So after a little chat with the Serengeti coach where we briefly discussed his desire to make Essendon players don the Buffalo colours and my desire to make Hawthorn players wear the green and grey, it got me thinking about how our teams have been put together. Do some coaches favour particular teams more than others? Are there more players from certain AFL clubs amongst our FU teams? If the AFL has 18 teams and we have 18 teams, we should have an average of about 28 players selected from each AFL team....if we were average....but we ain't....let me show you.... Let's start with Ararat to explain the table, because it starts with A so alphabetically they come first in an ascending list. The team has, at most, 3 players selected from one AFL team and they have happened to have done this with 5 AFL teams - Geelong, Hawthorn, Melbourne, North and St Kilda. Had they not traded Mahony today then we'd be seeing something a little different in the Top Teams column. They also have no players selected from Carlton, Richmond or West Cost so they have players from 15 AFL teams (the Nbr Teams column on the right). We see that Serengeti has the highest number of players from one team - 8 players from Essendon. Cow Bay (Hawthorn), Banchang (Port), Blanchetown (Adelaide and Gold Coast), and Pakenham (St Kilda) all have the next highest amount from the one team with 5 players, although Blanchetown have done it twice. Eden have 4 players from Carlton and Richmond, but they also have at least 1 player from almost every single AFL team, except for GWS (that's the 17 in the Nbr Teams column). At the other end of the scale, the Pearcedale side are represented by just 12 AFL teams with no player from Carlton, Collingwood, Geelong, Port or St Kilda featuring in their side. So that brings me to the Total Players row near the bottom. Carlton seems to lead our league in representation with 34 players selected. There are 7 AFL teams with less than 28 players selected, the lowest coming from West Coast (23), as well as Geelong and Melbourne (both 24). Finally, the 0s row at the very bottom. This is simply a count of how many FU teams have not selected any players from that AFL team. So the 4 at the bottom of the Adelaide row represents the 4 FU teams without a single player from the Crows - Groote, King Island, Pakenham and Southern X. Interestingly, although 34 Carlton players have been selected, 6 FU teams have no Blues so 2/3rds of our league have grabbed all these players. At the other end of the scale, every single FU team has at least 1 Swan in their team. The other interesting thing I noticed is the highest number of players a FU team has selected from one AFL team is usually at least 3 (that's when you look down the AFL team columns). So looking down the Adelaide column we see the highest representation there is 5 players in Blanchetown, Brisbane has a maximum of 4 representatives at Banchang. The at least 3 rule applies to every AFL team...except for West Coast. No FU team has more than 2 Eagles in their line up. After all that, I thought perhaps it might be a bit of a challenge to see if I could force each FU team to be represented by just one AFL team. For some this was easy...Serengeti is Essendon, Cow Bay is Hawthorn. But not so much for other teams...who's West Coast? If Christmas Island is Carlton, and Korumburra is Richmond, which team is Eden? That was a fun rabbit hole which gave me quite a number of different possibilities. So I did a combination of trying to get the most FU teams lined up with their highest representative AFL team. Where I couldn't do this, I tried to make sure that I allocated their 2nd highest representative team. I managed to whittle it down to a number of combinations but the best was where just 2 FU teams weren't given their highest rep team. The below combination is the one where I managed to minimise the differences... Someone had to be West Coast and the easiest thing to do was give them to a FU team who had 2 Eagles and also at most 3 representatives from one AFL team in their line up so the difference between the two was minimised. Hughenden was that team. Eden was the other team who got their 2nd highest. Some of us will be barracking for certain AFL teams where we have a higher concentration of players (go Hawks!) others not so much (Ararat will be wearing 5 footy scarves at all AFL matches). Good luck to all for our 8th season of FU in 2021. We've had 138 rounds of FU action so far (finals and home & away). I imagine AFL rounds 12-14 will be byes for us so AFL round 15 will be our 150th round!
Great job, fresh............but obviously you've been in lockdown for far toooooooooo loooooong!!!!!!!!
Great work, it is an interesting mix and bias in different teams. Happy to be allocated West Coast, thank you.
Great insight mate, but Collingwood? guh! (said like Napoleon Dynamite) My club is West Coast but I often overlook them as they are such a stable side, it's tough for players outside the best 24 to get a gig. The philosophy I work by is that I want as many "top 5 on list" players as possible. This leads me to trying to select from as many teams as I can, to try and maximise the chance of snagging such a player. I also think a lot of us gravitate to the rebuilding sides as that's where there's opportunity, hence the popularity of Carlton. I feel their take up rate will drop as they establish a firm best 22, just as it has with teams like Geelong, GWS, Hawthorn, WCE, etc. There's always opportunities for gun 1st rnd picks, but when you trade those picks away (as I have a habit of doing most years), you miss those guys and are then trying to predict retirements, etc. in the hope you can jump in before the rebuild officially starts (Collingwood midfield, GWS defence, etc.).
I love me some saints players in my team. Being a saints fan it gives my team an extra homely/unconditional love feel Also helps when I have a man crush on a couple of my saints boys I don’t really overlook teams when drafting, normally go for best suit but have thought a few times I don’t want to load up on to many saints boys, sometimes haven’t drafted one for that reason. Could be dangerous having to many from one team I’ve thought. Great analysis mate.
I love my Crow boys as I try and watch all their games, so it's good to have a few players on the TV. I almost had 6 if Scholl had of not been picked up right before my pick, but I might get him one day . I used to have a few NM players, but I have found they just all share the points and none go large. GCS picks go hand in hand with high draft picks from 2 struggling teams, GC and BBU!
I have no preference to any clubs, sure I'd like a few more eagles players but only a couple are worth having and its difficult picking rookies given how strong the best 22 have been. Players who can find there own football are the ones I usually pick 1st. Great write up and look forward to @fresh predictions
Not refelected here obviously but I overdrafted Giants for a few years, now I try to ignore the jumper other than the opportunity it provides