Father Dougal’s 2019 season Review

Written by Father Dougal on January 26 2020

Small and Far away, and best looked at from a distance, my 2019 season in review. 

 

Hi Everybody!

Boy it’s great to have a new season here.

Because your last one was not so great. 

Yes, well, pretty much. 

Before we go further I should introduce my writing partners for those who have not met them before. The one who talks in Italics is my imaginary interlocutor. 

Hi!

The one who talks in Bold is my Stuffed Hamster, Cuddly To Mini Therion. 

Hi! Squeak!

And now I talk about last season…. um….

Now he’s looking for the history button, this is kinda funny…

I’m still looking for the “Players I can afford” option in the filters….

Stop changing the subject!

Right, so last season I ended up, um 10,001st. 

What really, you are not making that up?

Yeah. Was at 77,392 after round 1, got up to 5,643 after week 10, but then the byes happened and I never really recovered. At 10,803 after R13, then in the 8-9ks until the last round, where I managed to choke even more and finish just outside the 10k mark. 

And compared to past seasons?

Let’s see, worse them my best of 2.792 in 2018, and my next best of 4,216 before that. Then…..the scores are not in Supercoach anymore! That’s annoying! Well, I am pretty sure my scores in 2016 and before were worse. Damn, I never thought those would go away. 

So, you are not, in fact, very good at playing the game you write about. 

Yup. Fair warning to all. But, I’m getting better!

No you’re not, you’ll be stone dead in a moment.

Oh, I can’t take him like that. It’s against regulations.

Stop that, stop it! This is getting too Silly! No Python!

Hehe, that just there was Python

Grr, yeah, well your mother was a hamster and, um….

Snicker. Yes, yes she was.  What’s your point? 

Give up now, we’ll all be better off if you go back to your crappy 2019 season

 

Right, so what went wrong? Well, every year I would obsess about the byes, and they would be fine, and so this year I figured I was worrying too much about the byes and so I didn’t really think too much about them. Then I had some challenges going into them and then there were some badly timed injuries and drops, and it was a weekly, trade sucking struggle to field 18. 

So, like, the classic mistake? You felt better so you stopped taking your meds? 

Oh gosh, yes, just like that!

And then the voices came back?

You never went away. Unlike my trades and money and points. Those went away sadly quickly. Once again I failed to get a full premo team. More loopholes then players to loop. Money locked up in players that I couldn’t get out of them. All the stuff that happens when you mess up with trades. And that’s having been careful pre byes with trading. 

So, details? 

Here’s what I had as of the team reveal. I said I would go back and update it, but apparently I did not. Stupid past me!  

I know I took out Kelly and put in M Crouch. I also ended up with Noah Balta in place of Petruccelle. And I think I took out Whitfield for Crisp….I know I had Crisp.

So, how did my picks go? 

 

Keepers:

Whitfield – Would have been Happy, Better than cost, only 16 games, but I am wondering if he was the guy I traded out for :  

Crisp – Not happy, 7 points lower than his priced to average. I ended up trading him at the byes to dodge a zero. Bringing him in was a last minute change, big mistake

Z Williams – Very Happy, Better than cost, 20 games

Macrae – Very Happy, 123 average for 22 games = very  happy

Cripps – Very Happy , 117 average for 20 games = very happy

Oliver – Happy. 109 average for 22 = happy. Not as high an average as I hoped, but he did have a dodgy pre-season, which should have made him an upgrade target. 

M Crouch – Not happy – Scored about what he was priced at for 19 matches. But really as a mid he needed to do better to be a success, and looking back I was an idiot for bringing him in. Extra for bringing him in over Kelly. I am hoping I have learned my lesson about non-top/cow mids. Traded him when he got hurt.

Steele – Not Happy. Blah scoring first half of the season, then got hurt over the byes, “forced” trade, then got better second half when I did not have him but still not up to what was hoped for. Lesson about Breakout Candidates. Bad pick. 

Grundy and Gawn – Very Happy. What was hoped for. 

Dangerfield – Happy. A forward with a 115 ave for 21 games = happy. 

Heeney – Happy. 22 matches at 94, which is 3 less than his priced to average. Sad he did not break out, but, he didn’t fail, and played 22. 

Dunkley – Very, very Happy – 22 matches at 116.5 from a forward, priced to average 95.  Best case really. Many people using a trade to get rid of him after his bad scores and price drop was just icing on the cake. 

 

Bargains:

B Smith – Happy, made money and scored good points for cost. 

Liberatore – Very Happy – Did everything I wanted and more. Of course I got greedy and did not cash him in at the right time, but as a pick he was great. 

D Moore – Happy, made money and scored good points for cost. Was beginning to go really well before his R17 injury that forced a sale, and after a low score to add injury to insult. 

 

Cows:

Not gonna go one by one. Starting cows were ok. Even Balta worked out in the end. Oh, aside from B Scott. Was a loophole all season. Sigh. Will be one cow turned loophole every year odds are. 

 

Trading goods and bads: 

I cleverly can’t find all my trades saved. I think I mostly messed up because I got forced to fix mistakes. I don’t remember any trades that were bad in isolation. But – 

 

I did not trade out Libba when I obviously should have. Was greedy and hoping he’d be a keeper. Very silly and costly.  

I should have stuck with Crisp because in the end I needed that trade more than the points/change over the byes. 

I should probably have stuck it out with Steele as well, but I think there was uncertainly about how long he would be out for, so maybe that is just hindsight. 

I brought in Yeo who had the worst bye, for injured M Crouch, thinking I could cope with his bye, and was wrong. Yeo himself was fine, but he was the wrong guy because of his bye. Was right to get rid of Crouch and had I not I would have had a pre-bye donut. 

I did keep Dunkley even though he had a slow start. Classic mistake to trade him out, at least I didn’t make that one. 

Kept Oliver, who got better after his slow start. Another classic mistake not made

Kept Heeney, who did too well to be worth a trade out. 

I did keep Balta and Hore early on, and both ended up coming good. 

I recall being bitten by Lycett being rested out of nowhere after I got him in, and Caleb Daniel being hurt right after I got him in. I had a hard time getting 6 forwards on the field by the end, and failed one round and had a donut. 

 

So I messed up by getting keepers that were not keepers. I failed to plan well enough for the byes, and that was compounded by injuries and players being dropped. I missed getting Stack. I got Ross, but he got hurt. 

 

A lot of bad trading things happened due to bad starting player choices. Screw ups cost you trades as well as the cost of the screw up itself. Have to remember that.  Yet more reason to be careful with starting picks. 

 

So, for next season:

I will be more careful with selecting my keepers. Mids only who are likely to be top and durable. No breakout candidates in the mids, unless I end up with a weird amount of cash and someone perfect comes along. In practice that means no breakout candidates in the mids. 

I will keep looking for bargains, but will not be sucked into small bargains who are more like mini-breakout candidates. Crisp, and probably M Crouch count as failed bargains I think. But the bargains I liked from the get go who were much more discounted, like Libba, B Smith and Moore, all did as expected or better.  And my failed bargains were not mid-pricers. 

I will go back to careful bye planning. 

I will calculate True Levels of Ability for all the players I think about bringing in and then pay attention to anything I learn from them. (I will post about TLAs and post my TLA estimates this pre-season.)  This should help me (and maybe other people) avoid M Crouch like mistakes. 

Oh, and I will not get so many keepers on one line that I can’t bring in the guys who surprise. Aside from Rucks of course, they are special. 

I will remember that Walsh was a huge outlier and not expect any of this year’s cows to be him.  

 

Okay, that’s all I can remember and think of at the moment. No, I’m lying. I traded in players near the end of the season who had a strong start but had dropped off, rather than guys who has bad starts and sped up.  Lloyd and Boak being the ones I remember. Should have been obvious, and I have no idea what I was thinking. 

How about all your predictions from last season? Gonna see how they went? 

Yes, but I think in other posts, because this is long, and those should go with posts that they fit in with. 

Ok, but you have to look at all the them, at least the ones you made in your posts. 

Yeah, I’m too lazy to find any I made in comments, but I can check my posts. And the comments in my own posts I guess. 

 

If anyone else wants to share lessons learned in the comments, please do. 

Thanks for reading!

23
0


Leave a comment / Scroll to bottom

5 thoughts on “Father Dougal’s 2019 season Review”

  1. Great review FD.

    What a shame you made those last minute changes. I also had Steele. Cost me two trades. I bought him back in but like you, thought a dislocated kneecap would keep him out for more than two weeks!
    Whitfield frustrated the bejaysus out of me after a few rounds and thinking he was the best starter I’d EVER picked! I will start him again in 2020 as he will likely average 15 more than any other FWD until, not if, he gets injured. It’s why I want to go deep with the ‘underpriced’ players in the FWD line, so I can hopefully cover even an LTI without using a trade. We’ll see. Still very early doors.
    Thanks for sharing!

    9

    0
  2. Father D

    Nice to have you (and the tribe) back !

    last year I finished 5812 Meh…

    Wins
    Starting.
    Z Williams
    Cripps
    Gawn and Grundy.
    Danger, Dunkley
    Trading in
    T Kelly
    Treloar

    Regrets.
    Starting
    Mundy
    M Crouch
    Sloane
    Oliver
    Not starting:
    lloyd
    Neale
    Fyfe.
    Marshall/ Boak?
    Missing out on..
    Stack ,Myers Rozee.

    Trading in.
    R Gray
    A Brayshaw
    Westhoff

    I think I need a bath and a little lie down now.

    Thanks FD

    4

    0
  3. Great stuff FD! To me, the main take away here is how important timing is in Supercoach. You have to get the right players, but you also have to get them at the right time. And if you can work out a way to compute “the right time”, can you please let me know?

    The thing you mentioned about Bailey Scott is also the reason I’m reluctant to run with a dedicated loophole, even at R3. Odds are that at least one of my 17 rookies will turn into a potato, and then into a loophole anyway. Of course, there are usually no active options at R3, so throwing that position away is normally a given.

    6

    0
    1. Chillo, timing as you say is everything. It took me till r22 last year to finally get Grundy.
      I think the r3 loop is a certainty this year. Comden most unlikely to get a game and provides the GG loop for 19 rounds. One of the other rounds provides Dusty/Danger loop, and there is the R23 chooklotto as well. Reckon this loop almost guarantees 125-130 pts each week for your c, and no sleepless nights. Valid point about a rookie becoming a spud, but depending on who it is, it may not give you the number of loops that GG and Comden will, and certainly not early in the year. Even if the worst happens and Comden does get a game, its likely that by that time, a spud will be clogging the bench elsewhere to use as the loop.

      0

      0

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *