SUPERCOACH PREMIER LEAGUE

Short Summary
Below is a detailed proposal for SPL - Supercoach Premier League - to be run on
SuperCoachScores.com in 2015. The idea is to run a deep league with advanced bench
options to best represent a Best 22 score each week from 30 players named.

Coaches & Squad Size
I would prefer to 8 coaches take part in this comp. With a squad size of 45 per coach, this
would mean an initial draft running 360 players deep, with a set number drafted in each
playing position (as discussed below).

Initial Draft Options
Draft date will be conrmed in October this year (once the AFL release the 2015 xture).
Therefore, I would like to have all 8 coaches conrmed and committed by September.
Three spots are already taken, 5 spots remain. If there is enough interest, I am happy to
run a 2nd division of 6 - 8 coaches. Draft will be run snake-style.

*
Option 1 - Run the draft via SuperCoachScores.com forum, with all picks to be posted in
a nominated thread and with appropriate time limits between picks, with a view to nish
the draft within a fortnight somewhere in late-Feb or early-March.
*
Option 2 - Run a live draft via Google Chat/FaceTime/Skype etc. This will take a big
effort and requires everyones co-operation, but if the majority of coaches desire to draft
their entire team in one night, we will take this option.

Mid-Season Draft

There will be one mid-season draft to be held for SPL. This draft will enable each coach to
add an additional 5 players to their squad (thus bring squad size up to 50 each). You can
draft players from any position

If you have a player who is out for the rest of the season at the time of the mid-season
draft (as conrmed by AFL.COM.AU or by that clubs ofcial homepage), you can de-list
them and have an extra pick in the mid-season draft.

Player Position Denitions & Starting 22
A spreadsheet will be made available to all coaches with player names and their
designated positions for 2015. Each player will be designated one position for 2015 (no
Dual-Position players in this league), and this will play a major part in how each coach
drafts and selects his Starting 22 + Super Bench each week.

Positions are:
*
DEFENDERS (9 to be drafted)
eg: J McVeigh, B Goddard, D Swallow, H Shaw, J Kelly, P Hanley, S Mitchell, B Gibbs
*
KEY DEFENDERS (3 to be drafted)
eg: C Hooker, L Dunn, L McPharlin, H Grundy, J Gibson, A Rance, SD Thompson
*
MIDFIELDERS (15 to be drafted)
eg: G Ablett, S Pendlebury, D Beams, N Fyfe, C Ward, T Cotchin, A Swallow, D Swan
*
RUCKS (4 to be drafted)
eg: S Mumford, A Sandilands, S Jacobs, P Ryder, T Hickey, N Naitanui, M Pyke
*
FORWARDS (9 to be drafted)
eg: L Breust, B Harvey, R Gray, B Howlett, J Lewis, D Zorko, C Yarran, A Monfries
*
KEY FORWARDS (3 to be drafted)
eg: J Roughead, L Franklin, T Hawkins, C Dixon, T Bellchambers, C Dawes, J Patton
*
UTILITIES (2 be drafted, special rules apply)
eg: J Carlisle, L Henderson, H Taylor, B Reid, L Hansen, J Watts, J Frawley, S Rowe

In summary, 9 + 3 + 15 + 4 + 9 + 3 + 2 = 45, with 22 to be named each week + 8 on Super
Bench. These numbers per position must be maintained throughout the season.


* Coach must decide to name 8 Mids + 2 Rucks OR 9 Mids + 1 Ruck every week. *

This 22 is complemented by a Super Bench of 8 players (this means you name 30 players
each week). Super Bench players can come on to replace someone in the Starting 22 in
the event of a starting Player scoring lower (or zero) than the named bench player in the
same position (this is to ensure a Best 22 scenario). This will assist with minimising or
even eliminating the impact of Late Outs, Injuries, Sub-Affected players etc.

The Super Bench of 8 can be made up of any combination of positions (including the
Utilities), keeping in mind that Defenders on the Super Bench can only replace one of the
5 Def positions on the eld Key Fwd on the Bench can only replace the 1 Key Fwd on
the eld and so on.

Exception to this rule are the Utilities. Utilities (0 or 1 or 2) can be named on the Super
Bench only (not in Starting 22), and can replace one of up to 3 positions in the Best 22
(Key Def, Key Fwd, 2nd Ruck if named) if they score high enough to warrant it. Utility
cannot replace the 1st Ruck named, but only the 2nd Ruck (if named).

FULL SQUAD STARTING 22
DEFENDERS
9 5
KEY DEFENDERS
3 1
MIDFIELDERS
15 * 8 or 9 *
RUCKS
4 * 1 or 2 *
FORWARDS
9 5
KEY FORWARDS
3 1
UTILITIES
2 0
TOTAL
45 22
8 on Super Bench
Although unlikely, if the Super Bench cannot satisfy a full Starting 22 (due to numerous
Late Outs, injuries, poor list management etc), the team will unfortunately have some
donuts or zeroes scored that week.

*** Why the Super Bench? A Case Study ***
Round 16 of the 2014 season saw a heap of Late Outs, in-game Injuries and (subsequent)
Suspensions to Supercoach-relevant players
-
Late Outs: N Naitanui, J Kelly, M Pavlich, K Tippett, B Hill, D Simpson
-
Injury: G Ablett, P Dangereld, C Dixon, B Sewell, B Rutten, T McKenzie, S Thompson
-
Suspension: T Rockliff, B Goddard, B Lake
-

Having just 2 of these SuperCoach-relevant players out is enough to derail your whole
weekend, so a Super Bench of 8 players to cover any Late Outs, Injuries or general low
scores is an insurance policy to guard against these unforeseen mishaps.

Scoring, Teams & Fixtures
All players scores will based on SuperCoach scoring system, with data derived from
FootyWire.com and/or Herald-Sun website. Your weekly score will be the average of your
Best 22 (including any donuts aka 0s). So, if your Best 22 combine to score 1996 in
SuperCoach points, your weekly score = 1996/22 = 90.73

The major decision Ive made for the 2015 SPL is no head-to-head matches. The main
reason for this is to remove the luck factor of who each coach is up against in any given
week, and to reward consistency over the season.

In an 8 coach league, points will be awarded each week as follows:
-
Top scoring team of the week = 8 points
-
2nd best team of the week = 7 points
-
3rd best team of the week = 6 points
-
4th best team of the week = 5 points
-
5th best team of the week = 4 points
-
6th best team of the week = 3 points
-
7th best team of the week = 2 points
-
8th best team of the week = 1 point
-
Lowest scoring team of the week = 0 points

The winning team will be the ladder points leader upon completion of the AFL home-and-
away xture of 22/23 rounds (much like EPL in Soccer).

Teams are to be named by 7pm Friday in traditional rounds. Where there are rounds with
matches on Wednesday, Thursday etc alternate cutoff times will be stated for team
submissions.

If the AFL does decide to continue with the multi-Bye round concept in 2015, I will look at
changing the Best 22 scoring system for those rounds only. At this stage, it is rumoured
that there will only be 1 Bye Round in the 2015 xture.



Trading
This league will allow inter-team trades throughout the season up until completion of
Round 15. Proposed trade to be posted in a Trades thread, and if 3 or more coaches Veto
the trade in a 24-hour window, the trade will not pass. If 2 or less Vetoes, trade goes
ahead. Any trades (1-for-1, 2-for-2, 3-for-3 players etc) must maintain the same number of
players in each designated position as at the start of the season.

Keeper-League & Player Retention Possibilities
If the league maintains a great level of interest and engagement over the season, I would
like to maintain a semi-keeper league format, with each coach able to retain up to 15 of
their 45 players for the following 2016 season. This is up for discussion once we get the
ball rolling early next year.