TooSerious

Alright, its had a few teething issues, but I reckon our end-o-lockout process is now looking like it should be working well.

So Ive just got a couple of pointers from around the site to remind you all of:

<a href="http://tooserious.net/brownlow.php">The brownlow tool[/url]: If you want to jump in with the fun of the brownlow, you should head over and <a href="http://tooserious.net/brownlow.php">enter in your tips[/url]- Holey will be doing his post soon, so youll want to get in quick! (And hey, keeping a log of your votes is much easier done the week you watched the games). And just to remind you all, we cleaned up with the bookies on this thing last year, so it could certainly pay to get involved! (ps- gamble responsibly, etc).
<!--more-->
<a href="http://tooserious.net/leagues.php">The Leagues[/url]: We pulled in our first batch of leagues tonight and it looks pretty good. Theres still a number of issues with the page, but on a whole, it looks pretty good. Remember though, you want to <a href="http://tooserious.net/leagues.php">get your leagues entered in ASAP[/url] (or at least before round 2 finishes), cause we need to track it from day one. One question that was raised, how do I get a tid? Well, if you go into your league, and hold your mouse over your opposition, the link that it goes to looks something like this- http://supercoach.heraldsun.com.au/?p=other_teams&lid=1&tid=11. If you read that, you can see that for that team, the tid=11. Just enter the 11 in.

<a href="http://tooserious.net/stats.php?sort=break_even&desc=asc">Breakevens[/url]: Just a reminder, breakevens dont come out until next week, but it couldnt hurt to take a looksee at which rookies look to be heading in the right direction.

Trading: Firstly, unless you have the Browndog, the Frenchman, or one of the other LTIs, just sit on your hands this week. If you disagree and reckon you have a trade that you just *need* to do, drop in a comment and well...

Wow. How strange that 3 of the quarter finals had so much symmetry - the favourites starting strong, before their opponents put up massive scores down the stretch to jump in front on the last day today.

And they were our top 3 seeds that lost! Owen, Karlos and Heaver - you have all had really great seasons... And jasmine as well.   There were 5 teams that really set the pace all year, and now Micka is the only one left.

Ill jump straight into it this week - over the break are the reviews and previews as usual ::::

<!--more-->

Playoffs Week 1:

#8 <a title="Wade Machine (Daniel Laengst)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=23530&amp;teamId=15&amp;seasonId=2011" target="_top">Wade Machine[/url] 1400 v #1 <a title="Run TMC (Owen Beebe)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=23530&amp;teamId=19&amp;seasonId=2011" target="_top">Run TMC[/url] 1277

Most individual days in this one were tight, with only 3 days having margins greater than 25. Owen had a humongous day 3 with 485 points!!  (Ruddy does that beat your record? I cant remember, but I think it does). Dan only won 2 days all up, including his huge final day - scoring 390 which put him in front for the first time all week. Neither team used a single acquisition, and both had about the same games played - Dan with 3 more than Owen, but if scores are averaged by games played, he still had more fppg anyway. Both teams had 6 players score tons and one each with a double; however Dan had 4 players between 80 and 100, compared to Owen with just 3 in that range.

Owens best were Dorrell Wright (202 from 4), Blake Griffen (178 from 3), Al Jefferson (150 from 4), Andre Miller (131 from 3), Rajon Rondo (130 from 3) and Chris Kaman (114 from 3); and Best for Dan were Dwayne Wade (235 from 3!!), Al Horford (160 from 4), Tony Allen (143 from 4), Carlos Delfino (122 from 3), Dirk Nowitzki (118 from 3) and Mike Conley (114 from 4).

#5 <a title="Jasmines Mob...

Now back to the footy - Its been a lot of fun over these last few weeks sorting out this team, and we have started alright. UCantBeTooSerious is the name of the team. We scored 2295 in round 1, for a ranking of 7,928th ... not as good as a lot of others here, but not too shabby - especially considering the way in which this team was chosen. And, although we are aiming for best OA finish, I should point out that we won all 5 league games!!

Over the break, I will introduce the members of the team. But first - just a reminder on what this team is all about:

Basically this team has been entirely set up, and will be managed, jointly by the donors of Too Serious.

For those that dont know - after you make a donation to this site, you get some added benefits such as (among others)  the ability to change the number of rows on a page, and the Donor Forum.

In the Donor Forum, we have been busy selecting structures and players for this team, along with the name, emergencies and captain. All trades etc throughout the year will also be chosen by joint decisions. It is not an ideal way to run a team, and therefore we do not know what to expect from it, but it will surely be a lot of fun, and interesting at the very least.

If you want to get involved, but have not donated yet - you can easily do so <a href="http://tooserious.net/donate.php" target="_blank">HERE[/url]!! 

Now, without further ado....

<!--more-->

Our round 1 team: (name, round score, watchlist votes*)

* Any donors that wished too, submitted a watchlist of the players they thought should be in the team. There were 22 watchlists created, and I have included the votes each player received here. We then had discussions about any changes that were neccesary and made some final decisions by voting in polls.

Defenders:

Gibbs (vc), 138 (VC up to 276), 21; Goddard, 119, 22; Lower, 110, 9; Broughton, 98, 15; Grimes, 83, 15;...

Hi all

This is a simple new post called "Beat the Best".

Its premise is simple.  Lets see how we would go about finding the chinks in the armour of the leading Supercoach team/s, and how we can use our points of differences (PODS) to advantage.

This week, congratulations to The Tentacle, a Hawk fan, though it must be said, he does have some love for their mortal enemies, the Bombers.

2619.  This dude has already put a margin of 319 over me, and Im sure has gapped most of the rest of us by a fair margin.   So what can we do to catch up?

Was it just a Kardashian week from him?  Find out over the break.<!--more-->Know this - we will be hunting the best team (and maybe having a good old yak about the best team structure) each week, so if you are the best team, get here to work out what your opponents are thinking.  If youre not, come here and get some tips on what makes the leading team, then tweak for your own satisfaction.

This one, well after Round 1 its all a bit random, though weve already in the previous thread had a good chat on whether its all over for those under 2300 points in the first week.  Though Id love to fill everyone with confidence that they can make a comeback, a good start is crucial in Supercoach, and I dont want to hoodwink anyone.   To come back from a score of somewhere in the 2000 region in Round 1, thats a bridge too far.

So, back to the Tentacles team in order of points scored this week:

DEF: Newman, Goddard, Shaw, Deledio, Heppell, Grimes, Hurley (Duigan, Stanley, Toy)

MID: Swan, Watson, A Swallow, Pendlebury, Curnow, Krakouer (D Swallow, Harris, Hibberd)

RUC: Cox, Hille (Derickx, McCauley)

FWD: J Riewoldt, Tapscott, McKernan, Jetta (just for you Jo), Green, N Riewoldt, Richardson (Gumbleton, Prestia, Matera)

Defence - My thoughts is firstly we see a heavily loaded backline.  This is an interesting strategy, but as we think here at TS, you probably need a few cows coming from defence, so its...

Heya all,

So I thought I would post my first topic for the year and now that the lockout is finished and teams are locked in, what better subject to talk about that trading. This article was originally written for the Herald Sun but never made it to press for one reason or another. Some of the content is a bit late now that Round 1 has completed but most of it is relevant. Rather than edit it out, I thought I would give it to you in its original format and all its glory. Please keep in mind that the target audience of this article is not seasoned veterans, but those who are new to SC/DT.

Without further ado...

A wise man once told me the most important rule of SuperCoach and that is ‘trades are like GOLD and should be treated as such”.

There are 4 key principals behind this rule and to this day, I still find it difficult to follow some of them. I will go through them now for you and give some advice on how to maximise your trades, set your trading goal and strategy, and avoid making critical trading errors. Follow me over the break...<!--more-->

The first and most crucial principal of an effective trading strategy is to never trade before the team sheets are released and if possible, wait until the Sunday teams have been released on Friday afternoon. I have been guilty of not following this rule many times in the past and have been burnt by it just as many times because anything can happen during the week, be it injuries on the training track, tweaks to game plan or changes by the selection panel, brain explosions elsewhere in the football world (a certain Collingwood player burnt me big time a few years ago), etc.

I call this problem the ‘itchy trade finger’ syndrome and for me, the only way to avoid it if you suffer from this syndrome is to resist logging into SuperCoach during the week. By all means, do your homework and go on the fantasy forums, check in with the media to get the latest info, decide on who’s out and...

Well, if nothing really- everyone loves a good brag, so lets break out the squads that weve been working on and show them off to the world.

Have you avoided any of the catastrophes so far? I know Ive been hurt by Selwood (Well, not as hurt as he is, poor guy! 14 mouth stitches! ouch!) - But was lucky to avoid Foley.

Currently sitting on 1667 from 16/23 (yes, Im counting the captain as two players so technically only 15 have played.)

Grimes, Heppell, Atley, Cox, Goodes, Higgins and Richardson to go, so Im hoping a 2300+ isnt out of the question.

Team is over the break.
<!--more-->
<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/my_team_2011.png" width="480px">

So, how are you going?

Also, dont forget to join in the live chat over in the <a href="http://tooserious.net/live_scores.php">Live scores[/url] section, its been good fun these last few days. Man, its great to have Footy back!

well, its been a huge first week, and before I get into anything, can I just say- man its great to have the footy back!!

Its been an interesting week though, the Sub rule looks to have been a success I reckon, the concussion rule is going to come under a fair bit of scrutiny this week- I cant remember a week with so many of them happening before.

yep, concussions and huge ruck performances is what this round will be remembered for.

Now, before I go into the review, just a quick reminder to the new coaches out there. Salary changes dont happen until *after* a player plays their third game, so there is no real need to jump on any of the rookies that youve missed just yet, youve still got another week to see if its fo realsies or not.

Full review is over the break
<!--more-->

The season opened, as it always does, with the Carlton Blues taking on the Richmond Tigers, and as weve seen in the last few years- the Blues took out the 4 points. That said, the Tigers showed a lot of heart in the third, but once they lost their 100% conversion rate, the Blues had enough to get over the line. Unsuprisingly, Carlton dominated the DreamTeam points, but thats not what were playing here. Bryce Gibbs should have been a lock in everyones squads, but if you gambled against him, youll be lamenting his 138. He was everywhere, particularly in the final quarter. Newman scored an excellent 132 and top scored for the Tigers. Simpson (124) was prolific while Riewoldts 6 goals got him up to a 122. Do we think he can continue with that form? or will he be very up and down as he gets double/triple teamed?. The biggest result from the game though was Carlton rookie, Ed Curnow who brought in a massive 118. I can see a lot of coaches jumping the gun and trading him in this week, but as weve seen in years past- it might pay to wait one more week before doing it- his price wont move til his third game, and the more info you can get- the better! The other rookies (rookie priced)...

Alright, I know I promised you Id get the live scores done, however, I didnt manage to finish it.

I do however have the unfinished version of it though! Hopefully it works, its completely untested, but Ill be tweaking it all night (and all weekend) through the game, so you should be able to watch it unfold.

<a href="http://tooserious.net/live_scores.php?page=gameday&id=10250302&process=live">Click here for the Car v Ric game[/url]

Also, the chat made it.

I was stoked to see that Jasmine is back for another year after finding this article cross my desk this morning. Enjoy her fine work- and dont forget the partial-lockout-vice-captian-trick.

Everyone is no doubt finalising their squads but the every important question is picking a captain and vice-captain. Gone are the days of perma-captain Gary Ablett which makes the task a little harder. Being Round 1 makes the decision even more tough (and Ablett isn’t even playing anyway!).

As I stated last season, however, my captain’s choice is largely determined by an analysis of the statistics (with a bit of gut feel!). I echo my word of warning last year – statistics are not determinative. For example, everyone will remember Lindsay Thomas’ huge 217 game against Carlton in Round 12. That remained his only game with a score over 100 last year. His next highest score is 96. His next highest score is a very ordinary 69.

In a game such as Supercoach, there are too many variables. I use statistics to identify trends and likely outcomes.

<!--more-->
Judd v. Richmond

Rd 20 2010: 146 SuperCoach points, 30 disposals
Rd 15 2009: 95 SuperCoach points, 29 disposals
Rd 1 2009: 136 SuperCoach points, 23 disposals
Rd 1 2008: 102 SuperCoach points, 22 disposals
Rd 5 2007: 110 SuperCoach points, 21 disposals
Rd 22 2006: 131 SuperCoach points, 24 disposals
Rd 3 2006: 119 SuperCoach points, 19 disposals
Rd 11 2005: 182 SuperCoach points, 23 disposals

Average is 127 SuperCoach points with 24 disposals.

Notes: Pretty consistent scores against the Tigers despite being tagged by Morton (Rd 10 2010), Jackson/Deledio (Rd 15 2009) and Jackson (Rd 1 2009). Has had a good pre-season.

Murphy v. Richmond

Rd 20 2010: 137 SuperCoach points, 25 disposals
Rd 1 2010: 119 SuperCoach points, 24 disposals
Rd 15 2009: 101 SuperCoach points, 19 disposals
Rd 1 2009: 150 SuperCoach points, 28 disposals
Rd 14 2008: 90 SuperCoach points, 19...

Alright peoples, here we go! Round one, here it comes.

Its been a long pre-season and weve all put in the hard yards, so one important thing to remember right now is not to panic!

Try to remember what happen last year with both Podsiadly and Rockliff, or the year before that with Palmer. Good players miss round 1 sometimes, and you should back you research and your gut before jumping off!

Another thing to remember, dont forget to set your emergencies and captains early before tomorrow nights possible server crash (particularly if youre exploiting the partial lockout hole!)

And good luck everyone! Hes to 24 weeks of good fortunes.

Teams are over the break
<!--more-->

Carlton v Richmond


Carlton
B: Christopher Yarran, Bret Thornton, Nick Duigan
HB: Jordan Russell, Simon White, Kane Lucas
C: Heath Scotland, Bryce Gibbs, Jeremy Laidler
HF: Jeffrey Garlett, Shaun Hampson, Eddie Betts
F: Kade Simpson, Jarrad Waite, Andrew Walker
Fo: Robert Warnock, Marc Murphy, Chris Judd
I: Andrew Carrazzo, Dennis Armfield, Mitch Robinson, Edward Curnow
E: Lachlan Henderson, Andrew Collins, Matthew Watson

Richmond
B: Chris Newman, Alex Rance, Luke McGuane
HB: Brett Deledio, David Astbury, Reece Conca
C: Trent Cotchin, Dustin Martin, Shane Edwards
HF: Mitch Morton, Tyrone Vickery, Shaun Grigg
F: Matthew White, Jack Riewoldt, Bradley Helbig
Fo: Angus Graham, Nathan Foley, Daniel Jackson
I: Daniel Connors, Robin Nahas, Jake Batchelor, Bachar Houli
E: Jayden Post, Matt Dea, Ben Nason

Good to see Duigan, Conca and Murphy named, that should set some minds at ease. That said, Curnow and Batchelor on the bench- with possible sub-potential has got to have a couple of coaches worried right now!

WESTERN BULLDOGS v ESSENDON
Western Bulldogs
Wood, Markovic, Morris
Murphy, Williams, Stack
Griffen, Boyd, Ward
Higgins, Jones, Giansiracusa
Grant, Hall, Cooney
Hudson, Cross, Liberatore
Interchange from Barlow, Djerrkura, Hill, Minson, Picken,...