Discussion NAFL 2020 Premiership Season Hub

[Freight Train]

Since it was drawn to my attention that I have given an unfair disadvantage to DiamondGuy after not correctly briefing him when inviting him to join NAFL, I've decided to give him a second chance, home vs. home, to give him the opportunity he deserves with his home guernsey.

Round of Sixteen - Newcastle vs. Harbour City is now up!​

 

[Freight Train]

Updated bracket after the fourth week of the 2020 NAFL Finals Series.

A big thanks, and comiserations, to Cainozz, Bacon Warrior, magpienato, exile, Dylan8, GoodPoint, DiamondGuy & fancyscum - congratulations to all of you for making it so far, and thank you so much for your incredible entries this season. Any of them could have been winners in the previous sixteen team format, and you should all be proud of your efforts. I look forward to seeing your entries get one more chance to shine in the NAFL Grand Final Sprint!

We now move on to Week Five of the Finals, with the winners of the Round of Sixteen randomly drawn into their games for the Semifinals.

Semifinals are now open for voting!
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[exile]

chalk that season up as a W for me. did better than i expected, including the blazers being an idea conceived in the last day or two!

keen to see how the rest plays out!

 

[Cainozz]

That was fun to be a part of, has been such a good competition this year!

Thanks for running this competition and including myself FT! Look forward to the 2021 season

 

[Freight Train]

chalk that season up as a W for me. did better than i expected, including the blazers being an idea conceived in the last day or two!

keen to see how the rest plays out!

Congratulations on how well you did in your first season, really liked both the Sea Turtles and the Blazers and super excited to see whether you evolve the identities or develop new ones next season, both were very out of the box and very cool.

That was fun to be a part of, has been such a good competition this year!

Thanks for running this competition and including myself FT! Look forward to the 2021 season

No problem, it was a pleasure having you on board and the Breakers design and identity were brilliant. Keen to see you back next season as well.

 

[Rubber Arm]

chalk that season up as a W for me. did better than i expected, including the blazers being an idea conceived in the last day or two!

keen to see how the rest plays out!

Blazers kit is one of the best kits I've ever seen

 

[Craegus]

I guess the secret is out that Castore is stepping into the Australian/New Zealand sports manufacturing game. So let the speculation to who they are aligning with end

 

[Dylan8]

I guess the secret is out that Castore is stepping into the Australian/New Zealand sports manufacturing game. So let the speculation to who they are aligning with end

Wellington relocating to Sydney! Big news.

 

[Craegus]

Wellington relocating to Sydney! Big news.

Note the motto, Wellington are going nowhere.

The Bundaberg franchise may however after their "Mad Monday"* celebration caused (what authorities called) severe damage to several locations around the city.

*Due to the sponsorship with the Rum brand and the copious amounts of it around club headquarters, the team may or may not have been inebriated more often than not during the season and "Mad Monday" may have been most days of the week over a several week period.

 

[Freight Train]

Updated bracket after the fifth week of the 2020 NAFL Finals Series.

We're really down to the pointy end of the season, and in comparison to the number of entries from previous seasons, making the Semifinals was the equivalent of making the Grand Final. Thank you so much to Fizzler for your Whittlesea entry, arguably the biggest "glow-up" in the history of this board and an incredible leap, can't wait to see what you produce next season. Another thanks to DAT8 for turning in such an incredible entry, something this board has never seen before and super excited to see more designs from you going forward. Last but not least, thanks to El_Scorcho for that incredible Waikato entry, possibly the best example of presentation ever seen on this board, and all the best for the Sydney Australians.

All three of your games came down to aggregate or tiebreaker, and really any of these teams deserved to be premiers this season. Makes all the behind the scenes effort worth it when you get designs of this calibre coming through.

(I'd thank myself but I'm not a w****r.)

We now move on to the penultimate week of the NAFL Finals, with the winners of the Semifinals vying for their spot in the Grand Final - it's time for the Preliminary Finals.

Preliminary Finals are now open for voting!​

 

[Fizzler]

Well, it appears that’s season over for me. Very pleased to make it to the top 8 this season with a set I am very proud of. I took a gamble with the presentation that happened to pay off and a final 8 finish is a blessing given I hadn’t even won a final in my 5 seasons of reserves before this. I’d like to thank Freight Train for such a well run competition that was great fun to be a part of, and everyone who voted for me along the way. Best of luck to those still in the mix and well done to everyone who competed
Also worth noting, I think of the two double ups in that round there I voted for the teams that lost and thought they’d be the ones to go through, I called Harbour City as my premiership favourite a while back.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Well, it appears that’s season over for me. Very pleased to make it to the top 8 this season with a set I am very proud of. I took a gamble with the presentation that happened to pay off and a final 8 finish is a blessing given I hadn’t even won a final in my 5 seasons of reserves before this. I’d like to thank Freight Train for such a well run competition that was great fun to be a part of, and everyone who voted for me along the way. Best of luck to those still in the mix and well done to everyone who competed
Also worth noting, I think of the two double ups in that round there I voted for the teams that lost and thought they’d be the ones to go through, I called Harbour City as my premiership favourite a while back.

I absolutely love your art style mate and if you continue to develop that and your surrounding presentation, you're gonna be a juggernaut on this board.

Just give him the MIMP now obviously.

 

[Fizzler]

I absolutely love your art style mate and if you continue to develop that and your surrounding presentation, you're gonna be a juggernaut on this board.

Just give him the MIMP now obviously.

Absolutely, going to try and work on something even more solid presentation-wise for next season. Design-wise it might be hard to top but hey, we shall see.
Thanks for the kind words too, MIMP has been a goal for a little while now so hopefully I can take it out this year!

 

[Freight Train]

Updated bracket after the sixth week of the 2020 NAFL Finals Series.

After nearly two months, we're here. After 64 teams entered, only two remain. A huge, huge thank you to both Spanna_ & fancyscum for your incredible entries this season, congratulations on making it so far - you two are trendsetters and leaders on this board in terms of design and are no less deserving of winning this season than the finalists. Incredible efforts from both of you and yeah, thank you so much for the time and effort that went into these great designs.

Before we move onto the 2020 NAFL Grand Final, which will be going up tomorrow evening, we move onto the pre-game Grand Final Sprint, a way to showcase the fourteen teams from the final sixteen who didn't make it at the end of the season as all of them deserved.

The Grand Final Sprint is now open for voting!
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[Gibbsy]

Epic work Freight, that bracket really does look superb

 

[Freight Train]

And it's live!​

 

[Sparkle]

And it's live!​

good crowd in

 

[Andonis1997]

good crowd in

It's Uluru V Sydney, do you really think that'll get a big crowd in Perth?

 

[Freight Train]

This brings an end to NAFL 2020 - the Uluru Cockatoos victorious in a coin-flip final against the Sydney Australians.

When E92_ handed me the reins to this competition a few years back, I knew it was a big obligation. NAFL has been an institution of this board for close to a decade, and will always be the pinnacle of this forum's design abilities. This season, I decided to make that challenge a little bit more of a mountain, with 64 teams, leading to 28 straight days of posting new polls, and a massive finals series.

So, do not get me wrong, this NAFL victory is the sweetest of all of them, and honestly means the world to me, but just having been able to run this competition as smoothly and on as massive of a scale as this was, is my proudest accomplishment on this board, ever. I've won comps, won awards, posted big folios and more, but from the beginning thoughts of running this competition on this scale, to seeing incredible quality from so many designers is just incredible, and I'm humbled that so many talented designers put in so much time and effort to create so many incredible, unique identities.

So to everyone who made this dream possible, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

I'm already looking forward to running NAFL 2021, and I will be posting a thread in the upcoming week or so in regards to competition feedback as there were a lot of changes made this season and I just want to see if there's any ways we can improve the competition going forward.


* * * * *


On another note, as I've made pretty clear, this competition will be the last that I enter - I will still be just as active as usual, I will still be running NAFL and I will be focusing more on portfolios here and there, but now having been able to accomplish my dream (thanks to this community) of becoming a full time apparel designer, I just don't have the time or motivation anymore to do it eight hours a day, then come home and go at it again. So, to go out like this, as the three-peating NAFL Premiers, is such a proud accomplishment and a perfect way to ride off into the Ochre-gradient sunset. Also, again, a big thank you to El_Scorcho for an incredible final, it started off for me in competitions with a NAFL Grand Final against you, so it's perfect that it ends that way. You have honestly been such a big influence on me as a designer over these past five years and without you Adam, I don't know if I would have pushed myself to become the designer I am today.

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[E92_]

Awesome job, mate. NAFL is in great hands.