WXV Grand Final: Toronto v Dublin

[Levi434]

The Outs

Toronto:
D: Alex Witherden, Kade Kolodjashnij*, Lynden Dunn
M: Connor Blakely, Dion Prestia*
R: Nic Naitanui, Tom Bellchambers*
F: Jesse Hogan, Peter Wright

Dublin:
D: Grant Birchall
M: Brad Crouch, Stephen Hill*
R:
F: Brett Deledio

[RaisyDaisy]

Strong rumour going around that CM Punk will lace up as ruck for Toronto

[Toga]

Here it is, the big show! Really hoping that restings & final round injuries don't hurt one of the team substantially more than the other - should be a good game 8)

[meow meow]

Here it is, the big show!

[Holz]

Interesting to see Toronto strong fabourite despite all the form being Dublins way.

People must think this is round 12 with Belfast playing.

[JBs-Hawks]

Pie will win

[Adamant]

This all started in the 2016 off-season when Holz tried to offer me, of all people, trade advice in a patronising manner after I informed him that I was considering trading Jack Ziebell (coming off a 94.4 average) for Brad Ebert (80.1 average) + Pick 18 with Mexico City (Dublin's rival at the time) after he had enquired about him. This is the essay I received:

I love JZ and this will probably hurt me getting him but im going to say it anyway. If i were in your shoes I would keep Jack Ziebell. He can be a big big ball winner, with Nick Dal Santo and Brent Harvey leaving the club he is now pretty much 2nd in the midfield in leadership after Swallow and he is better then swallow as much as i love Swallow. I can see him demand the ball more in a more experienced team. The second component is JZ can be thrown up forward which means he is always a shot of DPP but even more so with the retirement of Petire and soon to be Waite i can see a forward line of Wood Daw Brown. I dont think we will have the luxury or the need to stick him one out in the goal square which happens from time to time which drops his average.

so i can see 95-100 on the cards for him.

Ebert I would 100% avoid and this is not so that you take my offer but my adivce is to keep JZ. I have looked into his numbers and in 2014 his role was head to head with the best opponent playing in the middle, in this role he was a good scorer, despite me and i know quite a few who didnt rate him that highly as a player. He continued to me that good scoring role with a massive 112 average in the first half of the year.

Then however to me it looks like he has been pushed onto a wing and in the second half of the year he went on to average 81. As you know he went on to average 80 this year and he played predominantly on the wing. My guess is that Jroo said ohh he is down as port had a down year, to me this is not true his role which he has been playing for the last 1.5 years is enough evidence to suggest this is the trend.

Pick 18 is fine but its certainly not worth a 15 point downgrade. You would almost have to absolutely hit the pick on the head for this trade to be fair as i think Jroo is selling Ebert as a 95 mid on a down year. Where i see him as a winger who has averaged 80 in that role in the last 33 games of data which is significant.

The reason i offered you birchall and the pick is birchall is older but as a 85 defender thats equivalent value as a 95 mid. Then because of age i give you the pick.

my advice is dont downgrade your starters scoring power thats not the way to contend. Keeping JZ is probably the optimal way of contending.

I also want to make an offer in for pittard with say weits/birchall with picks but i think keeping pittard would be the smart move. If your selling either come to me before you do and ill put in an offer as i would rather have them then another team, but for the sake of Toronto i would keep both as colecting stars is important and you have 2 there. Ebert is not a star and his role is no longer fantasy productive. JZ is an absoulte star, i would say he is clearly in Norths top 2-3 players, something you cant say about Ebert. Pittard is actually far better then Ebert.

you have a good list

Pittard Ruggles
Macrae, JZ, Selwood, Kerridge
Kreuz
Walker Watts Degoey Braysahw
Hopper Pick 3

you can build around that list its actually quality and you drafted the draft rebuild wisely. My advice from someone who has gone from bottom to top is dont push it with a good list like yours let it build naturally. I took 1-2 years to make the move to contender with the likes of Brayshaw Hopper Pick 3 coming up you can certainly do that. But JZ Pittard is the back bone.

Clearly you need to work on the backline abit but again that will come. You do have pick 20 and 22 that can be used to draft wisely. or packaged for a player. I would shop that around.

I hope im not coming off as patronising as im sure you know what your doing but i have been in the worlds for 6 years and am legit trying to help. You have a great list so the likes of Dublin and Mexico shouldnt be trying to poach the players. Thats why i will step down and advise you to hold but as i said if you are to sell i will try to beat out the other clubs.

Coming into WXVs, I had heard around the traps that Holz was a slippery customer, notorious for talking shower for the benefit of himself and his team. But I was yet to experience it first-hand myself. From that point onwards I knew that I was dealing with a manipulative, scheming, deceitful bloke who thought he was better than everyone else, and that struck a chord with me. He thought he would just come in, act all innocent, get in my ear and expect me to hand over all of my good players like he has done to just about every team for the last 7 years in order to get Dublin to where they are today. Nah fam. The Edgelord was never falling for that shower. I proceeded to bury his ass in my return PM and that humbled him... for the time being anyway.

A couple of key pieces of advice that I would like to reflect on quickly:

• Keep Jack Ziebell and Jasper Pittard, they are both stars and this is the optimal way of contending.
Ziebell and Pittard were never stars. They were both bog average players at best whose numbers happened to spike for a season. Two seasons later and JZ is barely WXV starting midfield quality, while Jasper has become irrelevant. Keeping these lads would not have been the optimal way of contending, it would have been a huge missed opportunity.

• Let your list develop naturally, don't push it with aggressive trading.
Sitting on your hands gets you absolutely nowhere folks. Imagine if I held onto guys like Pittard, Ziebell, Scott Selwood, Kerridge, Kreuzer, Walker and Watts just because they were decent at the time? None of those players had any improvement left in them and were never going to be good enough to take Toronto to the promised land. 'Downgrading' them for players that were perceived to be worth less (but I believed could match them) and using their value to acquire extra collateral which was then used in future deals as bargaining power has been the recipe to our success.

I still get a good laugh out of seeing Tom Ruggles and Sam Kerridge listed as players to build a list around. Comedy gold.

The smart move for you would be moving on Macrae in my opinion its very obvious he will only have DPP for 1 year so i reckon he is priced as a mid but then he has a premium for his 2017 DPP.

This is when The Edgelord's blood began to boil. The cow didn't learn his lesson and decided to come back for more. To suggest that the only teenager in the history of the game to manage a 40 disposal game had peaked at the age of 22 and should be cashed in was laughable. I buried him for the second time in three months. This time making sure he was unconscious before I shovelled the dirt over his lifeless corpse.

Am i playing Toronto Wolves this week?

If so calling a big percentage booster.

Fast forward to Round 9 of the 2017 season. Toronto v Dublin. The Edgelord had made massive inroads in the 2016/17 trade period and assembled what he believed was a top 8 quality side, however mass injuries to key players ensured that we didn't reach our full potential over the first two months of the season. Holz decided he would be a big man and pick on us at our most vulnerable point. A fire was lit inside of us as a result and the Wolves went on to second-top score for the round... behind Dublin. This just motivated The Edgelord even more.

Hey mate,

Just an update. Holz is still trying his best, and he is now telling me that he could get Dunstan from JROO

Not going to lie, I much prefer Dunstan over Redden etc, and if he can in fact offer us Dunstan I'd be inclined to go with that

At this stage, I think we will either deal with Holz if he can offer us Dunstan, or we will just keep Jelwood

Sorry to disappoint you man. This has been a rollercoaster

Now RaisyDaisy makes a guest appearance. As if things couldn't get any worse for The Edgelord. This was his PM to inform me that Holz had sniped my deal with New York of Jack Redden + Dom Tyson for Joel Selwood + Alex Sexton. Even when I had nothing to do with Dublin, Holz was still finding ways to bring Toronto down. He was secretly shower scared of the powerhouse The Edgelord was building. Despite telling RD on many occasions that Redden would average 95+ in 2018, the mind-control from Holz was far too strong and Joel Selwood was eventually traded to Dublin for Hugh Greenwood + Jacob Weitering.





Two weeks left of the 2017/18 trade period. Holz is seen talking shower on Discord about The Edgelord trading in Tom Bellchambers (+ Wayne Milera Jnr) for Aaron Hall. This is where it pays to watch games of football and not just base everything on the film Moneyball. Hall's numbers looked pretty decent on paper, but the bloke doesn't run both ways. He's always been a huge defensive liability but has been able to get away with it at a soft club and under a soft coach. As soon as the Suns brought in Dew his papers were stamped. Bellchambers was on the other end of the spectrum. A simple glance at his numbers wouldn't have filled you with much confidence. 18 games his most in a season? Only two seasons above an 80 average in his career? He might have averaged 91.7 in 2017, but that was only from 13 games. Had to be a fluke, right? Wrong. Clear #1 ruck at his club. Finally got some continuity in his footy and was fully fit for the first time in his career. You don't have to be particularly good to score well as the #1 ruck but TBC recorded an elite hitout-to-advantage rate of 34.6% in 2017 so he was certainly no dud, and this will prove to be a premiership winning trade. You got lucky here, cow. Leuenberger is going to score a farewell ton anyway.

Tier 2: New York, Toronto, Cairo, PNL, Beijing, Moscow

Had us as a Tier 2 team at the start of the season despite The Edgelord pulling off the greatest trade period ever seen. More ignorance.

For the title I see 3 major threats.

Seoul Islanders and NDT.

Certainly feel there is a 95% chance the winner comes from that group + Dublin.

In all honesty the higher up the ladder Toronto is the better for me, id much rather face you in the finals then one of the big 3.

I really hope Toronto can back up this talk in the finals.

This is good for adamant.

Can start getting used to losing, with finals aproaching

I think everyone including Adamant knows id crush him full strength

Still didn't rate us despite dominating the competition. Let's see how these look after the weekend.



Holzman, I never just called you out for no reason. The Edgelord doesn't forget anything. I hope you soak up the last few days as the reigning WXV premier, because come Sunday evening, the Dublin empire will have come crashing down and the Toronto dynasty will officially begin.

[Adamant]

I am The Edgelord.

[Purple 77]

Give the man the premiership!

That timestamp though fills me with great joy

[GoLions]

Now that's Crispy

[RaisyDaisy]

I was having a good chuckle reading all of that until you decided to drag me into your beef with Holz - making private messages public? That's dogging the boys. Not even GL would do that

For the record, Holz and I had been discussing a Jelwood trade for a long time before you came along with your offer, and although Redden had a good year (I never doubted he wouldn't go 95+ fwiw) I'd still rather Dunstan and  Greenwood (which is what we got) over Redden and Tyson

To suggest Holz had some sort of say over our decision is both laughable and insulting. I thought you were better than that

[JBs-Hawks]

And Toronto take the early lead!

[Holz]

Why thank you Ada im flattered. Putting that much effort into Dublin and Myself is the ultimate sign of respect. The feelings are not mutual at this point you are just one of 15 teams without a premiership and you took me out in the home and away so that puts you on the level of London and Dillos, so I will make this post much more brief.

On the JZ front looked pretty accurate, I said he can be thrown up forward and is a future shot of getting DPP that looking like good advice at the moment with JZ now a 83 average 27 year old forward and Ebert a 86 average 28 year old mid, using Meow Meows formula JZ is now equivalent to a 93 average mid so still quite abit more valuable then Ebert.

"my advice is dont downgrade your starters scoring power thats not the way to contend. " very good advice and its what your doing and what your continuing to do in all your trade talks this year. Its good to see you took some of my advice, your welcome for making the grand final. You where smart to listen to me.

I was right on Macrae too he did lose dpp, that was my prediction and it came true. If you are picking all the wrong calls i made (i make a lot of calls) then  I do find it funny that i even mentioned the injury risk of Belly and he is out injured this week.

So,
JZ chance of DPP - getting DPP
Macrae will lose DPP - lost DPP
Belly is an injury risk - injured

shows i must be right most of the time as even these pre selected negative calls for me and "good calls" from you arent coming across that strongly in your favour.

Money ball has got me 4 grand final appearances and 2 flags (and counting) so the fact i dont even have to watch the game to be far more successful then you. You really should smash me this week, as i haven't watched a game in almost 2 years.

It pretty fitting that Macrae will be the captain of Toronto, as they are pretty much the dogs. Did nothing for 62 years and then spikes up for one flukey year and the fans all come out of the closet and start smack talking, when they where quiet the whole time they where down the bottom. Hopefully you keep this activity when you slip down the ladder. Dublin entering the 4th grand final in 5 years, going for the back to back and the first 3 time premiers.

Anyone can win on the day so congrats for getting here thats most of the battle. I will be here next year and the year after, hopefully you can walk the walk and not be all talk. Im not sure worlds will be around in 62 years for Toronto to challenge again.

[Holz]

Alex Rance, Steven May, Tom McDonald, Phil Davis
Matt Crouch (C), Joel Selwood (VC), Rory Sloane, Dustin Martin
Todd Goldstein
Jack Gunston, Justin Westhoff, Jack Riewoldt, Tom Hawkins
Majak Daw (R/F), Jack Henry (F)

Nick Holman (M), Oscar Mcdonald (D), Elliot Himmelberg (F)

[Levi434]

Well that may be one of the greatest posts in FF history.

I propose that the winner of the Grand Final be awarded 6 stars!