TooSerious

<img style="float: left; margin: 0 10px 10px 0;" src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/combined_chauffeured_cars.png" alt="" />Is your missus a SuperCoach widow?

So, with the Field of Women round looming, thought has been given to all the ladies out there widowed by SuperCoach. Yes. Us wives and girlfriends who have to put up with all of your endless speculation over whether or not whats-his-face has done a hammy or just how stuffed your front line really is... The hours glued to the computer agonizing over trades and captain selections and which rookie is going to actually... you know... touch the ball more than twice this round.

Make it up to her with chocolate? Bah! Chocolate just isnt going to cut it! You need to make it up to her with... like... chauffeured cars and tickets of some descript! This is where this competition is for you. Cars. And two tickets. To the Big Day Out, no less. All thanks to the good folks at Combined Chauffeured Cars. Who are, clearly, awesome.

Dont have a girlfriend/wife? No issue. You can always Goodes it up and bring a mate.

As to how to win, youll just have to wait till tomorrow to find out.

Oh nom nom nom... Now I just have to convince walesy to get me chauffeur driven some place awesome. And you know, chocolate wouldnt go astray...

~Jo

Three players have this week moved in to contention for this years Brownlow Medal, with best on ground performances in their respective matches.  Scott Pendlebury winning the Anzac Day Medal, Aaron Sandilands who would have to be this years most consistent player, and Luke Hodge in a losing side all polling three votes to move within striking distance of superstar Gary Ablett and wonder-rookie Michael Barlow.

Ablett and Barlow both did enough to earn two votes and move in to outright first and second on 9 and 8 votes respectively.

With the competition now being 5 rounds in, it is worth a look to see how some of this years favourites are tracking:

Gary Ablett - $4 - 9 (1st)
Chris Judd - $7 - 4 (=13th)
Jonathan Brown - $15 - 6 (=4th)
Luke Hodge - $17 - 7 (3rd)
Adam Goodes - $17 - 1 (=66th)
Ryan Griffen - $21 - 4 (=13th)
Jimmy Bartel - $21 - 4 (=13th)
Marc Murphy - $21 - 3 (=20th)
Aaron Sandilands - $21 - 6 (=4th)

Barlow will have to start shortening soon...still paying $81, coming in from $126 after his 33 possession, 132 SuperCoach game on the weekend.  If Fremantle keep winning games like they are - which midfielders are going to take votes off of him?  Sure Sandilands and Pavlich will poll well, but both are key position players, and traditionally will not poll as well as a sides gun midfielder - which Barlow is fast becoming.

Whilst I have GAJ in first on 9 votes, I myself would be suprised if he is sitting on that many after round 5.  Looking at each game individually, he is a strong chance to poll in all (aside from the Hawthorn game) - however will the umpires rate him against the others players on the park, or against what he is ultimatley capable of?  If it is the latter dont be suprised if he has only amassed 5-6 votes to date.

All votes over the break.

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Bulldogs v Crows
3. D. Giansiracusa (3)
2. R. Griffen (4)
1. N. Eagleton (1)
....B. Hall, L. Gilbee, A. Cooney

Swans v Eagles
3. J. McVeigh (5)...

Wow, football is a funny game. If you had told me that Sydney would be on top of the ladder, by percentage over Fremantle, while the Dogs and Cats languished in 7th and 8th, by percentage over the Demons, I would have laughed.

But thats what this week has turned up. St Kilda losing to Port, Brisbane losing to Melbourne, Geelong to Carlton- it was a huge week for upsets! Heck you could probably through in Hawthorn in there as well as far as the bookies were concerned. (Though with their injuries, I think theyre a bottom 4 team with the Bombers, Richmond and Adelaide at the minute.)

Football is such a funny game! That said though, putting the call out early, I reckon the top 8 of right now is where its going to finish in round 22. Its just a matter of the order.

Port, while impressive on the weekend, I think were advantaged by both the home ground and the wet conditions bringing the Saints, and their precision playing, down to their level- while the Dees- though impressive thus far, will be interesting to see if they can keep up their intensity (and dont have the homeground advange that the Dockers will have to fall on as their younger guys get tired.)

Still, as a football fan, its been an integring season so far. Im looking forward to seeing it unfold.

Well start off with the results of the tipping for this week, funnily, picking the home teams this week would have netted you 7 points. I think next year I might just pick the home team for the first 5 rounds and see how it goes. Our to picker on TS was Jo again, picking 5 with Ryan Griffen as her top scorer. Loving her work

Anyways, this weeks review turned into a bit of an essay, so its over the break! - oh, and the Stats are updated!
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On to the games. Friday saw the Dogs destroy the Crows after an early challenge. Giansiracusa top scored with a 134. Looks like hes bottomed out with a 33 BE next week. Barry Hall mooed along with a 119- continueing to tick up nicely. Phil Davis,...

A quarter to go and the Dogs are dominating.

Hall has 5.2 and is looking in ripping form.

Davis is piquing my interest with his dual positioning, but hell still need a premium to match up with if you want to capitalise on it.

Anyways, happy long weekend everyone!

So, the teams are out and its looking like theres a whole lot more good ins that outs.

Hopefully thats good news for most of you!


INS: Akermanis, Johnson, Roughead, Hurn, Clark, Black, McGrath, Lobbe, Koschitzke, Stanton, McVeigh, Sewell, Franklin, Kayler-Thomson, Greenwood, Cunnington, Palmer, Newman, Waite

OUTs: Boyd, Mackay, Kerr, Power, Trengove, Hitchcock, Gram, Duncan

Teams are over the break
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FRIDAY APRIL 23

Western Bulldogs v Adelaide
7.40pm @ Etihad Stadium

Western Bulldogs
B: Jarrod Harbrow, Brian Lake, Dale Morris
HB: Ryan Hargrave, Tom Williams, Lindsay Gilbee
C: Nathan Eagleton, Daniel Cross, Daniel Giansiracusa
HF: Robert Murphy, Mitch Hahn, Brad Johnson
F: Jarrad Grant, Barry Hall, Shaun Higgins
Foll: Ben Hudson, Adam Cooney, Ryan Griffen
Int: Dylan Addison, Jason Akermanis, Andrejs Everitt, Jordan Roughead
Emg: Brodie Moles, Josh Hill, Easton Wood

In: Akermanis, Johnson, Grant, Roughead
Out: Matthew Boyd (hand), Josh Hill, Will Minson, Brodie Moles

Adelaide
B: Graham Johncock, Ben Rutten, Chris Schmidt
HB: Simon Goodwin, Phil Davis, Michael Doughty
C: Myke Cook, Patrick Dangerfield, Andrew McLeod
HF: Chris Knights, Brett Burton, Bernie Vince
F: Jared Petrenko, Kurt Tippett, Jason Porplyzia
Foll: Ivan Maric, Scott Thompson, Brent Reilly
Int: Nathan van Berlo, Tyson Edwards, Richard Douglas, Ricky Henderson
Emg: Jonathon Griffin, Scott Stevens, Matthew Jaensch

In: van Berlo, Henderson
Out: David Mackay (hamstring), Taylor Walker

SATURDAY APRIL 24

Sydney v West Coast
2.10pm @ SCG

Sydney
B: Craig Bolton, Lewis Roberts-Thomson, Tadhg Kennelly
HB: Martin Mattner, Heath Grundy, Nick Malceski
C: Jarrad McVeigh, Brett Kirk, Rhyce Shaw
HF: Ryan OKeefe, Adam Goodes, Josh Kennedy
F: Shane Mumford, Daniel Bradshaw, Jarred Moore
Foll: Mark Seaby, Jude Bolton, Kieren Jack
Int: Daniel Hannebery, Lewis Jetta, Nick Smith, Jesse White
Emg: Ed Barlow,...

Not to be confused with Owl City, US synthpop group.

So, there was 600 comments in the last post, and about 500 of them are about the forward rookies. I think its time to put my own thoughts down on the subject.

Before looking at the trade, what I want you want to do, is go back to your original plan. Most people right now, would have spent 2 trades on re-jigging and 1 trade on an LTI.

How many trades do you need to upgrade your team?
How many trades do you need for LTI?

Look at that original plan, and think - do you have enough cash cows to go through with it? Or are you going to struggle to free up enough cash.

Remember what we said in an earlier post, a good trade should score you 300 points over the season and net you $100k

So, taking all that in mind, should you be looking to pick up Pods/Rockliff? Well, lets examine the three main options.
(For the purpose of this analysis, Ill be taking Pods, with an average of 75 - which honestly, I see as the utter maximum of a rookies range. Im also assuming that hell be in your team for 5 weeks, since thats approaching the end of upgrade time.)
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The Straight swap.
So, youve got The Commentators Dream, Relton, and youre sick of him stinking up your bench. Lets see what youll get with a trade.
OUT - $83400 - 14ppg
IN - $83400 - 75ppg

The darkness is obviously stinking up the place, so if youve got him on the field, its a no-brainer. Upgrade. Its 60 points per week (300). If youre fielding an other rookie though, say, Hitchcock, youll be scoring an addtional 25ppg over the next 5 weeks (125).

So in that case, youre looking at about 125 points and an extra *earnings* of $200k.

The Rookie downgrade.
Youre not a fan of your cashcows- so perhaps its time to put them down. first up, youre looking at a $70k injection into the kitty. After that though, its much the same as above. 125 point (provided they are on the field) and in total, an extra $70k and an extra *earnings* of...

So, I figure we should have a place to discuss the Melbourne Storm fall from grace.

Cant having it clog up the SuperCoach threads can we?

So, $1.7 mil over 5 years worth of cheating has cost them 2 flags, a bunch of minor premierships and the respect of rugby fans all over.

$340k a year.

Just to put that into context, during Brisbanes three-peat, they had an extra salary cap of $780k per year...

The Don and pies were ROBBED!!!

Back again, and due to commitments on Thursday and Friday I have to do my tips early. Again.  So any analysis here is purely on my gut,no statistics (just like always, though I usually hide it better ) Tip in bold.

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<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/themes/default/images/team_wbd.png" alt="" />
Western Bulldogs
vs
Adelaide
<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/themes/default/images/team_ade.png" alt="" />

Telstra Dome - Friday April 23 7:40pm    Top Scorer: Shaun Higgins, 140.



<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/themes/default/images/team_syd.png" alt="" />
Sydney
vs
West Coast
<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/themes/default/images/team_wce.png" alt="" />

SCG - Saturday April 24 2:10pm



<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/themes/default/images/team_mel.png" alt="" />
Melbourne
vs
Brisbane Lions
<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/themes/default/images/team_brl.png" alt="" />

MCG - Saturday April 24 7:10pm



<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/themes/default/images/team_pta.png" alt="" />
Port Adelaide
vs
St Kilda
<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/themes/default/images/team_stk.png" alt="" />

AAMI Stadium - Saturday April 24 7:40pm



<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/themes/default/images/team_col.png" alt="" />
Collingwood
vs
Essendon
<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/themes/default/images/team_ess.png" alt="" />

MCG - Sunday April 25 2:40pm



<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/themes/default/images/team_haw.png" alt="" />
Hawthorn
vs
North Melbourne
<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/themes/default/images/team_kan.png" alt="" />

Aurora Stadium - Sunday April 25 5:40pm



<img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/themes/default/images/team_fre.png" alt="" />
Fremantle
vs
Richmond
<img...

Its a little known fact that Im an avid fantasy baseball fan. Not fantasy in the same way we here play fantasy football, but computer simulated, fantasy baseball.

Been playing in an online league for more years that I would admit so when given the opportunity to write a review of <a href="http://www.premiership-coach.com/index.html">Premiership coach[/url], the worlds first AFL management game, I jumped at the chance.

Not only that, but Ive been give the oppotunity to give three copys away. More on that at the bottom.

For those of you completely new to this sort of fantasy game, Premiership Coach gives you the chance to pick and coach your own squad using the real players from the league. Each player is given a statistical profile which closely mirrors their actual skill set and talents on the field. You pick a team from the pool of players in a draft and then coach them through a season (or many) in the hopes of taking the flag.

For the most part, I see this as being a game of two halfs. Theres the gameday action and then there is everything else.

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Im going to start with the everything else. And I say everything else because it offers an extremely comprehensive overview of what you would expect from a game like this. It measures a player over 31 different categories, from evasion to goalkicking on the run, from play reading to x-factor as well as their general ability to play in various positions around the ground. It offers the ability to take over your clubs training routines, instructing your forward line to work on their Goal kicking abilities, while getting your defenders to improve their contested marking abilities. Whats beautiful about it is that there are 24 different training schedules on offer, ranging from conditioning, to skills and to structure, that you can use, so if you want to train your midfielders to be better at a contested grab, or want your forwards to improve their in and under work, you can do that....

(You might want to read <a href="http://tooserious.net/?p=1031">This[/url] article before coming to this one...

Installation of <a href="http://www.premiership-coach.com/index.html">Premiership coach[/url] was easy enough, though you do need to follow a number of instructions to get all the pre-requisites set up right.

Once in though, I started a new game and figured I would try my hand at a fantasy draft. No point in coming this far and just grabbing a current team. Though the idea of grabbing Geelong and then dominating sure is tempting.

The first step is to select a team. I had a wry smile to myself when given the default team names to select from, and of course, had to go with the Jets.

And then it was the draft, two minutes to pick your player and then its the next teams turn. The first thing I did was to check out the stats of Gaz. And while yes, hes awesome, the thing I noticed most was the sheer amount of stats and ability measured. This game has got a fantastic amount of detail.
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So, I tossed up whether to build my club around Gaz (if its a plan fit enough for the goldcoast, its fit enough for me!), or to go for Cox (The leagues premier Ruck, and as we generally know when drafting a team, Rucks are the hardest to fill later), Maybe go young with Kruezer, whos talent is measured as elite but he hasnt gotten there yet.

I quickly found out that we didnt have the first pick at all, Hawthorn did, they went with the Coondog. Our inaugrial #1 draft pick.

Funnily, West Coast used their first option to pick up Judd. Heres hoping they pick up Cuz later on in the draw as well.

In no time it got to us, we were 7th down and not expecting the timer, so panicked.

Lukily Cox was still an option, so we grabbed him. For a laugh, we got Fev with our seond pick. Next we focused on a engine room getting Pendles, Higgins, Ryan OKeefe and Jobe Watson (Cause of the man-crush - Love you Jobe!).

This went on for a while, in fact, about...