AFLW Fantasy 2020

As some of you may be aware, for the last two years I have run an AFLW fantasy competition here on SCT. Well, this year, I have partnered with the awesome people at ShePlays to make it bigger and better than ever before.

Although there are no head-to-head leagues (though it’s on the todo list for next year), there are total-points based leagues, equivalent to a group in SuperCoach.

The official SuperCoachTalk league code is supercoachtalk – all are welcome to join. Although it’s by no means required, you are warmly encouraged to append “@SCT” to your team name. Also note that you need to have saved a complete team before the system will let you join a league.

The winner of the SuperCoachTalk league will receive a prize (the nature of which is still to be determined). If no better option presents itself, I will put up a bit of money out of my own pocket, with fellow SCTers welcome to chip in if they so desire. Ideally, however, I would love for this league to have an official sponsor.

We can offer naming rights for AFLW-related articles, plugs at the start and end of said articles, and naming rights for the league itself. The only thing we can’t sell you is the site’s ad boxes – we need the income from that to pay everyone’s wages.

If you, or someone you know, would be interested in sponsoring our league, get in touch via salamander [at] supercoachtalk [dot] com.

Scoring system

Last year’s iteration of my SalamanderCoach scoring system was well received, so we intend to use it again:

• Disposal-efficiency weighted meters-gained: 1pt/5m (rounded to the nearest point)
• Contested possession: 3pts
• Clearance: 5pts
• Inside-50: 3pts
• Hitout: 1pt
• Mark: 2pts
• • additional 6pts if contested
• • additional 6pts if inside-50
• Tackle: 4pts
• • additional 4pts if inside-50
• One-percenter : 4pts
• Intercept: 4pts
• Goal: 12pts
• Behind: 1 pt
• Non-scoring shot: -1pt
• Goal assist: 6pts
• Score involvement: 3pts
• Turnover: -1pt
• Clanger: -3pts

The only change that has been made from last year is that hitouts are now worth just the 1 point instead of 2. They were made to be worth 2 points in the first season of AFLW Fantasy to make the rucks relevant; as of last year, the top rucks managed to be very relevant without that bit of charity, so back down to 1 point hitouts go.

Well, that’s the plan, anyway. Last year, all the data required to use this scoring system was publicly available. Unfortunately, the AFL has since decided to take the AFLW stats down from its website. There are still stats available via the official app, though the exact breadth of stats that will be available this year is not 100 percent clear at this stage. I have reached out to Champion Data, who have told me they would love for all the stats to be publicly available, but that they don’t control what the AFL decides to put out.

This puts us in a tricky position.

Because of this, we have some contingency plans. Obviously, Plan A is to use the scoring system outlined above. Plan B is to get as damn near close to that as possible. Depending on the available data, that could mean anything from a slightly modified SalamanderCoach to a beefed-up Dreamteam system. If all else fails, we have Plan C: we use Dreamteam points, but goals are worth 12 points instead of 6. Fingers crossed it doesn’t come to that.

Rules

• You have a squad of 21 players – 16 on the field, 5 on the bench.
• Your squad must have at least 6 midfielders, at least 6 forwards, at least 6 defenders, and at least 2 rucks. You have one list spot that can be used for any position.
• On the field, you must have 5 mids, 5 forwards, 5 defenders, and 1 ruck.
• You can select a maximum of 5 players from any one club.
• All players have a price. These prices are tiered, ranging from $15,000 up to $60,000.
• The salary cap is $600,000.
• Player prices do not change during the season.
• You can select a captain and vice captain. Your captain gets double points, unless she doesn’t play, in which case your vice captain will be awarded double points.
• Players are ordered – at the top is your captain, and then your vice captain. If neither of them play, then the next highest player will get double points, and so on.
• Your bench is also ordered – the highest player from the same position as a non-playing on-field player will be substituted in. In theory, there is no limit (beyond the size of the bench itself, i.e. 5 players) to the number of on-field players who can be covered by the bench, as long as all the positions line up.
• In between rounds, you can make trades. You get two free trades per round; you can also buy additional trades at the cost of 100 points each (this will be reduced to 50 points each if we are forced to go with our plan C scoring option, as it will produce lower scores across the board).
• Obviously, any trades you make will have to leave your squad within the salary cap, and conforming the the positional requirements and players-per-club limit.
• The team that accumulates the most points during the home-and-away season is deemed the winner.

With the season kicking off tomorrow night, there isn’t much time for preparation (sorry about that). Keep an eye out for the ‘AFLW Teams’ thread tonight, which (you guessed it) will tell you who’s playing, and who’s not, as well as a couple of upcoming stats/strategy posts, which will either go up later tonight or tomorrow morning.

To enter, sign up at https://sheplays.com.au/aflw.

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions!

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