Fantasy coaches look at the AFL draw a little differently to normal football fans. We don’t particularly care about how many interstate trips each team gets, whether they start with a home game or how many times we have to play at the new Jihad (sorry, Etihad) Stadium. For 2009, what we were most worried about was round 1: were the AFL going to schedule two Thursday night games to kick off the season as they did last year starting at 6.10pm AEST, which in conjunction with the 5pm cutoff for round 1 teams to be published led to the now-infamous 70 minutes of madness?

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I’ve already launched this on the latest edition of the Coaches Box podcast yesterday, but I should let readers of the FanFooty blog know about it as well.

Each AFL player is classified by Champion Data (official stat providers to the AFL) in the 2008 AFL Prospectus according to their position, their size and their role. For instance, Brett Burton is a medium-sized general forward, which means his classification is Fwd-Med-Gen. Similarly, Sam Mitchell is a small inside midfielder, giving him the designation of Mid-Small-In, and Sam Fisher is a tall key-position defender, meaning he has the code of Def-Tall-Key.

The Breakdown - there is a Dream Team Breakdown and a Super Coach Breakdown - is a table that lists the averages of each Champion Data player type against each AFL team in 2008, along with how many players have played against that team of that designation, with links to drill down on each score from each player against each opponent. The cells in the table are colour-coded according to their ranking: the lowest team average is coloured red, the second- to fourth-lowest are light red, the second- to fourth-highest are light green and the highest is solid green.

Those who are long-time listeners of the Coaches Box know that this kind of table made its public debut on the Round 22 episode last year, when we had Statsman74 on the show. Among the numerous spreadsheet screenshots he shared with us were two labeled DT scores by player positions and types - Part 1 and DT scores by player positions and types - Part 2, which are pretty much what you see in the Breakdown. Unlike those spreadsheets, however, the Breakdown includes links to the full list of players of each position who have already played against that opponent in 2008, as well as a list of this week’s relevant players.

The Breakdown is a powerful tool for helping to pick captains and figuring out which players are worth selling due to their rollercoaster coming to an end… or not. For instance, Dean Cox traditionally has a day out against the Swans, but even he struggled in the reverse fixture earlier in the year, and no ruckman has scored over 86 against Sydney all year so it might be time to take the captain’s armband off him this week. As we said in the podcast, it’s also an indicator that this week is not the time to sell Cyril Rioli because small forwards tend to carve up the Dons. It should also prove useful for those participating in the Lethal League or Premium DT competitions who are looking to pick up new players for a week or two of service: Michael Gardiner against the Bulldogs has a great matchup, as do small Kangaroo defenders like Gavin Urquhart and Ed Lower.

Enjoy!

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!!!!

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!

It was rumoured earlier in the week that Brad Symes was having difficulties recovering from the knock to the ankle he picked up in the Blues game and it has now come to pass that he is officially out. It sounds very much like just a swelling issue to me, so it’s not going to prevent him playing next week barring further injury. However, it leaves fantasy coaches in even more of a pickle than they were before with the Chad Cornes/Joel Bowden situation, as well as temporary outages for Dustin Fletcher, Bret Thornton and Shannon Hurn, along with rookie favourites Darren Pfeiffer and Adam Hartlett also not appearing in round 7.

Symes’ breakeven is at about his rolling average this week due to the low round 6 score caused by the original injury, so it’s going to be tempting to trade him to cover short-term holes. However, for many coaches this will mean that other positions in their backline will continue to fester, such as Xavier Ellis who appears to have hit a wall, Nathan Lovett-Murray who is going backwards, and underperforming Eagles like Beau Waters, Brett Jones and Mark Nicoski.

If you can at all help it, I would recommend not trading Symes. He delivered two excellent scores in rounds 4 and 5, and his role is still one which will garner a lot of points in future. If that means eating a zero this week to save a trade, so be it. There will be plenty of other coaches who will be in the same boat this week.

Richmond’s team is out, and you guessed it, no Joel Bowden.

B: King, Thursfield, Moore
HB: Hyde, Schulz, McMahon
C: Richardson, Tuck, Deledio
HF: Newman, Pattison, White
F: Brown, Riewoldt, Polak
Foll: Simmonds, Johnson, Foley
I/C: Tambling, Morton, Edwards, McGuane
Emergencies: Jackson, Cotchin, Pettifer

I’m on record on last night’s Coaches Box episode as recommending Jake King for all your Bowden replacement needs. With J-Bo not even making the emergencies this week, and with Chad Cornes out for at least another two games, I think it’s time to cut your losses if you are still hanging onto him. Tell me if I’m right in the comments.

Yes, Joel Bowden is out, as he didn’t board the plane to Perth. Unless the Tigers booked him a ticket on the Indian Pacific in secret.

Yes, Andrew Embley is out. Mark Nicoski travelled with the team as the first emergency, but the Eagles have also rushed Brad Ebert across to cover. No one knows yet whether Nico or Ebert will replace Embers. Your guess is as good as mine. Dean Cox is likely to play through the broken bone in his foot, though again that is by no means confirmed.

Latest news on the Swans through the iffy source of Brad Seymour on radio SEN is that Heath Grundy and Tadhg Kennelly are doubtful for Saturday night, with Luke Brennan a likely in. No confirmation on this as yet.

Update 1: Angus Monfries is also strongly rumoured to be out this evening for Tayte Pears.

This post will be updated as news comes in.

Seriously. It’s all his fault. Naming Scott D. Thompson in round 1 and then banishing him to the magoos, like he did with Lachie Hansen last year. This year, he had to get more creative with Hansen so he named him for round 2 and then withdrew him. This week, still no sign of either of them, not even as emergencies. He’s the root cause of all of this, I’m sure. I reckon he had a word in the AFL’s ear about that stupid 6.10pm game in round 1. It was him who was taking a piece of 4×2 to VirtualSports’ servers when we were all trying to log on before R1 lockout.

He’s the new Kevin Sheedy.

Post your missives of implacable hatred below.