When <a href="http://tooserious.net/ts-donors-supercoach-team" target="_blank">we proposed this idea back in March[/url], we really didnt have much idea what to expect would come of it, except that it would be interesting and probably fun. Therefore, we have not been let down, as it certainly has been an interesting exercise, and probably fun too; however, in terms of other methods of evaluation... as we didnt really have many expectations, its kinda hard to decide the success of this team. We finished in 737th place, which is pretty darn good i reckon for a first go at this type of thing (and probably beat the majority of donors personal teams)! We also won 2 premierships even though it was never our aim to win one, but nevertheless, its still a nice feeling to get some silverware for the trophy cabinet . And despite the interest of donors seemingly being up and down throughout the season, we still had a heap of contributors over the journey, and at the very lean times we still always had at least a handful contributing at any one time, which is also pretty good IMO.

For those of you that are still unaware, this team was set up and managed collectively by the Donors of this wonderful site. After you donate to TS, you are given added benefits to your TooSerious experience - such as the exclusive Donor Forum, and the ability to see more rows on the stats page at one time etc - and the Donor team has been one of those benefits this season.  FOr anyone out there that isnt a Donor yet! <a href="http://tooserious.net/donate.php" target="_blank">Head over here[/url] where you can find out more about how to donate and join in the fun!

Now, join me over the break... where Ill go into a bit of detail about how our season went - including our starting team, our weekly scores and ranks, our trades, and links to the weekly writeups etc.::::::::::

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The Beginning

This idea was first mentioned to the TS community back on <a href="http://tooserious.net/ts-donors-supercoach-team" target="_blank">March 5th[/url]. The donors then went about selecting a team name and basic structure of our team (ie. how many mid-pricers to start with). The most popular team name was (obviously) UCantBeTooSerious; but it was a pretty tight race with "TS Donor Kebabs" also popular and very close behind in second place. As for our structure, it was voted in that we should go with 14 premiums, 1 midpricer and 18 rookies (with premium defined by a salary > $450k, and rookies < $201k); however our starting team ended up slightly different to that structure due to the way the votes for individual players panned out and $$ available to select the team.

Starting Team

For the initial team selection, any donors that wished too, submitted a watchlist of the players they thought should be in the team. There were 22 watchlists created, and I have included the votes each player received here (next to their name). We then had discussions about any changes that were neccesary and made some final decisions by voting in polls. This is how the team lined up in Round 1, taking in mind that Gold Coast had the bye:

Defenders:

Gibbs 21; Goddard 22; Lower 9;Broughton 15; Grimes 15; Otten 17; Toy 8; (Duigan 16; Heppell 18; Hibberd 15).

Midfielders:

Swan 20; Pendlebury 11; Pavlich 8; Deledio 22; Bewick 5; Selwood 11; (Irons 4; DSwallow 18; Harris 19).

Rucks:

Cox 18; Sandilands 19; (ZSmith 15; Keefe 8).

Forwards:

Rioli 14; Tapscott 4; Krakouer 16; NReiwoldt 22;Darling 8; Franklin 18; Goodes 11; (Richardson 17; Prestia 5; Matera 17).

There we have it. So Lids, BJ and Roo were the only players to make all 22 watchlists. Tapscott and Irons were the least popluar players to make the final side – both late inclusions after discussions. Higgins and Puopolo (9 lists each) were the most popular players not to make it – Higgins due to structure, PooPoo due to discussion and a vote. And the most popular premiums not to make it were Chapman (8 votes) and Judd (7 votes).

Trades
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 3



OUT Hibberd ($103,600)
IN Curnow ($107,700)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 6



OUT Irons ($118,900)
IN Polec ($168,600)



OUT Rioli ($459,800)
IN Riewoldt ($357,100)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 7



OUT Bewick ($138,300)
IN Iles ($121,700)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 8



OUT Grimes ($382,700)
IN Shaw ($450,200)



OUT Curnow ($319,000)
IN Jacobs ($113,600)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 9



OUT Swallow ($332,700)
IN Judd ($513,900)



OUT Lower ($279,700)
IN Puopolo ($103,600)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 10



OUT Polec ($182,200)
IN Ablett ($528,600)



OUT Tapscott ($264,300)
IN Mzungu ($110,200)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 11



OUT Duigan ($295,800)
IN Scotland ($481,700)



OUT Harris ($311,900)
IN Smith ($103,600)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 12



OUT Matera ($262,700)
IN Roughead ($488,400)



OUT Sandilands ($554,000)
IN Vardy ($154,800)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 13



OUT Roughead ($479,600)
IN Johnson ($524,400)



OUT Selwood ($517,600)
IN Boyd ($513,200)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 14



OUT Darling ($281,400)
IN Chapman ($403,000)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 15



OUT Krakouer ($337,700)
IN Callinan ($91,700)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 16



OUT Otten ($359,300)
IN Fisher ($510,700)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 18



OUT Iles ($335,500)
IN Priddis ($474,800)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 19



OUT Shaw ($411,200)
IN Hurn ($372,000)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 21



OUT Smith ($302,200)
IN Mumford ($456,400)



OUT Heppell ($338,300)
IN Jonas ($111,700)




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>

<td colspan="2">ROUND 23



OUT Pavlich ($421,200)
IN Rioli ($455,300)




and we have finished with $78k in the bank!

We only used one trade in the first 5 weeks, and then went on a shopping spree letting go of 15 trades in the next 8 weeks. From then on, we were a tad more subdued, using 5 trades over the next 7 weeks. In round 21 we did a double banger for the first time in 8 weeks, and then used our last trade in the 2nd last round of the season.

IMO our best trades were Hibberd to Curnow, and Duigan to Scotland, closely followed by the Polec to Ablett. Cornrows got us some good coin and Im happy we got rid of Hibberd early; We held onto Duigan just long enough - sold him for a good price and at the same time picked up Scotland fairly cheaply; and we got GAJ at a good time too (as many others did - common plan). Our worst trades were easily Matera to Roughead and Pavlich to Rioli, but both were a little unlucky... so imo the worst trade could also have gone to the Otten to Fisher trade as the inclusion was overpriced at the time and finished the season poorly.

Weekly Results

<a href="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/donor-team-results-2011.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-4046" src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/donor-team-results-2011.jpg" alt="" width="531" height="534" />[/url]

As you can see from this table, we stormed home - improving our ranking 9 out of the final 11 weeks, including all of the last 6 weeks! Which was a great effort IMO. Thank you and well done to everyone that stuck at it, voting in the polls or contributing opinions in the Donor Forum throughout the season.

Our highest score and best weekly rank was in Round 19 where we scored a whopping 2802 (cracked 2800 just ) and ranked 970th for that week. Our lowest score was in the multi-bye Round 6 where we scored only 1861, but it wasnt relatively so bad, as we still managed a weekly rank of 53,373 (not great, but far from our worst). Our worst weekly rank actually came a week earlier, in Round 5, where we scored 1955 and ranked 104,526th for the week. Those two weeks were the only scores under 2000, and to have them in a row and so early in the season resulted in our overall rank being as bad as it pretty much got all season - 6,189th - but we steadily improved from then on . FWIW our actual worst was after round 1 when we ranked 7,928th.

Weekly Writeups

For those of you with too much time on your hands for one reason or another, here are links to all the weekly writeups... within them you will find the players individual scores and a review of the joint decisions made each week:

"<a href="http://tooserious.net/donor-team-revealed-ucantbetooserious" target="_blank">Round 1[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/youcantbetooserious-round-2-results" target="_blank">Round 2[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-3" target="_blank">Round 3[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-4" target="_blank">Round 4[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-5" target="_blank">Round 5[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-6" target="_blank">Round 6[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-7" target="_blank">Round 7[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-8" target="_blank">Round 8[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-9" target="_blank">Round 9[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-ts-donor-team-round-10" target="_blank">Round 10[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-11" target="_blank">Round 11[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-12" target="_blank">Round 12[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-13" target="_blank">Round 13[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-14" target="_blank">Round 14[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-15" target="_blank">Round 15[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-16" target="_blank">Round 16[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-17" target="_blank">Round 17[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-18" target="_blank">Round 18[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-19" target="_blank">Round 19[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-20" target="_blank">Round 20[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-%e2%80%93-donor-team-round-21" target="_blank">Round 21[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-22" target="_blank">Round 22[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-23" target="_blank">Round 23[/url]"; "<a href="http://tooserious.net/ucantbetooserious-donor-team-round-24" target="_blank">Round 24[/url]".

Conclusion

Overall, I think this was a fantastic exercise, and it was excellent to see so many Donors have a sense of ownership over the team and put in a lot of effort into the decisions for it. I am rapt at how we finished the season as I was a little worried half way through... Finishing with a fairly high rank has definitely helped make it all feel a bit more worthwhile. However, I obviously think there is room for improvement, and it would be great to hear some feedback in the comments down below - positives and negatives from this season - so that if we decide to go round again next season, we can hopefully learn from this one.

I would like to thank everyone that contributed throughout the season, especially Walesy for helping set it all up, and taking over the facilitation for a couple of weeks when I couldnt do it (and JB for setting up a poll once!). And special mention should go to the 10 or so Donors that were offering the majority of suggestions along the way - you all know who you are - as it really made the whole experience a great one. But also to everyone that contributed along the way - Thank you

But definitely, a HUGE thank you to everyone around TooSerious, everyone that visits the site helps make it what it is, and that, in turn, encourages people to donate, which obviously has a huge flow on affect as well!