2013 Fixture Study

DoctorGonzo08

2013 FIXTURE STUDY

Similar to last year, I have done a few weightings and produced a few excel tables to see who has the best fixtures for the coming season. Similar to before I have assigned weightings to each team based on what block of 3 they finished on the ladder in 2012, as shown below:

HAW ADE SYD - 17
COL WCE GEE - 14
FRE NTH STK - 11
BRL PTA WBD - 6
MEL GCS GWS - 3

I went through each team’s fixtures, assigned the values to each team, and then summed them to give a Seasonal Value. I simply ranked the teams from lowest to highest, which reflects the ease of a club’s fixture.


OVERALL FIXTURE

The value in the below table is an average value to give an easier representation as to the fixture difficulty. The higher the average, the worse the fixture.

2013 SEASON
1 GCS 9.36
2 MEL 9.36
3 ADE 9.59
4 BRL 9.59
5 GWS 9.77
6 RIC 9.86
7 STK 9.91
8 CAR 10.00
9 ESS 10.00
10 PTA 10.00
11 SYD 10.09
12 FRE 10.14
13 GEE 10.14
14 WBD 10.14
15 WCE 10.27
16 COL 10.41
17 HAW 10.59
18 NTH 11.00

As is common, the tougher teams (such as Collingwood, Hawthorn, etc) are usually given tougher draws, while the weaker teams (think Melbourne last year) tend to double-up on similarly weak sides.

The above information is useful for picking a between two similar players that you just can’t split. For instance, if I was 50-50 between Patrick Dangerfield and Andrew Swallow then I would probably side with Dangerfield given Adelaide’s favourable draw (This is the second year running where Adelaide have had a very favourable run of fixtures and the benefitted from it last year with a 2nd place finish in the ladder).

Conversely, will a tough draw turn you off a player? Collingwood & Hawthorn, as expected, boast a tough draws coming into the season. Will that affect whether you choose Swan, Pendlebury & Beams or Suckling, Mitchell & Franklin? I would suggest Collingwood & Hawthorn are used to it. I would be much more worried about players from the Bulldogs and North. However, maybe it is the push some of these teams need. You just have to look at Sydney last year, who had the 3rd worse run of fixtures, but went on to claim the Premiership.


PRE-BYE FIXTURES

What about when we look for upgrades/downgrades when the Multi-Bye Rounds (MBRs) come around? Given that this is when most of us will be executing a heap of trades, I thought it would be useful to examine each club’s Pre-Bye and Post-Bye splits.

PRE-BYE ROUNDS
1 PTA 8.36
2 WCE 8.36
3 ADE 8.90
4 MEL 9.18
5 GEE 9.45
6 GCS 9.50
7 CAR 9.70
8 STK 10.18
9 WBD 10.20
10 BRL 10.30
11 ESS 10.36
12 RIC 10.36
13 HAW 10.55
14 SYD 10.55
15 GWS 10.60
16 COL 10.64
17 FRE 10.90
18 NTH 12.20

As we can see, Port Adelaide, West Coast, Adelaide and Melbourne have great pre-bye fixtures, while Great Western, Collingwood, Fremantle and North have a tougher start to the year.

This data is useful for examining both Gun and Rookie selections. Picking Cash-Cows from a team with a favourable pre-bye draw means that they will fatten up considerably more by the time you want to cash them in – the MBRs. This backs up any strategy that recruits the many options at Port, including Wines, Mitchell, Pittard etc. Similarly, if you are stuck picking between two guns you would take the player with the best pre-bye draw, and leave the other for consideration as an upgrade target. So, for example, I would be picking Matt Priddis to start before I would Michael Barlow.


POST-BYE FIXTURES.


What about after the bye? Which players should we be looking at for upgrades, and which team’s rookies might make great downgrade options around the MBR/

POST-BYE ROUNDS
1 GWS 8.64
2 BRL 9.00
3 GCS 9.18
4 FRE 9.50
5 ADE 9.55
6 MEL 9.55
7 STK 9.64
8 SYD 9.64
9 CAR 9.70
10 RIC 10.00
11 WBD 10.08
12 ESS 10.30
13 HAW 10.50
14 COL 10.60
15 NTH 10.64
16 GEE 10.82
17 PTA 10.92
18 WCE 12.18

Here, we see that in complete contrast to the first half of the season, Great Western has a great finish. Same goes for Fremantle, who also had a tough start to the year. Conversely, West Coast and Port Adelaide have a tough run home after enjoying early starts.



These are just an overview to the season, and when I get a chance I'll post the rest. With the increased trades this year it was worth looking into splitting the season into quarters to see how each teams fixtures look and when might be a good time to jump on a player. For instance Carlton have a very tough opening 5 fixtures, but from Round 6-10, they have the best run of fixtures over all the season. Just before the byes too. It has me considering not starting with Gibbs, and looking to bring him in with Murphy and Robinson around Round 6. In addition to this I have looked a little more into when and where is it best to upgrade/downgrade playes

I have also looked at who has the best fixtures over the Bye Rounds 11-13, and who is finishing the strongest over the DT Final Rounds 20-23.

The posts will only scratch the surface though, and is dependant on the weightings that I gave the teams in the beginning. So... If anyone can help/recommend a way I can share the excel file online so the rest of you can have a play around, I'd love to hear it. I was thinking of putting it up on dropbox maybe?

murphyme2010

You could use Google apps/docs.
You can create a spread sheet and share as a link.

Michael.