Big selection news in what had been a relatively quiet position for fantasy coaches this year, the forwards. No Paul Chapman for the second week running, and Geelong have also dropped Ryan Gamble. This week was the week to get rid of Gamble anyway, but those who picked up Chappy last week get double the pain. Word is that the bald one’s omission is precautionary, which makes it possibly even more frustrating!
Meanwhile, Melbourne has seen fit to omit much-hyped rookie Shane Valenti… I guess that answers the question of which rookie they’ll demote once Jack Grimes returns in round 13, huh? Austin Wonaeamirri owners rejoice. This puts into disarray many coaches’ downgrade plans, leaving Jarryd Morton and Ryan Davis as the only forward rookies who played last week. EDIT: And now we’ve seen the full teams, Davis has been dropped and Morton is the only one left standing! It’s a worry.
There will be quite a few coaches who get the triple whammy with these three players all in their forwards this week. To those unlucky few I say…. PANIC!!!!
A reminder of the premise of this regular feature: Rollercoaster follows the ups and downs of weekly price variations in salary cap competitions such as AFL Dream Team and Herald-Sun Super Coach. I will try to figure out when premium players have bottomed out and rookie players have reached their ceiling, two things which every successful fantasy coach needs to master to lock in the right trades at the right times.
Big Dippers
The last time I did this feature I recommended picking up Brad Johnson and was against Jonathan Brown . At the time, Brown was showing signs of the dreaded osteitis pubis, and he did actually miss that week’s AFL match. Since the all star game, however, Browndog has been off the leash, culminating in a huge fantasy ton against the Saints in round 9. With two more Gabba games coming up against sides he should dominate, you’d better get on board before the train leaves the station. Johnson has been serviceable too, so he’s worth relying on once again.
Nick Riewoldt, on the other hand, is much more of a worry. Three sub-70 DT scores in a row is out of character from him, even taking into consideration his injury worries. He’s getting knocked from pillar to post in the press for not tackling, which is a bit silly because he’s there to mark and kick goals… but he’s not doing much of that either. This week he’s got the Demons, and will probably have Colin Garland to deal with, who is fresh off a confidence-boosting performance against Lance Franklin. Melbourne will no doubt drop a bloke in front of Riewoldt like they did with Franklin, so expect Rooey’s scores to again be substandard. The bottom line is that you should wait another week or two if you’re gagging to pick him up.
Tarkyn Lockyer is coming off a 100+ averaging DT year in 2007, but with a shift to the half-forward line has come a big deflation of his fantasy relevance in ‘08. 122 against the Cats last Friday was a good sign, but his scoring has become way too inconsistent to bother tracking his rollercoaster ride.
Joel Bowden’s price is plummeting with every sub-90 score he posts, and but his breakeven is edging ever closer to his scores. This week his DT BE is 108 and in SC it’s 137, with J-Bo not having cracked the ton across five games in 2008. Another week or two and he will have flattened out, I think, making him a hot commodity for those who want to cash in Austin Wonaeamirri, Harry Taylor or Garrick Ibbotson.
Finally, Andrew McLeod has been tagged right out of the game for two weeks in a row, which has destroyed his price and exploded his breakevens. By round 12 when those scores have had the chance to cycle all the way through his price, he should be ready to be the last piece of your backline puzzle. That’s assuming that he bounces back this week, of course!
Loop De Loop
There is no question that Kurt Tippett and Ryan Gamble have topped out, and should be moved on if possible. The only possible counterpoint to that consensus notion is that Tippett has the Bombers this week and the Crows are on the rebound on the national stage of Friday night football, which may mean a goalfest from which Tippett could profit. His BEs are 80/96, so it would be a risk.
Tens of thousands of fantasy coaches have been relying on Troy Simmonds as their second ruck this season, but is it time to upgrade him? The late withdrawal of Jeff White last week with the suspicious-sounding “back soreness” puts a bit of a fly in the ointment insofar as figuring out who the second-best ruckman will be. I daresay most coaches will not want to even look at their rucks at the moment, but it’s worth noting that with Simmonds’ poor round 8 score of 35/37 still cycling through, his price isn’t going to get much higher. The situation is more pressing in SC, where Simmonds is the #13 ruck as opposed to #5 in DT, so if you’re targeting a Jolly, Sandilands, White or Fraser, now is a good time to pull the trigger.
Elsewhere, I’m hearing a lot of talk about how Cyril Rioli, Rhys Palmer and Garrick Ibbotson are keepers, but this seems premature to me at round 9. Even a rookie fantasy gun like Joel Selwood had to be replaced late last year through injury. First-year players usually find some way to drop out of the side from injury or form concerns, because their young bodies just can’t handle the load. It would be folly, in my opinion, to not keep a trade on ice for each of these players to replace them as they inevitably fall away.
Another important week for bubble boys this week, as several popular rookies have hit the top of the rollercoaster, including Kurt Tippett, Ryan Gamble and maybe even David Myers.
Backpocalypse
Matt Riggio, KAN BAC. DT: 5224 selections, $112,900, -24 BE, 54.5 avg. SC: 3421 selections, $203,900, 1 BE, 61.5 avg.
Kepler Bradley, FRE BAC, FWD. DT: 4056 selections, $196,500, -5 BE, 76.5 avg. SC: 10649 selections, $177,000, -33 BE, 70.5 avg.
Scott McMahon, KAN BAC, FWD. DT: 1505 selections, $236,200, 52 BE, 63 avg. SC: 2275 selections, $361,100, 76 BE, 71.5 avg.
Jason Roe, BRL BAC. DT: 1658 selections, $246,700, 75 BE, 55.5 avg. SC: 804 selections, $428,500, 129 BE, 65.5 avg.
Tom Williams, WBD BAC. DT: 598 selections, $202,500, 88 BE, 32.5 avg. SC: 1399 selections, $261,600, 108 BE, 25.5 avg.
Nick Malceski, SYD BAC. DT: 1068 selections, $377,100, 189 BE, 47.5 avg. SC: 819 selections, $541,600, 247 BE, 41 avg.
I’ll include the two BAC/FWDs in the backs since there’s a lot less quality to be had in the backs this year - not that it matters since you’re not going to be considering either of them. No, not even with Kepler Bradley’s big negative breakeven. This is Kepler Bradley we’re talking about here, people! He is a spud of the highest order. You can not seriously consider Bradley. Like Marcus Drum, Chris Mayne and Ryan Murphy before him, the third tall slot on the Dockers forward line is good for a few weeks of decent scoring at most, after which sanity prevails.
Riggio is the only player amongst this lot that should interest fantasy coaches. Working against him, however, is the implacable hatred of Kangaroos coach Dean Laidley that fantasy coaches have worked up over the last two years. Laidley has consistently mucked about with his rookie backs, to the point where just about every one of you must have been burned by a Lachie Hansen, Scott D. Thompson… even Riggio himself last year. You just can not trust Laidley to leave Riggio in the North 22 long enough for him to be a decent backup.
Tim Houlihan and Beau Wilkes hit the bubble next week. I’d be much more inclined to wait a week to see how they stack up in the Eagles structure.
Centrageddon
Trent Cotchin, RIC CTR. DT: 14061 selections, $119500, -25 BE, 57.5 avg. SC: 19537 selections, $139200, -61 BE, 73 avg.
Brent Reilly, ADE CTR. DT: 844 selections, $327400, 92 BE, 77.5 avg. SC: 1483 selections, $382300, 98 BE, 67 avg.
Cotchin is the real deal, which makes him Bubble Boy of the Week. He is particularly a must in Super Coach. Craig Bird, Bachar Houli, Travis Tuck, Cale Morton, Tim Callan, Kieren Jack (in DT only)… all these centre rookies are ripe for the plucking, and Cotchin is the man to get.
Ruckolocaust
Chris Bryan, COL RUC. DT: 995 selections, $220600, 35 BE, 65.5 avg. SC: 1556 selections, $267700, 54 BE, 54.5 avg.
Ivan Maric, ADE RUC. DT: 2093 selections, $207700, 76 BE, 40.5 avg. SC: 2018 selections, $284300, 56 BE, 58.5 avg.
No and no.
Forwardystopia
Shane Valenti, MEL CTR, FWD. DT: 12480 selections, $72600, -62 BE, 58.5 avg. SC: 13249 selections, $83400, -83 BE, 67 avg.
Ryan Davis, WCE FWD. DT: 4813 selections, $72600, -20 BE, 37.5 avg. SC: 4696 selections, $83400, -24 BE, 37.5 avg.
Valenti looks like the standout option here, but there is still the problem of which rookie Melbourne is going to demote once Jack Grimes returns to the senior list in three weeks’ time. Austin Wonaeamirri is undoubtedly the more exciting player, and the Demons fans desperately want someone to barrack for each week, so Valenti may very well be the odd man out. Davis might end up playing more games, although at his current scoring rate he doesn’t look like a fantasy option. The only other pre-bubble forward rookie who played in round 9 was Jarryd Morton, and as Molly said on the Coaches Box podcast this week, there’s no guarantees on Morton getting a decent run of games with the Hawks’ injury/suspension list set to shorten again soon. It’s a tricky situation, and with most coaches feeling a desperate need to downgrade the aforementioned Tippett and/or Gamble this week there is not much to downgrade to. The decision that most will make is to go with Valenti and hope that another Demon goes down with injury in the next two or three games. If I was Brad Miller, I’d be very wary of blokes carrying 4×2s in the MCG carpark for the next little while…
If you’re just about to pull the trigger on a trade to get Paul Chapman into your side this week, hold your horses! He’s a late withdrawal tonight, Travis Varcoe to replace him.
Teams are in for the Footscray v North Melbourne game, and Josh Hill is one of two outs for the Bullies.
You did trade him out two or three weeks ago? Didn’t you?
If not, now is the time.
WESTERN BULLDOGS
B: Callan, Lake, Gilbee
HB: Hargrave, Wight, Morris
C: Eagleton, Boyd, Cross
HF: Murphy, Hahn, Johnson
F: Akermanis, Minson, Welsh
FOLL: Hudson, Griffen, Cooney
I/C: Addison, Giansiracusa, Ray, Williams
EMG: Hill, Ward, Tiller
IN: Ray, Callan
OUT: Hill, Tiller
NORTH MELBOURNE
B: Gibson, Petrie, Watt
HB: Harding, Firrito, Wells
C: Riggio, Rawlings, Simpson
HF: Jones, N.Thompson, Hale
F: Grant, Harvey, Campbell
FOLL: McIntosh, Harris, Lower
I/C: Power, Thomas, Pratt, McMahon
EMG: Sinclair, Urquhart, Ross
IN: Pratt
OUT: Obst (punctured lung)
Two rookie elevations were announced today: Ryan Davis, who will apparently suit up for the Eagles this weekend in Carrara, and Shane Valenti, the great white hope of the Demons… and of fantasy coaches everywhere. With Cyril Rioli, Josh Hill, Bernie Vince and other forward rookies just about at the top of their rollercoaster ride, Valenti is the perfect downgrade target for those who want to harvest some cold hard cash. Get on board while you can!
Live drafts are some of the most enjoyable times you will have in fantasy sports. When you have a bunch of mates who are all gung-ho about their coaching skill pitted against each other and the clock in a test of your acumen and adaptability, it’s a lot of fun. However, not many people will have experienced this joy with AFL fantasy sports, so here’s the lowdown on what should be front of mind as you sit down to man the buttons.
First off, be mindful of positional requirements. This is the most important thing to get right. As I went into in my review post, Premium DT is using the same positional designations as the salary cap DT and SC competitions, which means an overabundance of midfielders, precious few rucks, and way too many back and forward slots to fill from a small pool.
Let’s crunch the numbers. Here’s a list of players in each position in groups of 10, with their combined averages from 2008, plus high and low numbers.
Rucks Avg High Low
1-10 83.4 105.4 73.0
11-20 65.0 71.6 60.3
21-30 54.3 59.9 48.9
Backs Avg High Low
1-10 89.2 101.9 82.1
11-20 80.3 82.1 77.7
21-30 76.7 77.3 76.1
31-40 72.0 74.0 70.6
41-50 68.4 70.6 65.4
51-60 63.9 65.4 61.9
61-70 59.6 61.6 58.1
71-80 56.5 57.5 55.5
81-90 53.9 55.4 52.3
Mids Avg High Low
1-10 105.6 112.9 101.3
11-20 99.0 101.2 95.8
21-30 93.0 95.6 90.9
31-40 89.5 90.4 88.0
41-50 85.5 87.3 84.6
51-60 82.4 83.9 81.0
61-70 79.9 81.0 78.7
71-80 76.6 78.3 75.0
Fwds Avg High Low
1-10 95.4 102.9 88.7
11-20 83.9 86.9 81.8
21-30 79.9 81.1 78.4
31-40 75.5 77.3 72.9
41-50 70.7 72.6 69.0
51-60 67.4 68.7 66.0
61-70 64.4 65.5 63.0
71-80 60.9 62.9 58.1
81-90 56.1 57.0 55.0
The way to use this table is to figure out which part of the draft you’re in, figure out what band of 10 players are available in each position, and concentrate on the positions with the greatest discrepancy in scores. Within these bands, if you see a player who is averaging (or you predict to average) many more points than the next available, he’s the one you should be targeting. For instance for the purposes of the first round of the draft, look at the difference between the high and low for each of the 1-10 slots. The difference is greatest for the rucks, which means that you have to concentrate on rucks first. Dean Cox should go #1 in every single Premium DT draft, or the bloke with the #1 pick isn’t serious - at 105 he’s averaging nine more than the second-ranked ruck. Jeff White should also be somewhere very high in the first round as well, as it’s another massive nine-point drop to the third ruck. After that things bunch up a bit, with Troy Simmonds and Aaron Sandilands hovering mid-80s, David Hille and Cameron Cloke about 80, and five others above 70. There are six rucks clumped in the mid-60s, which completes the list of the true first rucks in each AFL team. Then you get into the second rucks, and you would want to avoid them if possible.
So, in a serious draft, somewhere between two and four rucks would be the norm in the first round. The obvious next targets are the backs and forwards, but which to choose? My advice would be to concentrate on the backs, given the carnage that has gone on there this year. Heath Shaw and Chad Cornes are definite top 5 picks, given that Chad will most likely return by the start of the comp in round 10, and there is a 10-point gap between these two and Jake King. King and Nathan Bock should be your next targets at around 90 (Brent Guerra is also averaging 90-ish but has been poor lately). In the forwards, Matthew Richardson and Lance Franklin are the obvious targets, but there is not that much daylight between their averages and the rest of the top 10… particularly given that there are a good number of premium forwards who have underperformed in the first third of the year. I would throw Matthew Pavlich and Paul Chapman into that same tier and forget the rest of the top 10 for now.
As for the centres… why am I ignoring the highest-scoring position in the game? Ah, but it’s not just raw points that matter. Joel Corey, despite being the top scorer in DT this year, should not be the #1 Premium DT draft pick. He should not even be in the top five, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him drop out of the first round altogether. Private drafts are all about scarcity. There is no question that Corey plus his two Geelong engine room cohorts Gary Ablett jnr and Jimmy Bartel deserve to be somewhere in the first two or three rounds. However, there are just too many midfielders in this game. The other positions deserve more attention, particularly in the early rounds.
Of course, you have to be mindful of team structure. Even if the best available player in your draft at your draft position is a back four times in a row, that doesn’t mean you should select four backs to start with. Across the first five rounds you should ideally have one of each position plus another back or forward. Unlike most American leagues, there is not the opportunity for coaches to load up their bench with backups in a particular position - as happens a lot with running backs in NFL fantasy, for instance - so you won’t have to worry until late to get your second ruck if you miss the initial rush because you’ll get #20 at worst, even if you wait until your last pick to choose him.
One thing to keep very much in mind is that it’s a long draft process, but it’s very important to keep your concentration right to the end. My experience in AFL draft leagues is that the league is usually not won in the first five rounds, unlike most US leagues, because scoring potential is spread out over every position. In the NFL, running backs dominate the first two or three rounds of drafts because selecting the right one is usually the ticket to victory - I have seen NFL seasons where the team with the best RB usually wins the majority of leagues. That dynamic is not at play in the AFL, for better or worse, and that means that rounds 15-22 are probably where your team’s success or failure is going to be measured. Yes, it’s a bit of a crapshoot, especially with the complete lack of bench options in Premium Dream Team meaning that you are hostage to luck-based selection, suspension and injury disasters. I can also tell you from personal experience that when it all comes together and you’re crowned champion of your league, it’s the biggest adrenaline rush you can have in fantasy sports!
The boys down at VirtualSports have recovered from the poor start to the season - where they were very late in launching the DT competition and then completely failed to handle the 70 minutes of madness just before the first lockout - and launched their version of the American style private draft leagues, entitled Premium Dream Team. The mainstream Australian fantasy football scene has developed very much along the British model thus far, with salary cap competitions run by media organisations being by far the most popular form of the game. Premium DT is built along the template laid down by the baseball, basketball and gridiron leagues that were the germination of the industry in the US.
The first thing to note is that Premium DT charges $12 entry. They say that entry is “free” but you have to buy a PDF in order to enter, so that’s just semantics. The Web site only accepts Mastercard and Visa cards - no PayPal support. VirtualSports are offering $5,000 for the top scoring team and $20,000 for the top league ($2,000 per team), which raises the question in my mind about whether this competition is actually gambling? It had been my understanding that if you charged an entry fee of more than 55 cents - i.e. the cost of a 1900 call - it did not qualify as a legal trade promotion lottery, which is what fantasy sports fall under.
The upshot of giving out prizes like this is that plenty of fantasy veterans will have the bright idea of subverting the competition to try to win the five grand by shelling out ten lots of $12 and concentrating all of the best players in one team. It’s an inevitable consequence of the way that the competition has been set up, a bit like how the weekly prizes in DT and SC are often won by “Frankenstein” teams which were launched after round 1.
So, let’s look at the team structure. Premium DT teams are much like Dream Team or Super Coach teams, and this is where the troubles start. Unlike all of the American models I have seen, Premium DT has no bench. You get to draft 22 players who start for your team every week, and that’s it. No emergencies, no cash cows, no backup at all. You get three trades each week, and that covers not only the trades you make for undrafted players, but also the intra-team trades in your league. If four or more of your players get injured, suspended or dropped in one week, well… you’re just going to have to cop some zeroes. If your #1 draft pick gets a big injury in Round 10, then you have to either wear his zeroes for the length of time that he is out, or you have to drop him. This is very much outside the norm for private draft leagues.
I can understand why VirtualSports chose to make the competition benchless, because the draft is going to be long enough with 220 picks as it is. They have set each draft to start at 6pm AEST with those 220 picks happening every 60 seconds or less, which translates to a 3 to 4 hour marathon. With the competition launching mid-season and with only a fortnight until the first lockout, there isn’t enough time for most leagues to get organised to have multi-night drafts, and with VS choosing not to enable commissioners, there would be nobody to herd the cats anyway. Things are much easier in NFL, NBA and MLB leagues because they pick starting teams of 11 or less, and their drafts rarely extend beyond 20 picks. It’s an ongoing problem that operators of private AFL leagues are going to have to solve - FanFooty’s solution was to cut the starting positions down to 11, for instance - and whichever way you go there will be problems.
Perhaps the biggest deficiency in Premium DT is the lack of full auto-drafting. Auto-drafting is part of every professional American fantasy draft application, where if one or more of the coaches are not present at the time of the draft then their picks are made automatically according to pre-determined draft orders, usually based on custom lists or popularity-based lists. There is a 50-player “pre-draft list” in Premium DT which serves as a half-arsed auto-drafting feature, but that’s only going to be good for 5 to 8 picks, and for the rest of the 22… you don’t get picks at all. Instead, those spots on your roster are left open, and it’s a first-come-first-served system for those who log in after the draft. This is a very poor decision by VS, because it’s going to cripple any coach who is not present at the draft. If they have built an auto-draft system already to handle the pre-draft list, why not extend it to the entire draft? It shouldn’t be that hard for VS to prepare a default 700-player pre-draft list to use as a base, then the coach can customise it if they want. The system as it stands is nonsensical.
One other issue that is a perennial problem for AFL-style leagues is player positions. Unfortunately, VS have decided to use exactly the same positions as in the DT/SC competitions. 7 backs and 7 forwards are needed for each of the 10 teams, which is going to mean that your sixth and seventh positions are going to be a constant source of pain if you play in these leagues. To illustrate, you need to have 70 backs and 70 forwards playing each week for no one to cop a zero, which means 140 in total. In round 7 just gone, there were 110 backs and 98 forwards - 197 combined - who played in AFL games. Similarly, there are 20 ruck spots to be filled and there were only 30 ruckmen playing. Meanwhile, there are 60 midfielder slots open and 147 centres played last week. This has obvious implications for drafting strategy, which I will explore in another post. The main takeaway of this issue is that it’s going to be a game of warm bodies, and it’s likely that league winners are going to be the coaches who had the least zeroes.
Overall, I’m glad that the industry is moving forward to embrace the US model, but there is still a lot of work to do to hone the product for the widest possible audience, and to iron out those structural bugs. I’ve signed up, and I’ll be fascinated to see how it evolves!
Note: FanFooty has been running its own free private leagues for three years now using our own scoring system, and there are examples of smaller league structures strewn across the Internet for more than a decade now (see my short history of fantasy Aussie Rules football post for more info).
I reckoned there would be one big injury to come out of the Hall of Fame tribute match yesterday, it was just the sort of meaningless exhibition match that is primed for a big disaster to happen for no reason. Early doors it looked like the slipper would sink into Daniel Kerr, as he copped a nasty-looking kick to the shin in the first quarter and was promptly shipped off to hospital. Thankfully the scans came back negative so it looks like he won’t miss any more weeks than his current suspension. Craig Bolton will have a nice bruise after getting one in the scone from Robert Murphy in Q1 as well, but he ran the game out without problem.
However, that left the sword of Damocles hanging over the MCG, waiting to fall, and late in the last quarter the victim was Josh Fraser. The Collingwood ruckman limped off with what has turned out to be a slight tear to his medial ligament that radio reports place as being at least four weeks, if not six.
If you are among the 9,764 DT coaches or the 14,950 SC coaches to have Fraser in your side, of course, this is a tragedy. More coaches are actually going to be happy with this injury, however, because it will give much more time on ground to the Pies’ #2 ruckman Cameron Wood, who is a significantly more popular fantasy player this year (13,732/17,825). Collingwood face the Saints and Cats in the next two weeks, two sides which have big ruck problems of their own, so you would think Wood is going to increase his point production markedly over the slightly disappointing numbers he had put up previously in 2008. After that his opponents will be Dean Cox and Jeff White.
Most coaches have not made any trades in their rucks at all so far, and may not have one to spare on a simple cash cow harvest if they’re serious about their trade strategy for the rest of this injury-strewn season. If you are able to benefit from this injury then good luck to you.
UPDATE: AAP reports that prior to the scans on Monday, the Collingwood hierarchy are hopeful that the injury was a strain, not a tear, and the man himself has piped up saying he is hopeful of not missing any games at all. Given that the next game is on a Friday I doubt that would be true, but best case scenario is that he misses one. Then again, worst case scenario is still entirely possible.
Is there any premium fantasy back who hasn’t got injured and/or suffered a form slump this year? The latest bad news is that Jake King has what the Tigers told SEN was a “crack in the wrist” with which he is “expected” to play in round 8, after rumours on both One-Eyed Richmond and Punt Road End suggested that the nuggety backman would be out for four to six weeks. Suggestions have been made that King sustained the injury when he pounded the turf in frustration after being beaten in a contest by Stephen Milne in the second quarter of last Saturday night’s game, with Milne going on to bag seven majors.
Despite the Richmond denials, this is poor news for King owners, if only for their sanity. The frustrating thing is that you’ll probably have to hang on training and selection news right up until 2.10pm on Saturday week, as this is the sort of 2007 Nigel Lappin-style injury that could lead to multiple late withdrawals, a la Des Headland in the last few weeks before he got shut down for the season. A lot of coaches bought King last week in exchange for Joel Bowden, and it would be doubly painful if King does miss games and Bowden then takes his spot.
Yep, I’m a glass-half-empty kind of bloke when it comes to fantasy defenders this year…
