post their current teams and get some solid advice from the others that inhabit this fine part of the internets.

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.

Ill get the ball rolling over the break with a team that may or may not be or have been my team...

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Goddard, Deledio, Shaw, Duffield, Hargrave, Bower, Ellis (Darley, Morris)
Pendlebury, Ablett, Murphy, Stevens, Ledger, Shiel (Magner, McDonald)
Cox, Jacobs (Giles, Stephenson)
Franklin, Fyfe, Gray, Dangerfield, Ballantyne, Porplyzia, Smith (Kerridge, Hall)

Oh, and feel free to make liberal use of the thumb ups thumb downs in this thread, but if you do need to give a thumb down, try to add a little constructive critisism on why. It doesnt pay to get downvoted to oblivion without any idea on why its bad!
Supercoach Season Preview 2012 - Port Adelaide

2012 Supercoach Player Ranking Chart

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2012 List Analysis:

Port Adelaide has a middling list.   The midfield doesnt have a great deal of quality, but it is deep.  This is helpful, as in defence and the forward line, there are still big holes that need to be filled.

Matthew Primus is a much loved person at Port Adelaide, but he will need to work very hard to get this team challenging for a top 8 berth this year.  The introduction of the new teams just when Port was bottoming out and in need of fresh talent was unfortunate - but probably was able to have been avoided had there been smarter list management.

For Port to improve, they really need to get that list of midfielders and break a few off into defence and forward roles, define them, and empower them to play hard, aggressive, Port style football.  Port have always been an aggressive abrasive side at their best in the SANFL, and they need all of that and more for the next few years as they build a culture to stand the test of time in the competitive AFL.

Port Adelaides list rating is 31 and they have a depth of 20.   This places them 16th for their best 22, and 10th in terms of depth.   The way for them to challenge for the 8 is to get that depth working for them.   10th appears about the limit for this team, but no one told West Coast they couldnt play a Preliminary Final so soon after a wooden spoon, and Port should be encouraging themselves that Micks Premiership Clock doesnt always apply on the rebuild side - the clock can be fast-tracked.
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