*taps mic*
Is this thing still on?
We’re back for 2023, and there are changes from 2022. Existing subscribers saw the plans last week, and today is the day for everyone else.
While some basics remain the same – with the usual analysis across North Melbourne and the league between the start of March and the end of October – what this post will do is highlight new and refreshed features, outline what a typical week will look like during the season, and what’s planned between now and Round 1.
So without any further ado, let’s start with new features…
(If there are any teething problems with dead/not working links, access denied to certain pages after subscribing, etc, please let me know so I can fix it asap)
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Create Your Own Depth Chart
Regular readers will know how often I highlight the usefulness of creating positional depth charts to clarify your thoughts on lists.
In 2022 the initial plan was actually to unveil my own team-by-team depth chart. Then I realised there simply wasn’t enough time in a day to be across the bottom six to eight players on every list.
Instead, after a lightbulb moment, I’m turning it over to everyone reading to create their own for the team they follow – and other clubs as well if they so desire.
There is some good faith involved here, as links on the Depth Chart page essentially work like an unlisted YouTube video.
Once Patrons have the link, there’s nothing stopping them from sharing it with people who haven’t subscribed. But ideally, I’d love to keep this feature exclusively to subscribers.
View the Create A Depth Chart page
Rolling Notes
On a handful of occasions late last season, I saw comments along the lines of, ‘Ricky knows what he’s talking about’, or ‘he’s usually right’. Although appreciated, those comments made me:
a) Wildly uncomfortable, because
b) It’s off the mark more often than people know
However, it did plant the seed for an idea. During the season I’m frequently taking notes on trends – both teams and individuals – and sketching out the start point of ideas.
Sometimes those notes sprout into a fully formed piece, like what people see in the Notebook or standalone posts.
Other times they tend to be wildly off the mark or morph into something completely different, in which case the original thought never sees the light of day. Funnily enough that’s often when I learn the most because it forces me to re-evaluate any initial opinion.
Normally no-one sees those notes except me, but now that changes. The point of this new page is to bring everyone into my thought process from week to week. These are my private, relatively unfiltered notes shared exclusively for those on the $10 Patreon tier … albeit slightly cleaned up to maintain a PG rating.
It’ll be updated on an ad-hoc basis, with much more detail added into each topic once Round 1 officially begins and it goes behind the $10 paywall.
Sometimes there’ll be multiple updates a day, at other points it may be once a week. Subscribers will get a notification when an update is posted and nearly all of it will be in a different world to the normal weekly posts. There’ll be little crossover between, say, this and the Notebook.
Here’s how the page currently looks, with plenty more still to come between now and Round 1 when we’ll have a whole pre-season of exposed form to play with.
In addition to the two new additions, the existing pages have been freshened up as well:
Stat Suite
Hopefully the page is a lot cleaner and easier to follow than it was in 2022. There’ll be the same updates as last year, but one notable addition in creating a hub where weekly expected scores can live. It won’t be exclusively on that page – they’ll still be posted on Twitter because it would be a bit sketchy to have entirely behind a paywall when it’s not my info – but for easy access they’ll always be available on the Stat Suite page for those interested.
List Management Suite
The three key features remain but have their own pages, again in the name of making it easier to follow.
On the player contracts page, you’ll notice a link to a spreadsheet which shows where I’ve got all the data from for every deal. That way no-one is forced to take my word for it, and can go on a link clicking spree to corroborate the information.
The age demographic page has historical data on there as well, with the plan being to expand that during 2023 and show how teams have evolved over the last five years. Meanwhile the minutes played by age – always useful at this time of year when the narrative is about ‘games of experience lost’ is set up and ready to continue as well.
Understandably that’s a lot of info to take in, but wait – there’s more!
To finish setting the table for 2023, here are three more points: how a standard in-season week will look, the planned (minimum) posting schedule between now and Round 1, and a formal outline of benefits for each tier.
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How a standard in-season week will look
- Morning after a North Melbourne match: The usual in-depth analysis and review
- Monday morning: Latest updates to the Stat Suite and List Management pages
- Monday morning: From the Notebook to $5 tier and above
- Monday night: From the Notebook, free to all
- Tuesday morning: Extra NMFC posts (if a topic calls for it), to $5 tier and above
- Tuesday night: Those extra NMFC posts (if a topic calls for it) become free to all
- Wednesday morning: Extra AFL posts* (if a topic calls for it), to $10 tier
- Thursday morning: Those extra AFL posts (if a topic calls for it) become free to all
- Continuous: Updating the Rolling Notes section with new musings and early theories
*At a bare minimum in the extra NMFC and AFL post categories, the plan is for one each, every two weeks. In the AFL category there’ll be a fortnightly player focus piece, highlighting those who are making an impact around the league.
Planned (minimum) posting schedule between now and Round 1
- February 28: From the Notebook: Practice matches
- March 2: The second annual Continuity Rankings, and what was learned from last year
- March 3: Predicting the over/under for every team’s season wins (i.e., holding myself accountable)
- March 5: North Melbourne’s pre-season match review
- March 6: From the Notebook: Pre-season
- March 8: The 2023 Club Tiers
- March 14: North Melbourne’s 2023 checklist
- Continuous: Updating the Rolling Notes section
The 2023 Tiers
IMPORTANT: Due to a Patreon change in billing, any new subscribers will be billed *immediately*, and then monthly on the same date as their initial pledge. Only existing subscribers will be billed on the first of the month.
ALSO IMPORTANT: For those who were on the $7.50 tier in 2022, you’ll notice this list goes straight from $5 to $10. After reviewing last year’s benefits, I didn’t think that tier offered enough to make it worthwhile.
So I dropped the Stat Suite access down to $5 and added the Depth Chart in that tier as well. I’ll be in touch individually with a reminder to switch up or down depending on preferences. In the meantime, nothing will change with your access.
$2.50 per month
- This is identical to 2022. It doesn’t give you any extra features but is a way to show your support.
$5 per month
- Early Access: From the Notebook (Monday morning before it’s free to all at night)
- Early Access: Extra, non-match-review NMFC pieces (Minimum of one a fortnight, planned to be on Tuesday morning before it’s free to all at night)
- Exclusive Access: Create Your Own Depth Chart (available for every team)
- Exclusive Access: Stat Suite (Updated every Monday morning throughout the season)
$10 per month
- All benefits from the $5 tier
- Exclusive Access: List Management Suite (consists of player contracts, team list demographics, minutes played by age, and extra features which will be added during 2023)
- Exclusive Access: Rolling Notes (updated consistently throughout the season, bringing everyone into my thought process as I see trends develop)
- 24 Hour Early Access: Extra non-Notebook or NMFC articles (Planned to be on Wednesday morning, including a fortnightly player focus piece)
- Early Access: 2023 Finals Dossiers (up to a week earlier than the general public)
- 24 Hour Early Access: Team-by-team post-season list and style analysis
- 24 Hour Early Access: Player movement analysis (a post for every move)
- First Access: Any future projects
‘Ricky knows what he’s talking about 99.99%’ of the time…….See, fixed!!