gutsroy
Brownlow Medallist
The first week of finals has been run and won for another year.
It saw many coaches belting out seasons- and in some cases career-best scores on the back of some extremely strong performances from commonly-held blue-chippers.
The question which has nagged SuperCoach’s finest minds for decades was finally resolved as we found out what happens when Adam ‘Barbecues’ Treloar is capable of hitting the broad side of a barn by foot: He goes pretty ******* well. A 177 is a magnificent score and those who grabbed him amongst their final upgrade targets at a reduced price will be happy as pigs in s**t.
Marcus ‘The Bont’ Bontempelli finally stepped out of Jack Billings’ shadow, the Italian Stallion compiling 166 silky points while his comrade-in-arms, Jackson Macrae, was also monolithic with 155 against the Lions. Both were also objectively excellent and kept the Dogs in the game longer than they should have been on general play.
Nic ‘Hello’ Newman’ has been in stellar form of late apart form a minor blemish, benefitting from stepping out of Jake Lloyd’s formidable chip-sharking shadow and racking up 161 points as he showed the People’s Geriatric, Kade Simpson, how it’s done. (Simmo went for 89, firmly in the friend zone. He's a geriatric SC pick only from here on in, folks.)
Newman is such a good bloke, always encouraging his teammates. Seen here showing VC Crippa a bit of love.
James Worpel, subjected to slander and ridicule from shamefully ungrateful SuperCoaches all year, gifted those petulant dullards a 149 which they should feel a deep sense of self-loathing in accepting.
The Worpedo has gifted many an entitled ne’er-do-well (and also his more realistic owners who recognized that he was getting the job done) a nigh-on 95 average and might just have helped you get across the line in some pivotal finals clashes this week. The kid is doing just fine, so pull your head in and be thankful that the young bloke engaged the Worp Drive on the weekend. Finals Performer, The Worp.
* yo' Brouch, nizzle. I'm James Worpel, bitch.
Nathaniel Fyfe started off slowly against the Catters, but engaged full beast mode as the game went on. He was a constant aerial threat, racked up contested pill like it was going out of style. Discussion about whether a score is ‘overs’ or ‘unders’ and comparing scores across games don’t really make much sense – what can definitely be said is that Fyfe’s was not the result of KOTD action – he worked hard for the money.
A cavalcade of other premos also proved their mettle.
Dusty Martin went for a 138 as it became increasingly apparent that September looks like being the month of the Tiger, Michael ‘Son-Son’ Walters (137) ably supported The Flog Prince in cutting the boys from Sleepy Hollow to ribbons in the second haf). Max Gawn scored 134 despite not having huge impact, Toby Greene also went for 134 – as long as the body stands up to the wear and tear, his production is going to be upper echelon for the FWD line.
Bachar Houli (132 of the best compiled halal SC points you will see totalled), Zac Williams (124) and Rory Laird (124) all got the job done down back and then some.
Bachar prides himself on his run and carry.
Brodie Grundy went for 121, which was not overly impressive in the main and he failed to really capitalize on Jarrod Witts sitting out half the last quarter after what looked to be a minor knee tweak, but if 120 is your floor, you’re doing just fine. Todd Goldstein (118) worked hard around the ground despite being beaten in tap-outs to continue his late season surge into relevance.
Jack Ziebell (120) returned to form after a Barry Crocker last week, Isaac Heeney pumped out a 119 (sounds great at first blush, but that really could / should have been 150 – he squandered some gilt-edged chances to kick a late goal and cop some massive scale).
Matt Crouch (118 - playing very outside for the second week in a row but benefitting from two snags), Elliot Yeo (114 – coming home like Puffing Billy and adding another notch to his belt in Patty Cripps alongside Dusty Martin and all the other blokes he has subjugated), Tim Kelly (114 in something of a return to form), Zac Merrett (113 fairly unobtrusive points), Clayton Oliver, Brad Crouch and Robbie Gray (111 apiece) all broke through the 110-point barrier.
And so this turned out to be one of those rounds where it was less about the standout performances deciding matchups – in a world where everybody’s super, nobody is…
… but individual underpaint stains dragging down overall totals which proved the difference in the end.
We’re not talking so much about the reprehensible seagull (Jake Llllooooyydddd, 85 disease-ridden pts), Patrick Cripps (78, ultimately succumbing to the Yeo-Yeo), Paddy Dangerspud (57) and co.. Their scores were not flash , but their ownership levels are high enough that they weren’t that likely to hurt owners as a unique in most matchups and were as harmful as a fart in the bath on the whole.
It was more the gap in output between a James Sicily (76) / Daniel Rich (71) Connor Blakely (75) type or an injury-impacted and probably cooked Grant Birchall (57) and a Rory Laird (124) / Bachar Houli (132) type down back, copping a David Mundy 48 up forward due to him having been played essentially out of the goal score for the first time all year and coming up against an opponent running silent, running deep with a WORPEDO payload locked and loaded and an extra 101 points in hand over you.
Or arrogantly parading the man, the myth, the legend, Rowan Marshall at F1 and tearing campaigners’ throats out (gently, to be fair, his 109 solid if unspectacular, but certainly better than a 48) that saw you king of the kids or lord of the losers, depending on whether you could wedge your clacker on a chair or not when the music stopped playing..
While Dazza and Grigga put the C on the Bont, Shazza unfortunately plumped for Lachie Neale
In the MIDs, a single injury-impacted 61 from Zorko the Magnificent, a 48 from an obviously not-quite-right Domma Sheed or a faecally incontinent Ben Cunnington diarrhea-ridden 66 might have been enough to cost you the choccies and have had you wanting to cave their skulls in with a blunt mallet and dispose of the body in a shallow grave on the banks of the Yarra. Tim Taranto and JPK also landed on 72, but their general formline has been pretty good of late and you could probably forgive them tbh.
And obviously, anyone forced to field The Artist Formerly Known as SP Gussy in the mids was in for a bigger fight for their life than Izzy Folau as The Anus backed out another disgraceful 67. (He is trying, he just can’t take a trick and is a shadow of the bloke who stormed home to finish 3rd in last year’s Brownlow.)
If Gussy had even just gone 90, I would have come away with the choccies in me cashie.
Dylan Clarke and Griffin Logue (37 and 35 respectively
) also left anyone having to field them to cover injuries pushing s**t uphill blindfolded, in the rain and with one arm tied behind their backs as the boys picked the worst possible time to channel their inner Connor Menadue. But they’re rookies, and for the most part, rookies aren’t the blokes to be dependent on when the whips are cracking.
Ultimately, all of these circumstances conspired to underline an eternal truth of this beautiful, majestic, marvelous chunk of humanity we call the SC caper: You get what you pay for.
Whether it be Harris Andrews, Dom Sheed, being sideswiped by the move of Mundy, surprising on the day but which seemed an everpresent threat throughout the year, or taking a flyer on Birchall’s body holding up (not so much the scoring pedigree, he’s pretty useful), the reality is:
Yes, there are arbitrage angles there to be played and they can be great in terms of bang for buck, but it’s just very hard to time your run to ensure that they give you the output you need over the entire timeframe you need it compared to bonafide rockstars of the caper.
Subpremo ≠ Premo over the long haul, and taking luck out of the equation is probably the more likely path to success than rolling the dice and hoping your lucky numbers come up in the midweek draw ten weeks running.
So where do we go from here?
Those of us who rode were able to get across the line in our elimination finals live to fight another day and may potentially have legitimate chances to ride a wave of momentum through to prelim weekend. The reason for this is that a number of teams which banked early wins and qualified for the top four had to spend a fair few petrol tickets in the form of trades to do so.
It's all about timing your run...
They might have a Jeremy Cameron, a Josh Kelly or a Zorko riding the pine this weekend, be a little exposed to a rookie going low and have no trades to work with. There will be the odd straight sets sitting duck bobbing up and down in the pond, blissfully aware that it’s about to get its s**t ****ed up irrevocably by a young Labrador out on the prowl for something to ‘play with’.
Those of us who were firmly ensconced in the warm and welcoming bosom of the top four and managed to squeeze by their opponents will rest up this weekend, conserve trades where possible and look on as carnage undoubtedly unfolds.
Those of us whose sole / primary focus is overall won’t allow themselves to be distracted, many doubtless hoping to welcome Josh Kelly and other premos on the pine back on-field to give them a boost down the home straight and that their uniques vs the top 100 give them an additional edge..
Finally, those of us who got eliminated in our knockout finals are left with no other choice than to silently protest the filthy PED-enhanced scores of those who beat us on pure arse, not on merit. They are Sun Yang to our Thomas Fraser-Holmes, Lance Armstrong to our Stuart O’Grady… hold on, where was I going with this? Ah yes, the ox is slow, but the earth is patient, it is we who are on the right side of history -or something, I don’t bloody know. We’re having a rough time, OK? No-one should judge us.
'Come on, Mack, jump over here in the photo, maaate'. 'Yeah, nah, * that, you copped Treloar's and Worpel's scores and still only got me by twenty. More arse than class, campaigner.'
Because the sun shines out of our clackers, not theirs, and we are obviously the smartest blokes and blokettes in the room, not them. We’re just good coaches out of form, what with 2/10 wins on the weekend and a rank north of 5k and slipping. There is no justice in this world, but next year, next year, we’ll conserve our trades, won’t sideways premos and … and … who are we kidding, of course we bloody will. And that’s the wonderful thing about SC: There’s more than one way to skin a cat, there’s no right or wrong in the moment, only in hindsight, and nobody’s got a mortgage on the truth. What goes **** up one year can lead to a top 100 finish the next.
And with this, my fine feathered friends, I take my leave of you for this year. Time to step aside and allow those who know their arse from their elbow to take their rightful place in the limelight as they go for Gold in pursuit of their place in the pantheon of paradigms of SuperCoach greatness. Now get out there, grab the elephant in the china shop by the bull’s horns and soar like a majestic phoenix rising from the ashes. It’s what Jocko would have wanted.
(If anyone else is keen on having a crack at write-ups, go for the gusto, can’t do any worse a job of it than I did and it gets boring when it’s always the same nuffbot over and over.)
WaynesWorld19: Got it up earlier this week, mate
It saw many coaches belting out seasons- and in some cases career-best scores on the back of some extremely strong performances from commonly-held blue-chippers.
The question which has nagged SuperCoach’s finest minds for decades was finally resolved as we found out what happens when Adam ‘Barbecues’ Treloar is capable of hitting the broad side of a barn by foot: He goes pretty ******* well. A 177 is a magnificent score and those who grabbed him amongst their final upgrade targets at a reduced price will be happy as pigs in s**t.
Marcus ‘The Bont’ Bontempelli finally stepped out of Jack Billings’ shadow, the Italian Stallion compiling 166 silky points while his comrade-in-arms, Jackson Macrae, was also monolithic with 155 against the Lions. Both were also objectively excellent and kept the Dogs in the game longer than they should have been on general play.
Nic ‘Hello’ Newman’ has been in stellar form of late apart form a minor blemish, benefitting from stepping out of Jake Lloyd’s formidable chip-sharking shadow and racking up 161 points as he showed the People’s Geriatric, Kade Simpson, how it’s done. (Simmo went for 89, firmly in the friend zone. He's a geriatric SC pick only from here on in, folks.)
Newman is such a good bloke, always encouraging his teammates. Seen here showing VC Crippa a bit of love.
James Worpel, subjected to slander and ridicule from shamefully ungrateful SuperCoaches all year, gifted those petulant dullards a 149 which they should feel a deep sense of self-loathing in accepting.
The Worpedo has gifted many an entitled ne’er-do-well (and also his more realistic owners who recognized that he was getting the job done) a nigh-on 95 average and might just have helped you get across the line in some pivotal finals clashes this week. The kid is doing just fine, so pull your head in and be thankful that the young bloke engaged the Worp Drive on the weekend. Finals Performer, The Worp.
* yo' Brouch, nizzle. I'm James Worpel, bitch.
Nathaniel Fyfe started off slowly against the Catters, but engaged full beast mode as the game went on. He was a constant aerial threat, racked up contested pill like it was going out of style. Discussion about whether a score is ‘overs’ or ‘unders’ and comparing scores across games don’t really make much sense – what can definitely be said is that Fyfe’s was not the result of KOTD action – he worked hard for the money.
A cavalcade of other premos also proved their mettle.
Dusty Martin went for a 138 as it became increasingly apparent that September looks like being the month of the Tiger, Michael ‘Son-Son’ Walters (137) ably supported The Flog Prince in cutting the boys from Sleepy Hollow to ribbons in the second haf). Max Gawn scored 134 despite not having huge impact, Toby Greene also went for 134 – as long as the body stands up to the wear and tear, his production is going to be upper echelon for the FWD line.
Bachar Houli (132 of the best compiled halal SC points you will see totalled), Zac Williams (124) and Rory Laird (124) all got the job done down back and then some.
Bachar prides himself on his run and carry.
Brodie Grundy went for 121, which was not overly impressive in the main and he failed to really capitalize on Jarrod Witts sitting out half the last quarter after what looked to be a minor knee tweak, but if 120 is your floor, you’re doing just fine. Todd Goldstein (118) worked hard around the ground despite being beaten in tap-outs to continue his late season surge into relevance.
Jack Ziebell (120) returned to form after a Barry Crocker last week, Isaac Heeney pumped out a 119 (sounds great at first blush, but that really could / should have been 150 – he squandered some gilt-edged chances to kick a late goal and cop some massive scale).
Matt Crouch (118 - playing very outside for the second week in a row but benefitting from two snags), Elliot Yeo (114 – coming home like Puffing Billy and adding another notch to his belt in Patty Cripps alongside Dusty Martin and all the other blokes he has subjugated), Tim Kelly (114 in something of a return to form), Zac Merrett (113 fairly unobtrusive points), Clayton Oliver, Brad Crouch and Robbie Gray (111 apiece) all broke through the 110-point barrier.
And so this turned out to be one of those rounds where it was less about the standout performances deciding matchups – in a world where everybody’s super, nobody is…
… but individual underpaint stains dragging down overall totals which proved the difference in the end.
We’re not talking so much about the reprehensible seagull (Jake Llllooooyydddd, 85 disease-ridden pts), Patrick Cripps (78, ultimately succumbing to the Yeo-Yeo), Paddy Dangerspud (57) and co.. Their scores were not flash , but their ownership levels are high enough that they weren’t that likely to hurt owners as a unique in most matchups and were as harmful as a fart in the bath on the whole.
It was more the gap in output between a James Sicily (76) / Daniel Rich (71) Connor Blakely (75) type or an injury-impacted and probably cooked Grant Birchall (57) and a Rory Laird (124) / Bachar Houli (132) type down back, copping a David Mundy 48 up forward due to him having been played essentially out of the goal score for the first time all year and coming up against an opponent running silent, running deep with a WORPEDO payload locked and loaded and an extra 101 points in hand over you.
Or arrogantly parading the man, the myth, the legend, Rowan Marshall at F1 and tearing campaigners’ throats out (gently, to be fair, his 109 solid if unspectacular, but certainly better than a 48) that saw you king of the kids or lord of the losers, depending on whether you could wedge your clacker on a chair or not when the music stopped playing..
While Dazza and Grigga put the C on the Bont, Shazza unfortunately plumped for Lachie Neale
In the MIDs, a single injury-impacted 61 from Zorko the Magnificent, a 48 from an obviously not-quite-right Domma Sheed or a faecally incontinent Ben Cunnington diarrhea-ridden 66 might have been enough to cost you the choccies and have had you wanting to cave their skulls in with a blunt mallet and dispose of the body in a shallow grave on the banks of the Yarra. Tim Taranto and JPK also landed on 72, but their general formline has been pretty good of late and you could probably forgive them tbh.
And obviously, anyone forced to field The Artist Formerly Known as SP Gussy in the mids was in for a bigger fight for their life than Izzy Folau as The Anus backed out another disgraceful 67. (He is trying, he just can’t take a trick and is a shadow of the bloke who stormed home to finish 3rd in last year’s Brownlow.)
If Gussy had even just gone 90, I would have come away with the choccies in me cashie.
Dylan Clarke and Griffin Logue (37 and 35 respectively
) also left anyone having to field them to cover injuries pushing s**t uphill blindfolded, in the rain and with one arm tied behind their backs as the boys picked the worst possible time to channel their inner Connor Menadue. But they’re rookies, and for the most part, rookies aren’t the blokes to be dependent on when the whips are cracking.Ultimately, all of these circumstances conspired to underline an eternal truth of this beautiful, majestic, marvelous chunk of humanity we call the SC caper: You get what you pay for.
Whether it be Harris Andrews, Dom Sheed, being sideswiped by the move of Mundy, surprising on the day but which seemed an everpresent threat throughout the year, or taking a flyer on Birchall’s body holding up (not so much the scoring pedigree, he’s pretty useful), the reality is:
Yes, there are arbitrage angles there to be played and they can be great in terms of bang for buck, but it’s just very hard to time your run to ensure that they give you the output you need over the entire timeframe you need it compared to bonafide rockstars of the caper.
Subpremo ≠ Premo over the long haul, and taking luck out of the equation is probably the more likely path to success than rolling the dice and hoping your lucky numbers come up in the midweek draw ten weeks running.
So where do we go from here?
Those of us who rode were able to get across the line in our elimination finals live to fight another day and may potentially have legitimate chances to ride a wave of momentum through to prelim weekend. The reason for this is that a number of teams which banked early wins and qualified for the top four had to spend a fair few petrol tickets in the form of trades to do so.
It's all about timing your run...
They might have a Jeremy Cameron, a Josh Kelly or a Zorko riding the pine this weekend, be a little exposed to a rookie going low and have no trades to work with. There will be the odd straight sets sitting duck bobbing up and down in the pond, blissfully aware that it’s about to get its s**t ****ed up irrevocably by a young Labrador out on the prowl for something to ‘play with’.
Those of us who were firmly ensconced in the warm and welcoming bosom of the top four and managed to squeeze by their opponents will rest up this weekend, conserve trades where possible and look on as carnage undoubtedly unfolds.
Those of us whose sole / primary focus is overall won’t allow themselves to be distracted, many doubtless hoping to welcome Josh Kelly and other premos on the pine back on-field to give them a boost down the home straight and that their uniques vs the top 100 give them an additional edge..
Finally, those of us who got eliminated in our knockout finals are left with no other choice than to silently protest the filthy PED-enhanced scores of those who beat us on pure arse, not on merit. They are Sun Yang to our Thomas Fraser-Holmes, Lance Armstrong to our Stuart O’Grady… hold on, where was I going with this? Ah yes, the ox is slow, but the earth is patient, it is we who are on the right side of history -or something, I don’t bloody know. We’re having a rough time, OK? No-one should judge us.
'Come on, Mack, jump over here in the photo, maaate'. 'Yeah, nah, * that, you copped Treloar's and Worpel's scores and still only got me by twenty. More arse than class, campaigner.'
Because the sun shines out of our clackers, not theirs, and we are obviously the smartest blokes and blokettes in the room, not them. We’re just good coaches out of form, what with 2/10 wins on the weekend and a rank north of 5k and slipping. There is no justice in this world, but next year, next year, we’ll conserve our trades, won’t sideways premos and … and … who are we kidding, of course we bloody will. And that’s the wonderful thing about SC: There’s more than one way to skin a cat, there’s no right or wrong in the moment, only in hindsight, and nobody’s got a mortgage on the truth. What goes **** up one year can lead to a top 100 finish the next.
And with this, my fine feathered friends, I take my leave of you for this year. Time to step aside and allow those who know their arse from their elbow to take their rightful place in the limelight as they go for Gold in pursuit of their place in the pantheon of paradigms of SuperCoach greatness. Now get out there, grab the elephant in the china shop by the bull’s horns and soar like a majestic phoenix rising from the ashes. It’s what Jocko would have wanted.
(If anyone else is keen on having a crack at write-ups, go for the gusto, can’t do any worse a job of it than I did and it gets boring when it’s always the same nuffbot over and over.)
WaynesWorld19: Got it up earlier this week, mate
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