AFL Season 2011 is now upon us. This season, that one day in September is in October, specifically, its on Saturday October 1.

Firstly, for anyone who is not familar with the game, here is a set of Video Highlights of the 2010 season to give you a good overview of some of the freakish skills involved.

INTERNATIONAL VISITORS:
Games can be watched online through omnisport.tv and liveafl.tv
In most countries, a selection of games (shown live or 'near-live') can be seen on ESPN (in the US they are on ESPN2 and online on ESPN3) as well as a few other places - for more details, go here
For Much more info on the US ESPN schedule:

border said:

Can someone add this link to the OP? It's a listing of all AFL games being played on ESPN3.com. These should be accessible to any American with a participating broadband service. And I believe you can watch ESPN3 stuff on an Xbox 360 as well.

http://www.afana.com/drupal5/tvsched

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Note that these games are also archived so they can be watched any time, if you'd rather not watch them at ridiculous o'clock in the morning.


AFL-GAFFERS:
GAF AFL DREAM TEAM:
She Had Man Hands - _Alkaline_ (Nick)
The Wildcats - legend166 (Andrew)
Team Sausagefest - fisheyes (Josh)
South Beach Talent - picko (Callam)
Hawk_abroad - All Hail C-Webb
Sainter's Realm - Ydahs
LEAGUE CODE: 321888 (hurry quick if you want to join)
Don't forget: http://dream-stats.com/ (made by our very own Ydahs) has all the DT info you'll ever need

GAF AFL TIPPING LEAGUE:
http://tipping.afl.com.au
league name: GAF
entry code: VXS62YUJ4Z

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2010 in review
In case you missed it above, Video Highlights of the 2010 season .



The 2010 Grand Final:
Collingwood (16.12.108) defeated St Kilda (7.10.52) in the Grand Final Replay after drawing 9.14.68 to 10.8.68
Norm Smith Medallist: Scott Pendelbury (GF replay), Lenny Hayes (drawn GF)




Award Winners
Mark of the Year: Liam Jurrah
Goal of the Year: Buddy Franklin
Coleman Medalist: Jack Riewoldt
Brownlow Medalist: Chris Judd
Rising Star: Daniel Hannebery




Notable Retirees:
Brett Kirk (Sydney), Ben Cousins (Richmond), Jason Akermanis and Brad Johnson (Western Bulldogs), Brett Burton, Tyson Edwards, Simon Goodwin and Andrew McLeod (Adelaide), Warren Tredrea and Josh Carr (Port), Leigh Harding and Corey Jones (Kangaroos).

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The big issues of 2011

The Gold Coast Suns
So many questions remain of the AFL's newest team. Will 9 million dollar man Gary Ablett be able to lead his team to victory? Which of their young guns - including top 3 draft picks David Swallow, Harley Benell and Sam Day will stand up? Will Karmichael Hunt successfully transition from the NRL? Have the Suns successfully knocked off Freo as winners of the 'worst song in the AFL' award? The answer to the last question is clearly yes, but the rest remain to be seen.
Notable Dates:
First Home & Away Game - vs Carlton, Rd 2, Saturday April 2
First Queensland Derby - vs Brisbane, Rd 7, Saturday May 7
Gary Ablett vs. Geelong (also first game at Cararra) - Rd 10, Saturday May 28

The Coaches
Can Windy Hill's favourite son, James Hird, and his new buddy Bomber Thompson lead the Bombers out of their rut? Will Chris Scott be able to stop Geelong's potential slide? Also new to the coaching gig are Sydney's John Longmire and GC's Guy McKenna, while Matthew Primus gets his first official gig as Port's new leader. Meanwhile, at Colligwood Mick Malthouse is set to have his final year before Nathan Buckley takes over - can he go out on a high?
Notable Dates:
Bomber Thompson vs. Geelong - Rd 15, Saturday July 2
Chris Scott vs Brad Scott - Rd 7, Saturday May 7

The Giants
Just when the Sun's run at all your players was finally over, Kevin Sheedy gets to dip his fingers into your list - for the next two years. Who will be their big recruit? Are players in your team already bound for the GWS?

The Beginning and Ends of Eras?
Are Collingwood the real deal, ready to start a streak of Premierships? Can St Kilda move up from their recent constant 'bridesmaid' status? Are Geelong on the way down? Are Melbourne ready to start the dynasty everyone is expecting them to eventually?

And finally, how long will we go before another St Kilda scandal?

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And just to round out the thread, here is a video of the Bulldogs' mad worm skills. Thats premiership material right there, Rocket Eade should be proud.

Massive props to Ydahs for the banner, Grug for being our spiritual leader, and, most importantly, to legend166 for being the only person - myself included - to actual tip the mighty Power for the finals this year. GO THE POWER

Brett Burton, Tyson Edwards, Simon Goodwin and Andrew McLeod (Adelaide)

:lol


Are they still doing that champions league SANFL VFL WAFL + others cup? I've been out of the country for a bit and am unsure!

I concur with the mad worm skills. If that doesn't increase membership, I don't know what will.

And looking forward to the new season, especially with all of the new players in the Bulldogs. Though if Collingwood are as dominate as they were that'll dull my mood.

Just to add a couple of things that will be massive over the year. The new interchange system, death of the second giant? and The media rights, can it break $1 billion? So hope 9 don't win the rights

I personally think the new Interchange rules are going to be massive. Teams can't afford to start with 2 ruckmen. Having a limit of 12 interchanges a quarter would have been a much smarter system but we'll see

Hopefully the Kangas can make the finals this year

HolyCheck said:

Are they still doing that champions league SANFL VFL WAFL + others cup? I've been out of the country for a bit and am unsure!

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As far as I know they are. Though I'm pretty sure the only SANFL teams that want to be in it are South, Port and West Adelaide - who finished last, second last and fourth last respectively. I don't know if other leagues have similarly snubbed it.

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can someone explain how this stupid 3 team deal works. Interested in seeing Melbourne and I think the RICH, CARL, COLL pool will be good so will the GEEL, WB, NM pool

Grug not OP... cccccombo-breaker haha

Will be interesting to see how the teams fare this year. Have the sainters lost the plot this year?, how will the suns go?, will the tigers make the eight, how brisbane will go with fev, how will the dogs respond to their antics but most important of all for myself... CARN THE CROWS

I'm so excited.

Swans don't start til next week though. Got my tickets! Even though we'll be playing basically our youngest team possible, I can't see how we'll lose to either Gold Coast or GWS.

I can't remember the last season that had the potential to be this interesting. So many different stories going on.

Really looking forward to this season, a new team, more games and an interesting pre-season set up.

FOOTY'S BACK!

tri_willy said:

CARN THE CROWS

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CARN THE PEAR!

As someone from the US, I watched the championship match last year through ESPN online and quite enjoyed it. Enough to stay up until some ungodly hour watching it to the end. Does anyone know if there is a way for me to watch regular season stuff here in the states?

Ceebs said:

As someone from the US, I watched the championship match last year through ESPN online and quite enjoyed it. Enough to stay up until some ungodly hour watching it to the end. Does anyone know if there is a way for me to watch regular season stuff here in the states?

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Not sure maybe the official website. afl.com.au

I think you can watch full match replays on there

So, first game is now over. The Dees go through, Adelaide potentially does depending on results. I was supposed to go watch it, but had to work, so instead I watched the mini-Showdown on TV and I'll watch the other two when they are replayed here in a minute.

A few stray observations though:
- This out of bounds rule they are trialling is confusing shit, get rid of it.
- Crows youngsters look quite good
- Port youngsters... not so much. I know we were missing probably half of our first pick team, but, ugh, this could be a long year
- I can already tell this interchange crap is going to hurt us, if it means we can't really run two ruckman, then its going to be Brogan carrying the load all season, and we really need young Redden (or Lobbe when he is fit) to get some game time (but not all by themselves, as neither is good enough on their own at the moment)
- Mots and Chad didn't look too bad from what I saw, hopefully they do better than last year.

Oh man, its good to have footy back though.

EDIT: Oh wait, 7 are only replaying the mini-Showdown in full. Good to see the channel continuing to be fucking useless.

Footy!

*goes to modify last year's banner for this year*

edit:

I dig the Suns inclusion. Looks so amazingly professional. I'll chuck it in the OP.

I probably should mention if anyone else wants something thrown in the OP to let me know. I figure if we end up having tipping / dream team comps I'll throw that info in there, for starters. Or if anyone can think of a better tagline we could try and get that changed (I considered something along the lines of 'For the love of god, not Collingwood again' but preferred my Saints inspired one).

Nice OP.

The Brownlow Medal is meaningless now. Gouge someones eyes, win best and fairest the year after. I also wonder if every midfielder will now shave their heads. That seems to be the clearest way to stand out (except when putting your thumbs in an eyesocket or elbowing someones face).

So I met liam jurrahs brother tonight.

Or so he told me he was.

I was standing on king william st waiting for a bus and about 10 - 15 Indigenous Australians walked past, mocking a guy in a crows guernsey, I lol'd then one of them said go melbourne! I said hell yes!

he stopped and said liam jurrahs my brother!

I was like WOH! and he's like yeah! we're so proud of him... got a dollar fella?


True story

Any interest in a GAF Dream Team league? I'm think of making a league, but there's no point if there's less than 10.

I'll post this in the AusGAF thread too to see if anyone's interested.

Ydahs said:

Any interest in a GAF Dream Team league? I'm think of making a league, but there's no point if there's less than 10.

I'll post this in the AusGAF thread too to see if anyone's interested.

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Never been in one, but am definitely down to try.

Ydahs said:

Any interest in a GAF Dream Team league? I'm think of making a league, but there's no point if there's less than 10.

I'll post this in the AusGAF thread too to see if anyone's interested.

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Interested. Supercoach > Dream Team though.

Collingwood, as much as I hate them, will embarass most teams this year. My Crows went alright last night, might just scrape through to the second round of this ridiculous competition based on percentage. New boundary rule is the worst thing ever.

Ydahs said:

Footy!

*goes to modify last year's banner for this year*

edit:

http://i53.tinypic.com/33tgt2e.png

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Next year can you just add Kevin Sheedy's head instead of the giants logo

Ceebs said:

As someone from the US, I watched the championship match last year through ESPN online and quite enjoyed it. Enough to stay up until some ungodly hour watching it to the end. Does anyone know if there is a way for me to watch regular season stuff here in the states?

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They show games on ESPN2 during the summer brah.

Ydahs said:

Any interest in a GAF Dream Team league? I'm think of making a league, but there's no point if there's less than 10.

I'll post this in the AusGAF thread too to see if anyone's interested.

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Already got a team in, so post up a league code and I will join

Keen for dream team as well.

EDIT: I am in. Team Sausagefest. The one that'll be down the bottom of the ladder.

AFL DREAM TEAM LEAGUE CODE: 321888

Don't even have a team? Register at http://dreamteam.afl.com.au/

Anyone willing to create a Super Coach League? I don't have an account atm.

Rafa=FedKilla said:

They show games on ESPN2 during the summer brah.

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Great, that means they will more than likely be on ESPN3 as well. Also thanks for the the various streaming links.

Ydahs said:

AFL DREAM TEAM LEAGUE CODE: 321888

Don't even have a team? Register at http://dreamteam.afl.com.au/

Anyone willing to create a Super Coach League? I don't have an account atm.

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Blank Planet FC representing.

flying kamikazes has now entered the fray

I hate the new out of bounds rule. No one has any idea what's going on.

I'm an Adelaide fan at heart, but I'm hoping that now that I'm in Brisbane, the Suns will get more people I know interested in Footy, instead of Rugby, so that I can go to a game or two with friends

Rlan said:

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i think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

I'm in for the DreamTeam.

I am The Wildcats.

Here is my fantasy team! It's going to be horrible.

Defenders:

B. Goddard (St Kilda)
J. Frawley (Melbourne)
N. Grima (North)
J. Drummond (Brisbane)
C. Brown (Gold Coast)
D. Armfield (Carlton)
N. Smith (Sydney)

Subs:
B. Jacobs (Port Adelaide)
K. Hunt (Gold Coast) - Should be funny
A. Hooper (Western Bulldogs)

Midfield:

G. Ablett (Gold Coast)
M. Rischitelli (Gold Coast) - I figure both these guys have no one to steal their possessions so they should rack up the points.
J. Kennedy (Sydney)
R. Petterd (Melbourne)
J. Ziebell (North)
C. Bird (Sydney)

Subs:
A. Krakouer (Collingwood)
S. Iles (Gold Coast)
L. Parker (Sydney) - At $92,500, he will be a steal. We got him pick 40 in the draft, but there's already talk of him starting round 1. He looks like a gun. A Jude Bolton type.

Rucks:

A. Sandilands (Fremantle)
S. Mumford (Sydney)
J. Fraser (Gold Coast)
J. Sellar (Adelaide)

Forwards:

A. Goodes (Sydney)
M. Pavlich (Fremantle)
M. LeCras (West Coast)
T. Varcoe (Geelong)
P. Dangerfield (Adelaide)
B. Ebert (Port Adelaide)
B. Dick (Collingwood)

Subs:
N. Ablett (Gold Coast)
L. Johnston (Sydney)
L. Tapscott (Melbourne)


So guys, tell me if I've made a horrible mistake and picked a player that's already suffered a season ending injury or something. I think my forward line will do the best. Out of those guys, four consistently rotate through the midfield. Actually, from all reports Goodes has trimmed down a bit and will be playing out of the midfield as his main position again.

I'm prepared to come last.

@ legend166, pretty sure u get unlimited trades before round 1 starts... stil tinkering with my lineup haha

tri_willy said:

@ legend166, pretty sure u get unlimited trades before round 1 starts... stil tinkering with my lineup haha

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Oh yeah, I know.

@legend, the rules have changed a fair bit this season from last, especially with extra bench space, so I could be talking out my arse as I have yet to finalise, or even really think about, my team as yet... but a couple points I would make so far.

1) Be very wary with the byes, if you have too many players of 1 team in the 1 position (ie. Midfield) you will be getting 0s as you struggle to field a full side. This is an absolute killer late in the season, especially as the injuries will start to mount.

2) Usually a good tactic is to go a good split of high priced players with rookies that are going to play, go up in value and then you trade up to a top end performer that has potentially dropped 100k due to a bad week or two. Unsure how that will work this year as I believe there are changes to the way the rolling 3 week average is calculated. Need to investigate.

3) Avoid mid-priced players and/or consistantly injury prone players, ie. Josh Drummond. He WILL get injured and miss 4-6 games a season. You will thank me later.

4) Look for the players coming back from long term injuries with a history of decent->good scoring. They will make you plenty of cash. (ie. Otten, Petrie, etc)


A good resource is places like www.fanfooty.com.au and http://dreamteamtalk.com/ they may waffle shit, but its good to find out scores of rookie players pre-season and to know who will play round 1 etc more than anything else. Avoid those 0s.


Been playing for ~9 years with a group of mates who are pretty into the whole DT thing... and have won the league 4 of the 9 times. Hoping to make it 4 in a row this season. lol.

Honestly, I'd much rather play an American style fantasy football comp. Where you've got a draft and a player can only go to one team. I reckon it's a much, much better system but for some reason DreamTeam/SuperCoach seemed to catch on.

fantasy this year will be very hit and miss.

hopefully it means this year not everyone will have the same team after 10 rounds like previous years.

my best picks for Dreamteam would be Otten as he is playing in the midfield this year but lsited as a underpriced backman and Callinan for the crows. Mature aged rookies always score well above their starting price.

legend166 said:

Honestly, I'd much rather play an American style fantasy football comp. Where you've got a draft and a player can only go to one team. I reckon it's a much, much better system but for some reason DreamTeam/SuperCoach seemed to catch on.

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I would love to at least try this too.


I have absolutely no skill at dreamteam, but I have noticed 1 little anomaly that could be advantageous if managed correctly - the 5 rounds with 3 byes (4,5,6, 16 and 19) are byes for dreamteam too (so apparently you still get scored, but don't go head to head with someone). Freo, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne all have both of their byes in these rounds, which means players from those teams could potentially better choices than similar players from other teams, since you won't ever be forced to sub them out for a bye (on that note, the Saints, bulldogs, eagles, geelong, hawthorn, crows and tigers all have one bye in those rounds, and the leftover teams (collingwood, suns, power, bombers, blues, kangaroos) end up with two dreamteam byes.

Not sure if its worth completely fucking around with your team for, but I'm sure you could make something out of it.

Mzungu (Freo) is a mature aged rookie which will have an impact judging from yesterday's games. Also, he's mid and fwd, which is a big plus.

North Melbourne's bank account was holding just $2749 of cash when it filed its annual report on October 31.


lol.

fuck I love the St Kilda girl.

<3

Where and how can I watch this in the states?

I used to love watching Australian football games at an Irish pub out at the beach when I was in college, and I've missed the sport a lot since then.

border said:

Where and how can I watch this in the states?

I used to love watching Australian football games at an Irish pub out at the beach when I was in college, and I've missed the sport a lot since then.

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Good Q. I had a quick poke around but am not too sure, hopefully some one will be answer this tomorrow (or soon) (its 4am ;_

HolyCheck said:

North Melbourne's bank account was holding just $2749 of cash when it filed its annual report on October 31.


lol.

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I've never understood why people would consider this humurous? Surely, as a supporter of the game, you'd be worried at the very least about how this affects the sport?

Good Q. I had a quick poke around but am not too sure, hopefully some one will be answer this tomorrow (or soon) (its 4am ;_

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Online streams are your best bet. Start here: myp2p.eu

3ur4zn said:

I've never understood why people would consider this humurous? Surely, as a supporter of the game, you'd be worried at the very least about how this affects the sport?



Online streams are your best bet. Start here: myp2p.eu

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There's no reason an AFL club should have that little money unless they are geniunly shit at what they're doing.

Americans, they show games on ESPN2 brahs.