Welcome back to Supercoach, Moisties. It's good to be home.
2020 was a year to forget almost across the board with one important exception - the first ever Back To Back winner of the Moistest Southerly. Some detractors will say that the season was tainted by its interruptions, that an asterisk will forever reside with the Big Duck Energy alongside their glory. Join me in ignoring those voices as the ramblings of a deranged and unsuccessful mind and we shall move onwards to what will surely be a less chaotic sort of year.
Of Absentees and Emmigrants
Given the lockdowns and short warning time before our draft on Labour Day Weekend, the 2021 draft had a record number of missing members. Our dearest Sloppy has abandoned us to seek fame and riches in the southern lands, and ToeKnee absconded across the seas to not get engaged in that same Van Diemen's Land. In the meanwhile, Frosty decided to turn his beloved Kangaroos' stripes to greyscale in his best impression of a one-eyed Collingwood supporter.
Getting one's drafts in order
For the seven of us who remained, the Bunn's Prahran residence and their magnificent view of the Melbourne skyline provided the setting for our yearly replacement of a hat with names in it. Thankfully our last year of remote living had given our more removed Moisties some familiarity with joining these events through a screen, although ToeKnee remained lost somewhere in the isle of apples and whisky.
A row of bottled, questionably delicious cocktails hid the draft order under their lids. The draft order for the second, more important Marble Racing segment of this lottery, that is. With our absentees selecting their desired lucky recipients of the bottled nectar we had everyone choose their favourite out of 10 marble colours, and got into the necessary heats to determine seedings for the all-important final.
The slowest two marbles of the day's head-to-head races were given a disadvantageous position in the starting mechanism, however it was ToeKnee and Duck who fell behind into the last places, crueled by poor funnel trips and a torturously slow seesaw segment. One (Daniel) and two (Michael) were a mile ahead of the competition after their mastery of a long and technical track.
Final Order and Team Name Ranking
- The Duck Hunter - Daniel
- A fitting team name for the perennial runner up of late. Always a bold strategy to base one's identity on a one-sided rivalry. A
- Bunns of Steele - Michael
- I like name based puns, however Michael loses points here for not being able to secure the player in his team name. B
- Southern Sloppy - Laura
- Reminding us every week that she has abandoned us is the sort of psychological warfare technique I can get behind. Also sounds like a sex thing. A+
- The Drip - Steve
- Like Sloppy's, this sounds like it too could be a sex thing. But I'm not sure. Just confused. C
- Mrs Simon Richards - Kate
- More psychological warfare here, surely Simon couldn't possibly go his hardest against his blushing bride? Loses some points for confusing me when figuring out whose turn it was to draftB
- Zurhaarrgh! - Frosty
- Making use of one of the most enjoyable names to say in the AFL is a reliable play. Leaving him in the free agent pool is a party foul though. B
- Jane Bunn - Simon
- Successfully annoyed the shit out of me. F+
- JayneYNOLeakBoobYs - Jane
- In an attempt to take her own name back, JayneY needed about seven attempts to get the spelling right. C
- Petrac-attack - Tony
- Good rhyming off a player that was instrumental in getting the Ducks across the line last year. Couldn't pick him up in the draft though. B
- Big Bag of Ducks - Yours truly
- I couldn't possibly rate my own name. A+
The Draft Itself
Round 1
With the order decided and a few attempts at navigating the horrible SuperCoach UI seeming mostly successful, we settled in for the all-important first round of drafting. As expected by most of our literal armchair experts, Maximus "No Nerds" Gawn went as the first pick of the 2021 Moist Draft. Michael with his second pick took last year's Brownlow medallist, with Clarry Oliver taken by Sloppy, Jake Lloyd by Steve, and our other premium ruck in Grundy going to Kate to round out the top 5.
Rory Laird (def/mid) at pick 6 was the first curveball of the draft to the Zurrrharrrggghhhhh's, although if his midfield minutes in the single praccy match are anything to go by then it could be an inspired choice. From there THE BONT went to Simon's stupidly named team, followed by Lachie Whitfield to the LeakBooby's - just before the story came out about how bad his liver bruising really was 😬. Our first two "forwards" came pick 9 and 10, with Danger heading to the Petracs and Norm Smith Martin heading to the Ducks.
Rounds 2 + 3: The Banzai
Moist Draft 2021 used Banzai drafting, meaning that the second two rounds went backwards in order to counteract some of the benefit that comes from getting a top pick in the draft. This led to some confusion by those who hadn't read the league settings. The commissioner seemed unfased and inebriated, so we moved ahead.
Interestingly, in round two our AFL Player named teams (Bunns of Steele and Petrac-Attack) both nabbed their opposing team's namesake, with Steele going to Tony at Pick 12, and Trac heading to the Bunns at pick 19. There was also a rush on rucks, with NicNat, Goldy, O'Brien, English, and Marshall all getting snaffled in the second round. For those playing along at home, that's 7 out of 20 picks in the RUC column so far.
Round 3 was the last of the backwards ordered rounds, and saw a lot of the really premium players get snaffled. Macrae, Cripps, Hunter (walker, not driver), Kelly and Zerret round out that sort of 115+ bracket of mids, and Dunkley, Luke Ryan, Walters, and Tom Stewart should all put in reliable scores at their respective ends of the ground provided they can stay on the park. Sydney Defender Rhys Stanley (GEE, RUC) was a bit of an odd one out of this level of class.
Rounds 4-6
Zorko with a juicy FWD tag was snaffled by the Duck Hunters to start off the fourth round, followed quickly by Short off the back of his 40 odd possessions in a practice match the night before. Sloppy picked up her Keeper League player in last year's Coleman Medallist, and Frosty took a bit of a gamble in picking up a semi-fit Tom Mitchell, which could pay off massively if he gets back to his Brownlow year sort of form. Jordan Ridley's impressive rise is capped off with a pick in the top 50, alongside the likes of Pendles, Doggie Treloar and Cogs. By pick 53 we've already seen three Blues defenders be taken off the table (Williams, Docherty, Saad), followed soon after by an interesting snaffle of Zak Butters to a Mrs Richards. Insider trading from her Port supporting days? Only time will tell.
Rounds 7-10
Duck did not enjoy picking Shai Bolton, but the lack of forward depth in the pool was starting to show by the seventh round. Tim Kelly got taken behind Matty Rowell and Hugh McLuggage in this round, a big slide from his first-round status from one very long year ago. Round eight saw one of the last needed big men in Witts fill out the SteeleyBunn's ruck slot, while it took until the end of the ninth round for Daniel to pick up his first dedicated midfielder in Cam Guthrie. Probably wouldn't have picked Isaac Smith getting drafted before Dan's midfield, but here we are. Lots of defenders picked up in our tenth round as teams started to look at the upcoming names and despair, including the Big Boy and Skipper McEvoy, who will presumably play most games given he's got that (c) on the team sheet. JayneY took the other half of Geelong's terrifying full forward combination with her tenth pick, she'll be hoping that their suitably star studded midfield can get him the delivery he wanted all last year.