(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 an hour and a half later, the Jets came together! (Or f*ing ages, as Jo said.) Personally, I quite enjoyed the experience as it was genuinely entertaining trying to draft an excellent team, balancing outright guns with youth to get the mix right.

Our best 22 as selected by our coach assistant went as follows:

B: Hurley, H OBrian, J. Hunt (yes, we forgot to get a *real* full back - mainly cause I kept ignoring the advice of both Dodooro and Jo in getting Fletcher)
HB: N. Suban, N. Brown, B. Dick (Gunna be GREAT in a few years!)
C: X. Ellis, Pendles, J. Trengove (Oh yeah! nom nom nom nom)
HF: ROK, Fev, X. Clarke (Fingers are crossed that Xavier isnt so injury prone in this version!)
F: Leroy Jetta, T. Hawkins, J. Watts (Votes for Watts will not be counted.)
Foll: D. Cox, S. Higgins, J. Watson (That one heck of a midfield I reckon!)

Bench: Nitnat, J. Carr, T. Cotchin, C. Newman (Honestly, they selected Carr? Might need to replace him!. Im amused that I have West Coasts ruck department.)

Right now, Jo is mocking me because I apparently have no chance without Ablett, Bartel, Corey, Chappy, Selwood or Ling. She might be onto something, time will tell.

And our emergencies are A. Otten, M. Mattner and Ziebell.

Players of note that didnt make the 25 are:
J. Kennedy (Of the Eagles fame!)
Alwyn Davey (Jo is SHATTERED! - He soon came on for Carr.)
H. Ballantyne (but hes Frodo!)
M. Barlow (But hes gunna knock up 151 in his first game with 20 touches in the first half!!!)
And others...
Gawn, Crowley, Corrie, dierrkura, Moss, Carlisle, Trengove, Hughes, Toovey, Suckling, Silverlock

We now have a team, its time to take a brief look around the place, the match tactics looked to be very interesting and detailed and the training options look a lot of fun! You an actually instruct your coaching staff on how and what they should be working through with your players! Contested body work, Gut running, there are so many options! Though be warned, the higher-impact drills are going to come with a greater risk of injury.

Then theres the scouting stuff. It looks a little more than my first play through is going to get to. Luckily Dodooro told me that hell look after it for me. Hes a good man ya know.

Jo on the other hand had other ideas, not wanting to waste time looking around the place, she wanted to know when the games were starting. (Much like real life) - To which I reminded her that it was only February.

So we fast forwarded to the Pre-season. Adelaide kicked it off beating Richmond 134 to 88.

Then we got our chance against Port Adelaide. The coin was flipped, we chose Heads- and got to kick left. Again, I was shocked at the sheer number of options avaliable during the game. From telling who should be manning up tightly, who should be playing the loose man, Front or back rucking - it was marvelous.

The first quarter started with us yelling at our circles to do better! To STOP PASSING TO THE BLUE TEAM!. Sadly, they did not, and four goals later, we were looking in pretty bad shape.
So I decided some tweaking was in order. Firstly, setting up rotations for our exhausted mids. We managed to peg a couple back through Fev and ROK, but still went into the first quarter break 53 to 18

The second quarter saw us giving up on the auto rotations (Ill need to read up more on those, I couldnt quite get the hang of them. I think when Cotchin has appeared in the ruck, youre doing it wrong!) and relying on doing it manually. It also saw us smash it, gettinng back in the game 65 to 51 at the long break.

Sadly, the third didnt go well, leading into the final quarter 6 goals down.

The fourth quarter started with a flurry. Quick goals from Watts, Fev and ROK saw us get within 2 goals before again, Port put the foot down and kicked out to a 6 goal win.

Our Preseason over before it had really begun!

Adelaide went on to take home the silverware over Melbourne in the cup.

The regular season started much the same way as the preseason, except it was North this time kicking away to an early lead. We did manage to claw it back to a two goal loss though. It didnt help that Fev got injured at training and is out for three weeks. But it did give us a chance to bring Josh Kennedy into the game.

I think Im starting to get the hang of the automatic rotations now, which is good. Ive got about 20 rotations a quarter set up- which puts me at about 2007 as far as rotations go yeah?

It also meant that I could try my hand at fast forwarding through the first month, to see how the teams go when auto-managed by my settings. After the first month, we found ourselves at 2-2. I also noticed that the home teams were winning a good 6-7 games a week. Though I guess thats not too suprising. After the draft, one would expect most teams to be fairly even- so the defining factor for the first year would- a lot of the time, come down to home ground advantage. I reckon had I gone for a strict "old guy" policy, picking only the older guns that fell in the draft instead of chasing young talent, that we would be a definite advantage throughout the first year on the game. This is what I love about these games though. Its not just the one season youre playing though. Its as many seasons as you see fit. So playing for the here-and-now will see you fall from grace faster than Sheeds circa 2003!

Anyways, Im gunna have to leave it there- Ive got a deadline on this thing and you guys are taking up too much of my leisure time to let me finish off the season!

So give it a crack- its a very enjoyable game! The full version makes for a better experience than the demo what with the being able to save and savour the experience so definitely get over <a href="http://tooserious.net/?p=1031">here[/url] with a comments and try to win a registered copy. Failing that, its only $40 for hours of fun and well worth it.