Thank you to the FIXture Committee for another year - @Bandit, @JC and to @chris88 for his blurb write ups Round 1 – AFL Round 1 Date Thursday 19th March 2020 THEME - FELLOWSHIP ROUND As Ezra Taft Benson once said, "the fellowship of true friends who can hear you out, share your joys, help carry your burdens, and correctly counsel you is priceless." Fellowship has been at the heart of the ORFFA since this whole big ride started spinning back in 2012. And Fellowship Round allows us to raise a glass something to our fellow ORFFA coaches and celebrate that we can continue to gather each week through the ORFFA. Most particularly we dedicate this year's Fellowship Round to all of us who have faced health, personal and other challenges over the off-season, and particularly to our friend @That KI Guy and his family, who remain in our thoughts after the devastating bushfires over the summer. Foul Bay Chickens V Marble Bar Misfits Lovely Banks Lilacs V Wagga Wagga Wombats Wineglass Bay Packers V Cradle Mountain Devils Larrikin Lagoon Lefties V Gundagai Grasshoppers Nowhere Else Wanderers V Gariwerd Cockatoos Whitsunday Warriors V Nareewillock Nuffers Charlies Opening Spelunkers V Venus Bay Vultures Birdsville Battlers V Iron Knob Codpieces Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles V Mount Beauty Uglies Round 2 – AFL Round 2 Date Thursday 26th March 2020 THEME - Walesy Appreciation Round Hooray for Walesy, our benevolent overlord who ensures the TS site runs as smoothly and efficiently as a ... well ... smooth and efficient website. Importantly, TS offers all of us in AFL keeper leagues and other varied annual fantasy comps a way to prove just how inept our player selections can be. Hooray for Walesy! Hooray! Hooray! Wagga Wagga Wombats V Foul Bay Chickens Cradle Mountain Devils V Marble Bar Misfits Gundagai Grasshoppers V Lovely Banks Lilacs Gariwerd Cockatoos V Wineglass Bay Packers Nareewillock Nuffers V Larrikin Lagoon Lefties Venus Bay Vultures V Nowhere Else Wanderers Iron Knob Codpieces V Whitsunday Warriors Mount Beauty Uglies V Charlies Opening Spelunkers Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles V Birdsville Battlers Round 3 – AFL Round 3 Date Thursday 2nd April 2020 THEME - Retire His Number Round Over nine years of ORFFA action, all of our clubs will have had a standout performer, a player whose deeds have gone down in folklore and whose name is etched on all manner of honorboards, engraved on numerous trophies, or just carved into multiple clubroom walls with a switchblade. Anyhoo, this round is the one where coaches can – nay, must – nominate who they think their club’s best all time fantasy player is. Then, in a ceremony befitting the occasion, we will formally hang their guernsey from the rafters. Note - all coaches must ensure the players involved are not wearing their guernseys as they are hoisted to the rafters. Foul Bay Chickens V Cradle Mountain Devils Wagga Wagga Wombats V Gundagai Grasshoppers Marble Bar Misfits V Gariwerd Cockatoos Lovely Banks Lilacs V Nareewillock Nuffers Wineglass Bay Packers V Venus Bay Vultures Larrikin Lagoon Lefties V Iron Knob Codpieces Nowhere Else Wanderers V Mount Beauty Uglies Whitsunday Warriors V Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles Charlies Opening Spelunkers V Birdsville Battlers Round 4 – AFL Round 4 Date Thursday 9th April 2020 THEME - FF Anonymous Round I don't have a problem, you have a problem. No, in fact, we all have problems - the least of which may well be our obsession with fantasy football. And there's no 12-step program to deal with this obsession (unless your name is @chris88 and you just up and leave, and even then the troublemaker still wanders by and writes up stupid unfunny fixture blurbs like this one). So we should instead acknowledge our "issues" in a collective way through an appropriately-themed round, and then endeavour to control our desire to check fantasy scores before match scores. Gundagai Grasshoppers V Foul Bay Chickens Gariwerd Cockatoos V Cradle Mountain Devils Nareewillock Nuffers V Wagga Wagga Wombats Venus Bay Vultures V Marble Bar Misfits Iron Knob Codpieces V Lovely Banks Lilacs Mount Beauty Uglies V Wineglass Bay Packers Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles V Larrikin Lagoon Lefties Birdsville Battlers V Nowhere Else Wanderers Charlies Opening Spelunkers V Whitsunday Warriors Round 5 – AFL Round 5 Date Thursday 16th April 2020 THEME - Spud Round The great Allan Jeans famously compared footballers to sausages - "You can fry them, grill them, bake them ... but they're still footballers. And while we don't condone the frying, baking or grilling of footballers here in the ORFFA, we do condone the baking of spuds. Especially those fantasy football spuds who score abysmally and cost us our weekly match-up. They definitely deserve a good bake. Foul Bay Chickens V Gariwerd Cockatoos Gundagai Grasshoppers V Nareewillock Nuffers Cradle Mountain Devils V Venus Bay Vultures Wagga Wagga Wombats V Iron Knob Codpieces Marble Bar Misfits V Mount Beauty Uglies Lovely Banks Lilacs V Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles Wineglass Bay Packers V Birdsville Battlers Larrikin Lagoon Lefties V Charlies Opening Spelunkers Nowhere Else Wanderers V Whitsunday Warriors Round 6 – AFL Round 6 Date Friday 24th April 2020 THEME - ANZAC Round They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them. Nareewillock Nuffers V Foul Bay Chickens Venus Bay Vultures V Gariwerd Cockatoos Iron Knob Codpieces V Gundagai Grasshoppers Mount Beauty Uglies V Cradle Mountain Devils Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles V Wagga Wagga Wombats Birdsville Battlers V Marble Bar Misfits Charlies Opening Spelunkers V Lovely Banks Lilacs Whitsunday Warriors V Wineglass Bay Packers Nowhere Else Wanderers V Larrikin Lagoon Lefties Round 7 – AFL Round 7 Date Friday 1st May 2020 THEME - Muso Round Each year the ORFFA's Muso Round sees the league celebrate the great Australian (and New Zealand) artists that populate our Spotify lists and whose vocals most definitely don't involve any type of auto-tuning. Even better, some of these songs may be played at about 160dB at a future AFL match - most likely at half time as we try to do the unthinkable and engage in polite conversation with friends and family. Thank you, AFL match-day experience gurus. Foul Bay Chickens V Venus Bay Vultures Nareewillock Nuffers V Iron Knob Codpieces Gariwerd Cockatoos V Mount Beauty Uglies Gundagai Grasshoppers V Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles Cradle Mountain Devils V Birdsville Battlers Wagga Wagga Wombats V Charlies Opening Spelunkers Marble Bar Misfits V Whitsunday Warriors Lovely Banks Lilacs V Nowhere Else Wanderers Wineglass Bay Packers V Larrikin Lagoon Lefties
Round 8 – AFL Round 8 Date Friday 8th May 2020 THEME: Women’s Celebration Round This round is a chance to offer a shout-out to all the great women in our lives, all the great women who help steer the great game of Aussie Rules towards success, and of course all of those who play in the AFLW. For the ORFFA, this round is marked by a marquee match-up between @Jen's Lilacs and @Tracey's team from Wineglass Bay. Iron Knob Codpieces V Foul Bay Chickens Mount Beauty Uglies V Venus Bay Vultures Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles V Nareewillock Nuffers Birdsville Battlers V Gariwerd Cockatoos Charlies Opening Spelunkers V Gundagai Grasshoppers Whitsunday Warriors V Cradle Mountain Devils Nowhere Else Wanderers V Wagga Wagga Wombats Larrikin Lagoon Lefties V Marble Bar Misfits Wineglass Bay Packers V Lovely Banks Lilacs Round 9 – AFL Round 9 Date Friday 15th May 2020 THEME - Bolters and Boulders Round Every team needs a bolter or two. Or 6. Or 15. You know, those players whose performance this year has been far above expectations. Better still if these performances look likely to continue. More realistically however, what many of us might have are not bolters but boulders – those 2, 6 or 15 players weighing down our teams like millstones and causing us coaches no end of frustration. This round we celebrate both as key ingredients in the wonderful world of fantasy football … while at the same time hoping our bolters keep bolting, and our boulders stop weighing us down. Foul Bay Chickens V Mount Beauty Uglies Iron Knob Codpieces V Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles Venus Bay Vultures V Birdsville Battlers Nareewillock Nuffers V Charlies Opening Spelunkers Gariwerd Cockatoos V Whitsunday Warriors Gundagai Grasshoppers V Nowhere Else Wanderers Cradle Mountain Devils V Larrikin Lagoon Lefties Wagga Wagga Wombats V Wineglass Bay Packers Marble Bar Misfits V Lovely Banks Lilacs Round 10 – AFL Round 10 Date Friday 22nd May 2020 THEME - Rural Round So many of our great AFL players have hailed from the vast expanses of rural and regional Australia - those places where the horizons are long and uninterrupted, where there is space as far as the eye can see, where smaller parts of civillisation sit on the edges of deserts, outback, forests or bushland, and where the internet is intermittent at best. Actually, that last point pretty much makes most of Australia rural and/or regional. Oh well, as long as the intermittent internet allows us to get our teams in on time. Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles V Foul Bay Chickens Birdsville Battlers V Mount Beauty Uglies Charlies Opening Spelunkers V Iron Knob Codpieces Whitsunday Warriors V Venus Bay Vultures Nowhere Else Wanderers V Nareewillock Nuffers Larrikin Lagoon Lefties V Gariwerd Cockatoos Wineglass Bay Packers V Gundagai Grasshoppers Lovely Banks Lilacs V Cradle Mountain Devils Marble Bar Misfits V Wagga Wagga Wombats Round 11 – AFL Round 11 Date Friday 29th May 2020 THEME: Mark Seaby Memorial Round Draft SNAFUs are fun. Choosing ineligible players, making picks in the wrong order ... all part of the great gigantic fun ride that is the ORFFA. The long-retired Mark Seaby remains immortalised thanks to such a draft SNAFU in our inaugural ORFFA mega-draft. And after an unintended (and very much regretted) one year absence, the traditional Seaby Round fixture returns as Foul Bay host Birdsville. Foul Bay Chickens V Birdsville Battlers Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles V Charlies Opening Spelunkers Mount Beauty Uglies V Whitsunday Warriors Iron Knob Codpieces V Nowhere Else Wanderers Venus Bay Vultures V Larrikin Lagoon Lefties Nareewillock Nuffers V Wineglass Bay Packers Gariwerd Cockatoos V Lovely Banks Lilacs Gundagai Grasshoppers V Marble Bar Misfits Cradle Mountain Devils V Wagga Wagga Wombats Round 12 – AFL Round 15 Date Thursday 25th June 2020 THEME - Left Footers Round We all wear labels. And not just on our over-priced designer clothes. For left-footers, those labels are very real, and can vary from somewhat descriptive ("Hookfoot") to the semi-accurate ("Only has a right leg for balance"). But instead of deriding our left-footed friends, let's bask in their brilliance and sublime skills (at least, until one of them coughs up the ball in defence, then its every mollyduker for themselves). Charlies Opening Spelunkers V Foul Bay Chickens Whitsunday Warriors V Birdsville Battlers Nowhere Else Wanderers V Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles Larrikin Lagoon Lefties V Mount Beauty Uglies Wineglass Bay Packers V Iron Knob Codpieces Lovely Banks Lilacs V Venus Bay Vultures Marble Bar Misfits V Nareewillock Nuffers Wagga Wagga Wombats V Gariwerd Cockatoos Cradle Mountain Devils V Gundagai Grasshoppers Round 13 – AFL Round 16 Date Thursday 2nd July 2020 THEME: Fantasy Saviour Round We all know the feeling. That feeling when some normally non-descript performer steps up with a Messiah-esque performance to propel our underperforming bunch of triers to something resembling brilliance. Or maybe just competence, I don't know. Of course most of the time this is something that happens for other teams, and usually occurs when you are playing those other teams. So let’s celebrate Fantasy Saviour Round with the hope that we all get a God-like performance from one of our chosen 15 this weekend. Disclaimer: Hope for God-like performance only valid if your bunch of triers isn’t playing my bunch of triers. Foul Bay Chickens V Whitsunday Warriors Charlies Opening Spelunkers V Nowhere Else Wanderers Birdsville Battlers V Larrikin Lagoon Lefties Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles V Wineglass Bay Packers Mount Beauty Uglies V Lovely Banks Lilacs Iron Knob Codpieces V Marble Bar Misfits Venus Bay Vultures V Wagga Wagga Wombats Nareewillock Nuffers V Cradle Mountain Devils Gariwerd Cockatoos V Gundagai Grasshoppers Round 14 – AFL Round 17 Date Friday 10th July 2020 THEME - NAIDOC Round Each season the ORFFA stages NAIDOC Round to coincide with NAIDOC Week which, in 2020, is staged from July 5-12. NAIDOC Week helps us all celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across all parts of Australian society. And the impact that Indigenous players continue to have in the AFL (and the ORFFA) is something most definitely worth celebrating. Nowhere Else Wanderers V Foul Bay Chickens Larrikin Lagoon Lefties V Whitsunday Warriors Wineglass Bay Packers V Charlies Opening Spelunkers Lovely Banks Lilacs V Birdsville Battlers Marble Bar Misfits V Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles Wagga Wagga Wombats V Mount Beauty Uglies Cradle Mountain Devils V Iron Knob Codpieces Gundagai Grasshoppers V Venus Bay Vultures Gariwerd Cockatoos V Nareewillock Nuffers Round 15 – AFL Round 18 Date Friday 17th July 2020 THEME - Stupid Injury Round Ever broken a foot while throwing a gridiron ball with friends? How about spearing yourself with a garden stake? Breaking a wrist tripping over a fence? Doing an ACL by slipping in the shower? Breaking ankles jumping off a fence? Breaking wrists jumping off a ute? Hurting yourself by tripping over your own suitcase? Or by getting hit by a golf cart? Or just being dumb enough to try firewalking? Of course we normal people would never do such things. But in the rarefied world populated by elite AFL footballers, these hazards are virtually unavoidable. So this round we all hope that none of our ORFFA teams' players inflict upon themselves a stupid injury ... and please, please - just don't try firewalking. Foul Bay Chickens V Larrikin Lagoon Lefties Nowhere Else Wanderers V Wineglass Bay Packers Whitsunday Warriors V Lovely Banks Lilacs Charlies Opening Spelunkers V Marble Bar Misfits Birdsville Battlers V Wagga Wagga Wombats Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles V Cradle Mountain Devils Mount Beauty Uglies V Gundagai Grasshoppers Iron Knob Codpieces V Gariwerd Cockatoos Venus Bay Vultures V Nareewillock Nuffers Round 16 – AFL Round 19 Date Friday 24th July 2020 THEME - Late Withdrawal/Doughnut Round If Allan Jeans thought footballers were sausages, then it is pretty clear what missing players are. Doughnuts. Lovely, round, doughy doughnuts. And no matter what sort of doughnut that missing player or late withdrawal may be – iced, glazed, jam, cinnamon or one of those fancy-schmancy custard filled treats, they're just loaded with sugar and precious calories and other sweet things and I just can't compete with all that stuff, and .... Sorry. But whatever they are, one thing’s for sure - chomping down on a doughnut in fantasy football carries with it a very bitter taste indeed. May this round bring with it no player doughnuts, but many iced doughnuts - preferably with sprinkles. Wineglass Bay Packers V Foul Bay Chickens Lovely Banks Lilacs V Larrikin Lagoon Lefties Marble Bar Misfits V Nowhere Else Wanderers Wagga Wagga Wombats V Whitsunday Warriors Cradle Mountain Devils V Charlies Opening Spelunkers Gundagai Grasshoppers V Birdsville Battlers Gariwerd Cockatoos V Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles Nareewillock Nuffers V Mount Beauty Uglies Venus Bay Vultures V Iron Knob Codpieces Round 17 – AFL Round 20 Date Friday 31st July 2020 THEME - Phoning It In Round It's that time of year in fantasy football circles, a time where some teams progress very quickly from "rough mathematical chances to make finals" to "just looking forward to Mad Monday and the end-of-season trip". And of course there is a strong, scientifically-proven correlation between this progression, the aforementioned bounty of doughnuts and an increase in players turning up to games, going through the motions and going home again. This round we celebrate the players who do actually turn up to play, even if they are phoning it in late in the season. After all, the meaningless 15 or 20 touches they gather could mean 60 or 80 far more meaningful fantasy points for our beloved ORFFA team. Foul Bay Chickens V Lovely Banks Lilacs Wineglass Bay Packers V Marble Bar Misfits Larrikin Lagoon Lefties V Wagga Wagga Wombats Nowhere Else Wanderers V Cradle Mountain Devils Whitsunday Warriors V Gundagai Grasshoppers Charlies Opening Spelunkers V Gariwerd Cockatoos Birdsville Battlers V Nareewillock Nuffers Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles V Venus Bay Vultures Mount Beauty Uglies V Iron Knob Codpieces