TooSerious

There it goes - I have been flat out this last week, so Im not sure if that is why this seemed to go extremely quickly; or if it was the fact that it was about 6 days shorter than the last matchup. Either way, it seems much more civilised this time round. With games on each day, the action never stops, so i reckon its good to be just a week long.

We had some really close games this week! - 2 games decided by less than 35 points; and a couple of blowouts - 4 games with 200+ point margins. And I tipped 7 out of 10 again :lol: haha, and again not sure how, as Im not using very detailed analysis to come up with my predictions!

Before I get to the review, just want to say that Im going to wait until there is a clear leader, before I award the Dirk Diggler trophy. At the moment there are 5 teams that have won both games.

Now have a look over the break for the review of Matchup 2; and the preview of Matchup 3:::::::

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Matchup 2 Review:

<a title="Kings of Karlos (Sean Minetti)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=23530&amp;teamId=10&amp;seasonId=2011" target="_top">Kings of Karlos[/url] 927 lost to <a title="Team Stowie (Daniel Stow)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=23530&amp;teamId=8&amp;seasonId=2011" target="_top">Team Stowie[/url] 959

This was one of the close ones, and if it wasnt for Karlos forgetting to fill his roster on Nov 12th, it would have been much closer. In fact Karlos would have won with either of Fields or Jianlians scores from that day added to his score. both were sitting on the bench with a spare roster slot available. In the end though it was Stowie that got up by 32 points, with Josh Smith again his best performer with 165 points this matchup.

<a title="Pikus United (Adam Ziegler)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=23530&amp;teamId=9&amp;seasonId=2011" target="_top">Pikus United[/url] 723 lost to <a title="Stevos Nuggets (Stephen Nilsson)"...

Lets get this up early cause Im sure theres gunna be interest tomorrow. In the meantime- anyone wanna throw out a prediction?

For what its worth, Im predicting-
Swallow GC
Bennell GC
Day GC
Gaff WC
Heppel BL
Polec RI
Gorringe GC
Atley ESS
Lynch GC
Caddy GC

(Also, just fyi- I got the EPL stats posted, sorry, got distracted last night!)

With only 4 rounds to go before playoff season starts up, every match-up counts. This is especially true in the eastern conference where no one is able to show any consistency and break away from the pack. Because of this it looks like only one team from the east will qualify for the playoffs with the next two with the best record coming from the west. The race is on!

In the NFL the news reads like this; Favre breaks career record, Moss finds 3rd team in a month, Cowboys sack coach after another embarrassing loss. Also the Patriots lose for the first time in weeks and now come up against fellow superbowl contenders Pittsburgh in what could be the decider for top seed in the AFC. This round also sees the final rounds for byes, after that its a sprint to the finish and well see who is able to keep their roster intact. Time for the league review...

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First cab off the rank was the match-up between top side  BOLDIN SHOWERS(w) against bottom side DOOBIA DOOBS (w).  In theory it should have been a stroll through the park but Doobs provided stubborn resistence and ended up only losing 77-70.  However, a win is a win and that takes BS to a handy 2 games clear at the top and looking certain to play in the post-season.  Neither team had any standout players and at the end of the day it was the Saints D/ST that proved crucial as they hauled in a massive 21 points for BS, and gave him the dubbya.

Next game saw a crtical game in the west when THE PACK took on SAM CROW.  The Pack needed the win to stay in touch for second spot and a win to Sam Crow would of given him a game break in second.  When all was done it was The Pack that got the victory 124-87.  A game high 31 from Arian Foster and 25 from Phillip Rivers were the highlights in what was a great score from his roster.  Sam Crow was rewarded for his faith in Vick as he game him a return of 25 points also.  This leaves both these boys with a 5-4 record to add to another three teams...

The comments were closed on the last thread this evening - not sure why, but I was planning to get a new one up today anyway, as the mammoth first matchup has come to a close. 13 days it went for and was exciting for every one of them - well for me anyway.

In the NBA itself, the Hornets and Lakers have started of their seasons well and are both undefeated to date! Whereas Toronto, Charlotte, Minnesota and the Clippers have started the worst with 1 and 6 records. There have been a huge amount of assists dished out, with Rondo the best of the lot, averaging a huge 14.7 apg. Noah is leading the rebounds with 14.2 rpg. And Monta Ellis is averaging 27.8 ppg which is top of the league. And on the negative side of things, rook John Wall is leading the league in turnovers with 5.8 pg, and there are 3 players who have been ejected so far, scoring -10 for each occasion under our scoring system, in Jason Williams, Craig Smith and Aaron Brooks.

The poll that we have had going is a tie at the moment, so Im going to take it upon myself to decide which way we will go out of the two winning options. The poll was set up to decide an extra trophy for us to compete for, and the two winning options were “The Dirk Diggler Award”: For the team with the longest win streak, and the “Itchy Trigger Finger”: the person who trades of the FA list the most, both with 5 votes each out of a total of 17 votes submitted. So Im going for the easy option - partly because I cant be fooked checking the acquisitions each week, but mainly because I liked the Dirk Diggler award from the first moment it was suggested and I was actually surprised it wasnt an option for one of the automatic trophies I set up. Because of the nature of the award, Im not going to award it this week, but whoever wins 2 from 2 will get the award next week.

On the topic of trophies - 4 have been awarded this evening. The Biggest Loss of the round goes to Pikus United; the Fewest Total Points of the round goes...

So, I was browsing the AFL site this weekend, and noticed this <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/104897/default.aspx">handy article[/url]. Basically a summary of whats going on in the pre-season so far. What made me smile though, is that when comparing what it said to the notes Ive been taking over the preseason, they are pretty similar.

Score one for fan generated content I reckon!

So, what I want to achieve over this pre-season is two things- firstly, I want to try and catalog incidents and reports to include them in the soon-to-be-released user-profile section of the site, but what I also want to gather is a solid list of the fan generated reference points out there, where people from each team are dedicating their time to discussing the preseason. To that end, Im going to be putting together a list of these places to make all our researching easier. Ive already got the standard BigFooty training threads listed- but I know there are many other sites out their- <a href="http://www.bomberblitz.com/forum/">BomberBlitz has already started[/url], <a href="http://www.truesainters.com/">True Sainters[/url] will arc up once the boys start training again. And so on. So if youre a regular reader- or contributor on a site that discusses the pre-season, let us know! I would love to get it included here!

Anyways, over the break Ive got my pre-season notes of so far. Not too much has happened, but by watching for the next few months, Im hoping we can put together a picture of who exactly will be breaking out next year- and who we need to steer clear of!
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Adelaide
<a href="http://bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=771279">BF thread[/url]

Tony Armstrong copped a 4 week club ban for drink driving.

1st November
Tambling, could be stepping into the former roles of Mcleod/Goodwin. Both very lucrative. For now though, is on a restricted program after a knee injury.
Thompson and Tippett running laps-...

Hey Guys since my last write-up was happy with things in the world of English soccer City were 2nd and the tossers were going ok. 2 weeks on and Man City have dropped 6 points and the Tossers have had 2 heartbraking losses. Quick rap up of last week in the EPL.
 
Gameweek 9 results
Spurs 1 - 1 Everton
Sunderland 1 - 0 Aston Villa
Chelsea 2 - 0 Wolves
Birmingham 2 - 0 Blackpool
Bolton 1 - 1 Wigan
West Ham 1 - 2 Newcastle
West Brom 2 - 1 Fulham
Stoke 1 - 2 Man Utd
Man City 0 - 3 Arsenal
Liverpool 2 -1 Blackburn
 
Gameweek 10 results
  
Man City travelled to Wolves and were 1 up after 23 minutes Adebayor converting a penalty in front of the absent Tevez.  Miljas then equalized to Wolves on the half hour mark. Edwards sealing the Wolves vicotry with a 57 minute strike.  United defeating spurs 2-0 with goals from Vidic and Nani. Nani goal with its fair share of controversy.  Fulham were too strong for Wigan and home, Dempsey scoring both goals in the first half. Everton got the win at Stoke but didnt have it all their own way Yakubu with a class finish on 67 minutes to seal the win for the Toffees. Blackburn went 1 up against the league leaders through Benjani on 21 minutes. Chelsea crawled their way back inot the game with Anelka goal just before the end of the half. With it looking like Chelsea would drop points Ivanovich headed home on 84 minutes. Arsenal kept it really late and would have finished off a few in the survivor comp but Song scored 2nd week in a row to give them a 1-0 over the Hammers. Newcastle made a mess of there North East rivals with a 5-1 smashing of Sunderland. Kevin nolan got himself a hatrick with Amoebi getting the other 2. Bent got 1 last for Sunderland who also had 6 yellow cards plus 1 red to Bramble. Aston Villa Birminghamd palyed out a real boring 0-0 game. Liverpool won it late thanks to Maxi Rodregiuez strike in the 86th minute. Final game of the week saw Blackpool win at home 2-1. Adam...

Round 8 provided another really close round with a few upsets, a couple of close ones and the odd belting. It was a cross conference round with East taking on West in all five matches, with The west proving eventual winners 3-2. The big news from the league is the end of Boldin Showers five game winning streak, taken down in a close one by Team stowie and propelling stow to the top of the east ladder.

In the NFL this week it was a case of life imitating fantasy. Only three weeks ago Randy Moss was cut be the Patriots and picked up by the Vikings. After three disappointing weeks and a few eyebrow raising post match remarks from Moss he was again cut and sent to the waiver list. Sounds a bit like my roster! Other big news included the continual beating Brett Favre gets every week, again leaving the field early after this time getting a knock on the chin, have we finally seen the last of Favre? The patriots won again, giving them a league best 6-1 record and well on the way to taking out their division and on the flip side the Cowboys stank it up again. This time it was so bad the team owner came out and apologised to the fans and pleaded with them to stick by the team, season over for them and it wasnt even October yet. Anyway onto the league review...

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Well start the week with the belting. Yes it was my boys, MR WIGGLES(e) getting a touch up at the hands of SAM CROW(w) 106-58. Sam Crow put in a very impressive effort having three of his players score in the twenties with Calvin Johnson scoring three touchdowns on his way to a game high 28 points. I had a shocker with Brady top scoring with a pretty miserable 13.

The biggest upset of the round was the defeat of TOO SERIOUSESES(e) to bottom side DOOBIA DOOBS(w) 77-41. What made it even more embarrassing for Tseses is that Doobs gave up a few weeks back and had started three players on byes! Tseses were terrible, three zeros and a D/ST on a bye did not help matters but a score of...

OK guys, the fixture is out. Ive just got a couple of quick notes about it, but gotta open this thread for discussion!

Firstly, looks like we have 3 of the dreaded 3-bye rounds in rounds 4, 5 and 6- right at the key upgrade time. Which should make things interesting.

Gold Coast are the first to get 2 byes, so it might be worth picking up their premiums after the second bye. Collingwood, Then St. Kilda are the next two to do so- 4 and 5 rounds later.

Essendon have scored the Grand Final bye- so if youre finals driven, steer clear of those premiums! Heck, if its that important, you might want to avoid Carlton, Geelong and North as well!

Anyways, the full list of byes are over the break, while the full fixture is <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/portals/0/afl_docs/fixture_document.pdf">here[/url]
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BYES.
1- Gold Coast
2- Adelaide
3- North Melbourne
4- Brisbane, St. Kilda, Western Bulldogs
5- Melbourne, Sydney, Eagles
6- Fremantle, Geelong, Hawthorn
7- Collingwood
8- Carlton
9- Gold Coast
10- Essendon
11- Richmond
12- Port Adelaide
13- Collingwood
14- St. Kilda
15- Eagles
16- Adelaide, Fremantle, Melbourne
17- Hawthorn
18- Port Adelaide
19- Brisbane, Richmond, Sydney
20- Western Bulldogs
21- North Melbourne
22- Geelong
23- Carlton
24- Essendon

Well, last week got away from me and so I will combine both weeks in one review.  Ill try to keep it brief.  Week 6 in the NFL was a close round, with no less than 8 games being decided by a touchdown or less and 2 of those going into OT.  The Pats held their nerve and ground out an OT win to keep their streak of wins after the bye going, now up to 6.  The other big news was the Cowboys were beaten again, taking their season to 1-4  and leaving them on the brink.  This is big news because they are hosting the superbowl this year in their huge new stadium and were desperate to be there for the big dance.  If you dont know about the stadium check it out, it has the worlds biggest TV and the players race runs right through a members bar, just to name a few features

Week 7 also had a couple of interesting match-ups, most notably Brett Favre playing against the team which he won the Superbowl with.  His time lost in controversial circumstances and he hobbled away with two fractures to his ankle.  The Pats won again!  Overall there was seven games decided by less than a touchdown and plenty of controversy all over the place.  This is a game in which the rules dont allow for grey areas and to us Aussies it can seem a little harsh sometimes, (surely the Vikings reciever caught that, right?)...anyways the league looks like this

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Week 6, BOLDIN SHOWERS beat Walesys men, TOO SERIOUSESES and claimed the soul leader status in what is turning out to be a tight comp.  No real individual standouts, in fact there were so many single digit scores its not funny.  It was just one of those weeks, no one scored 100.

SAM CROW beat ADELAIDE MAGGOTS 91-78, putting AMs on the brink of season collapse.  Interestingly it was Kevin Kolb that was the high scorer in this game.  It was only a few weeks ago that it looked like his job had been pinched by Michael Vick for the year.

Last week I said things were looking shaky at the top of the east...

Hey all, its been a while since my last post. [insert confessional joke here]. [token apology].

Looks like the NAB preseason has been <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/104572/default.aspx">announced[/url]

Im quite interested to see how this goes. Three teams playing two 40 minute games on each night should make for some interesting viewing.

I reckon itll hurt those people who watch the preseason and pick their teams purely on the numbers though as I can imagine teams running with some parculiar strategies to get minutes into all their players over the 40 minutes.

Anyways, the fixture is as follows
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<blockquote>
ROUND ONE POOLS AND THEIR LOCATIONS
- Adelaide, Port Adelaide and Melbourne at AAMI Stadium, February 11 (Friday night)
- Collingwood, Carlton and Richmond at Etihad Stadium, February 12 (Saturday night)
- West Coast, Fremantle and Hawthorn at Patersons Stadium (Subiaco Oval), February 13 (Sunday afternoon)
- Essendon, the Brisbane Lions and St Kilda at Etihad Stadium, February 18 (Friday night)
- Greater Western Sydney, Sydney Swans and Gold Coast at Blacktown Olympic Park, February 19 (Saturday night)
- Geelong, North Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs at Skilled Stadium, February 20 (Sunday afternoon)
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Personally, I think all the groups look great! A little harsh for the Dees and Hawks, but I guess someone had to go West. Its gunna be a very interesting night on the 19th of February I reckon!

Now, just to change the topic a little- GWS speculation is already under way, with Andy swallow being the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/afl/afl-news/swallow-has-teammates-backing-if-he-takes-bait-20101024-16z9w.html">first speculated catch[/url] for the new club. After seeing what happened this year to Gaz, with the intense media speculation- not to mention a coaching panel who decided to utilise him more often as a forward than in the center- it could be an interesting year for...