2017 NRL.com Fantasy thread Part 3

Milchcow wrote:
People talk a lot about teams having easy or hard draws to start the year. But I tend to discount that for a couple of reasons.


Firstly, people are not always that good at predicting what will be a tough game, and what will be an easy game. Look at pre-season top 8 predictions every pre-season and compare to the reality. What looks like a tough game on paper may not turn out to be the case.

Secondly - even if it is a tough game, and you manage to predict it correctly, it has to effect the players fantasy scores. I don't have good stats on this, and if other people have them I haven't seen them but the good players fantasy scores I believe are fixture independant and they can rack up big scores whoever they are playing. Guys like Fifita,Tedesco and others can often get almost half their fantasy points each week from a single big play - and that can happen against anyone. If anyone has actual stats, I'd like to see it. If I ever find a useful way of checking the data I will publish it.

Thirdly, trades are important. And I don't think its a good idea to select a player in your team knowing you want to trade him out in the first couple months. Its hard enough managing trades due to injuries, suspensions and form, Starting without John Smith, on the idea you can get him after 5-6 rounds when his price has dropped relies on a few things. John Smith's price actually dropping, you having spaer trades when it come times to pick him up and don't haave to deal with other issues in your squad and that his scores are about to improve letting his price go up.

As such I try and just start the year with the best players, and let that take care of itself.

But for those who want to fixture plan, here are the hardest and easiest games fantasy wise. I most likely won't be using this data for my fantasy team, but others may want to.

For a forward (Prop, hooker, backrow lock) the worst games to play are (from lowest fantasy scores going up) - the HOME or AWAY refers to the non listed team (eg Warriors away would be in new zealand, Melbourne HOME would not be in victoria)
Warriors AWAY
Cronulla AWAY
South Sydney HOME
Melbourne HOME
Parramatta HOME
Melbourne AWAY

The best games to play (from 7th best fantasy score upwards to best)
Gold Coast HOME
Brisbane HOME
Gold Coast AWAY
Penrith HOME
St George Illawarra AWAY
Newcastle AWAY
North Queensland HOME


For an outside back (fullback, centre, wing)

Worst games to play are
North Queensland AWAY
Canberra HOME
Canberra AWAY
Cronulla AWAY
Cronulla HOME
North Queensland HOME


Best games are
South Sydney AWAY
St George Illawarra AWAY
Gold Coast HOME
Wests Tigers HOME
Newcastle AWAY
Newcastle HOME


For a half (five-eighth, halfback)

Worst games are
Brisbane AWAY
Canberra HOME
Cronulla AWAY
Parramatta HOME
Cronulla HOME
Canberra AWAY


Best games are
South Sydney AWAY
Penrith AWAY
Manly AWAY
Melbourne AWAY
Wests Tigers HOME
South Sydney HOME
Newcastle HOME


This is just 2016 data - no guarantees that will continue to be the way in 2017. It also applies only to the listed home team - games played in Darwin/cairns would count as a 'home' game and games at mutual home venues (eg Homebush woudl count as a home game for one team and away for the other)
I doubt Newcastle will be as bad as they were last year, and nor would it surprise me if Canberra and Cronulla became a bit less stingy.

multiple.scoregasms wrote:

You made a few interesting points here milchy so I will address them as best as I can

1. Top 8 predictions are hard to do as a whole but isolated teams tend to be fairly easy to predict. We know the Knights and Dragons are going to be bottom feeders. We know Melbourne is going to be a top 8 team. While place on the ladder has very little(if any) correlation with fantasy points it still might be useful to pick a winger going against a team that conceeds a heap of tries out wide rather than a winger vs the best defensive team, although I would only use this as a tie breaker for picking my 17 not for deciding my initial 25


2. The only way I could think of using this data would be something like breaking down points into base stats and attacking points and seeing what percentage came in wins vs losses. Or seeing where the majority of tries were scores(left, right, middle) and see % of attacking stats that came against teams that were strong against attack in that players position and weak against that players position. The second option would be a little harder to find.

3. Agree completely that we do not have enough trades to trade out or in someone who has a favourable draw.

Forwards: Looking at this list it seems that play style rather than position on the ladder has the most impact on this list. The majority of the "worst teams" spread the ball wide early and often, doing most of their attack on the fringes through second rowers, halves and centres. The "best teams" are the ones that love to play through the middle trying to dominate the ruck and get quick play the balls. This information isn't really surprising and something I base captaincy decisions on(always captain Smith/Fifita vs the Knights)

Backs: Same deal here. Majority of the good and bad teams fit into the same mold of play style making it fairly predictable, although the Knights conceeding a lot of points pushes them into the "good teams" to play backs against

Halves: Looks like the "worst teams" here were the ones with great defensive second rowers. Thaiday/Gillett, Soliola/Papalii, Graham/Lewis, Ma'u/Scott are masters at getting up early and shutting down halves. Surprising to see Melbourne on the "best teams" list since Harris/Proctor are very good defensively.

my tv broke wrote:Broncos have named a strong 9s squad including milford, boyd, kahu, roberts, oates, macca, etc

rhinoceroo wrote:The test site is locked now, so presumably not long to wait for the real one...

Welshy wrote:

Please be today, I mean it's a Monday, what else is there to do other than fantasy on a Monday in work

rhinoceroo wrote:

Refreshing the fantasy homepage?

Welshy wrote:

Constantly

I mean my team won't change (much) until TLT but it would be nice to have it officially built

Bren wrote:

Have you checked the Ultimate Page mate? Looks to be ready to go yeah?

Bren wrote:

Have you checked the Ultimate Page mate? Looks to be ready to go yeah?

White Lightning wrote:Just reading an Eels blog & how about this for a good omen:

The last time Federer & Nadal made the final in the Australian open in 2009, the Eels made the grand final.

Milchcow wrote:

Just some more random thoughts on it

I think there is certainly some use out of this sort of list. I have this sort of data handy for DFS where you get a new team every week, and its absolutely possible (and effective essential) to select based on weekly matchups.

But like you say, trades are too valuable in the overall comps to waste on trying to predict matchups.

It is worthwhile using it to decide on captaincy choices or 17th/18th man choices within your squad. But risky to pick player A over player B for your overall squad due to a month of possible matchups

Something I could probably do, is generate a list of average player scores in a win, and average player scores in a loss. Try and control for injury and see which players have the biggest variance between wins and losses. Need a decent sample size  so that if they pull out a single big score of 100 it doesn't influence the ratings too much.
Will try and get something useful in the next couple of weeks, as it interests me now.


Just looked at some stats for teams playing Melbourne away - a brief look at stats suggest that halfback scores go up when playing in Melbourne (five-eighth is pretty much unchanged from average) and its mostly due to increased kick metres. Most half backs kick 100-200m more on average when playing in Melbourne. I guess Melbourne's good defense forces them into more clearing kicks


Also, the Knights really were an outlier last year. Statistically the worst team in a long time and particularly for outside backs playing against them, the fantasy bump was quite large. I would be surprised if they were that bad again this year. Even if they are again the bottom, I doubt it will be by as large a margin.

mulvy wrote:

Hey Welshy, feel like scoring a team?

Smith McInnes
McGuire Gurgess Hoare Nuff
Surgess ET SMat Hess Elliott Nuff
SJ Norman Elgey Hingano
Hurrell Idris Kelly Jennings
RTS Slater Hayne Python Dufty 35k

4th reserve is a worry, I'll let you choose, I figure one of those cheap spots might be filled by someone promising come TLT or Hingano or Cowboys prop might do the job for the first couple of weeks and 35k might be enough to get me that good scoring cow that makes itself known after injuries in the first couple of weeks. Alternatively open to squeezing Kennedy in if he starts by downgrading SJ to Arey and Python to 138k.

Rooster Booster wrote:Hi Guys,


Sent Fan Hub a message last Friday asking when there Comp opens and this was there reply.



" Great to hear that you are excited about the NRL Season starting!

We are hoping to have the NRL Fantasy out as soon as possible, we know you are eager and we want to give you as much time as possible to play around with teams and trial new players. We are just working on some improvements that we are excited to bring you, but we are unable to specify a date at this time. "

Thanks,

FanHub Media.