Welcome to the BAFFU thread for 2018! The BAFFU is the highest honour a player can receive from the ORFFU (especially given that the POOYA is now obsolete). Previous winners: 2014 - Gary Ablett 2015 - Todd Goldstein 2016 - Patrick Dangerfield 2017 - Patrick Dangerfield (Serengeti) 2018 - Max Gawn (Ararat Armadillos)
Rd 1 - 4 (The First Month) One month down, and some things never change. Carlton haven't won a game, Nutsy haven't lost a game, and Dusty is a star. Some things are surprising: Banchang being the fourth highest scoring team, Tom Mitchell only having 24 touches on the weekend and Liam Jones somehow becoming a potato again. Much like a Donald Trump presidency, nothing seems certain this AFL season, and that much is true for the BAFFU votes. Before the current tally, here are some random stats. - The highest 3 votes score is 180, by the Bulls' Tom Lynch. The lowest 3 votes score is 116, by Groote's Bontempelli and Cow Bay's Taranto. - The highest 1 vote score is 149 by Nuytsland's Tom Mitchell; lowest is 99 from the Crocs' Gunston. - No players have polled in all 4 games, 5 have polled in 3 games. - Players from winning teams have received 60% of the available votes - In Round 3, Banchang collected all 6 votes despite being the losing team. Interesting, huh? I'm sure that the leaderboard may be even more interesting. While it isn't the traditional way it is done, I'll give a snapshot of the top end of the leaderboard each post, a progress report I guess, keeping some things secret to maintain some element of surprise. 7 - Grundy (NUT), Mitchell (NUT), Macrae (KIM) 6 - 3 players 5 - 2 players It's surprising to me that Tom Mitchell hasn't polled 9 votes, and isn't even the sole leader. He's been far and away the best player in the AFL but hasn't been able to gain a lead over Macrae. Neither Macrae nor Mitchell polled votes in Round 4, meaning a BOG performance from Grundy brought 3 players into the lead. Nuytsland have two of the leaders but only one other player has polled votes, the tie-least amount of players to poll votes for a team. Macrae of King Island is another surprise - I doubt he was anyone's pick as one of the players to watch in this years BAFFU.
Rd 5-9 (The Second Month and a bit) Yes, yes, I know this is a week later than expected. I can hear you all crying that a month is not 5 weeks, because 35 days is not the length of any currently discovered month. If a week is a long time in football, then 5 weeks is far too long between updates, blah blah blah. Anyway, below is some lunch reading for all you, either today, tomorrow, or next week. Actually, read it whenever, just give me a like because I enjoy having tooserious compliment me by telling me I am "Well-Liked" for receiving X number of likes. Please and thank you I started the last entry by saying some things never change, but golly have the scoundrels in the AFL proved me wrong. I used to have a slight bit of hope for the Saints; now I have none. Carlton went from bad to good and back to very bad within the space of a month (ok, 5 weeks, but you get the point), and Ararat, the team predicted by our resident trivia master as most likely to fall out of the 8 (look it up I'm not joking he does get some stuff wrong) have not lost a game. I can begin to explain this... Before I do, let's look at some overall numbers. - There have been 486 votes doled out across the 81 games played so far. - Only four games have had players with tied scores from the same team, 1 each across the last four rounds. I haven't shared votes but made a judgement call based on the situation (i.e. a defender scoring 110 is better than a midfielder scoring 110). - Macrae now has the highest score of the year with his 189 for King Island in round 7 not even enough to drag them over the line against the Prospectors. - It was not a good week for losing teams, with only 5 losing players (out of 27) receiving votes. This was well down on the season average of 10 players from losing teams receiving votes. - Also in Round 9, Groote and Pearcedale played a match dominated by the top end. 173, 160 and 152 were the scores required to poll votes in this game at an average of 162, while in the round 4 Cow Bay vs Gisborne game the average score for votes was only 106! I thought I'd also attach a table of votes for each team. Make of it what you will, but here are some of my observations. Ararat are clearly benefiting from having high-scoring players earning votes each week, boosting the number of wins they have. King Island is heavily reliant on one player, while SCS seem to have a good mix of lots of high-scoring players polling lots of votes, leading to wins. Meanwhile, Eden, Blanchetown and Pakenham seem to be lacking the top-end player who can consistently poll votes. Finally, the leaderboard. It's not even close and we've only played 9 games! Can the runaway leader hold on to this form? 19 - Macrae (KIM) 15 - Gawn (AA) 11 - 2 players 10 - 2 players
Three months down After an extended layoff due to byes and whatnot, we are back for another look-in on how this count is progressing. Hint: we have some changes, unlike Ararat and Blanchetown who just keep winning or keep losing. Slightly shortened this week, but over the finals series which Gisborne inevitably won't be a part of (again) keep your eye out for a mega post with some amazingly interesting, albeit useless, stats. Some highlights in bullet form: - There have now been 168 players poll votes. To put this into perspective, we use 270 players each week (provided everyone has a full team of course). - Two players, Oliver and Dangerfield, have become the 'two vote specialists'. They have polled two votes in 4 games and never polled 3 votes - this is quite an impressive feat, as you have to be good enough to beat most other players on the ground except for one. It's like having a penalty in soccer but not scoring cause the goalie beat you. - On the other hand, Beams and Menegola have polled 1 vote 4 times as well, but have also polled 2 or 3 votes in other games, so aren't quite 1 vote specialists. - The top 10 have 149 votes between them. The top 20% have nearly half of the 702 votes awarded between them (something about top 20% being richer than the bottom 80% and whatever) - Two players, Simpson and Lambert, have received votes for two different teams. Simpson plays his old team in 3 weeks - I wonder who he will get votes for in that game? - Staghorn Flat have had 13 different players receive some votes; Eden are the poorest and have only had 5 players get votes. Staghorn might look like finals pretenders but they certainly pack some punch that no other teams can match. After the leaderboard not even being close last post, it's certainly tight up the top. Macrae's injury now makes this a whole lot more interesting. 22 - Gawn (AA) up 1 20 - Grundy (NUT) up 1 19 - Macrae (KIM) down 2 17 - 1 player constant 14 - 1 player constant
With the Grand Final for ORFFU 2018 just around the corner, it's probably a good time to release the results of the Best and Fairest for the FU, the prestigious BAFFU award. This post contains a variety of random stats, some useful, some not, but this process has definitely helped me identify potential trade-in targets for over the off-season. Some statistical highlights Over the 17 rounds of the ORFFU home and away season, a total of 918 votes were awarded. 196 players received at least one vote There were 13 occasions of tied scores affecting the votes. In general, the player on the winning team was selected as a tie-breaker, however in the odd situation that they were players from the same FU team I decided loosely based on position. You may not agree with my judgement, but guess what? I have flaws. Sometimes I sing in the shower. Sometimes I spend too much time volunteering. Occasionally, I'll hit somebody with my car. So sue me. The highest score of the year was 205 but Josh Kelly in the final round. This was eclipsed by Jack Riewoldt for Groote in the finals, but obviously does not count. Pakenham's Salem missed the votes in the final round despite scoring 149. The lowest 3 vote score was 99. Jack Gunston of Cow Bay was the only man lucky enough to score under 100 yet poll some votes across the whole year. It's almost as though he was happy with scoring 99 even though he missed out on raising the bat and kissing the helmet. The lowest 3 vote score was 109, by Coolgardie's Sicily in the round 11 clash against Cow Bay. Winning vs Losing teams Winning teams polled 617 of the available votes. Losing teams only polled 297 of the available votes. I guess the question comes back to the chicken or the egg - did winning teams poll lots of votes because they won or did they win because they polled lots of high scores? Nuytsland and Banchang have the dubious honour of losing games but having players receive 3, 2 and 1 votes. Club summary Clearly, votes help you win games. Ararat could rely on a number of players to poll votes, and poll big votes consistently. Pakenham struggled for top-end players to receive votes, while Eden just didn't poll many votes at all! Nuytsland were the biggest vote-hogs of them all, refusing to play fairly and divide up the high scores evenly. Players 72 players polled 5 or more votes, but only 21 got to 10 or more 4 ruckmen were present in that top 21. Midfielders dominated the top 21, with 15 players from the guts getting 10 or more. The other two spots were made up by a defender and a forward/mid respectively. 4 players had 7 3-vote games, dominating the year. Clayton Oliver was the 2 vote king, with 6 2-vote games but no 3-vote games. Onto the count. It was fairly tight throughout the year, but quickly turned into a 4 horse race later in the year. Gawn, Grundy, Macrae and Mitchell were the only players to receive above 17 votes, and each polled at least 26 votes. There was a huge gap between 4th and 5th. In the end, Max Gawn ran out as the winner, with Grundy, Macrae and Mitchell closely behind. Congratulations to Max Gawn, Ararat and good luck to @insider in this weeks Grand Final! The top 21:
By team: Ararat @insider Banchang @choppers Blanchetown @martyg Christmas Island @DamoH Cow Bay @fresh Coolgardie @JPK Eden @HOLKY Groote Eylandt @YAD69 Gisborne Hughenden @Batfink
By team continued: King Island @Tylo Korumburra @Mick Nuytsland @bryzza Pakenham @ddsaints Pearcedale @TigersTooTough Southern Cross @eagle_eyed Serengeti @wrightbrendan Staghorn Flat @tyze1
Thanks commish. Very fun and interesting to read. Glad there’s no bullshit 1/2 points in this one to rob the people’s beard of his victory