2021 SuperCoach Review
The curtain has come down on the 2021 SuperCoach season, and for the second year in a row it was a rollercoaster for almost everyone. Chances are if you saw the season through to the end, you were thrown more than a couple of curveballs.
There seemed to be more injuries to popular players this year than any other year that I’ve been playing the game. Although we probably say that (or something similar) every season, there were genuinely a host of guns who were struck down by injury, including the following players:
Matt Rowell, Patrick Dangerfield, Lachie Neale, Josh Dunkley, Zak Butters, Toby Greene, Jarman Impey, Adam Treloar, Rowan Marshall, Nat Fyfe, Kyle Langford, Dustin Martin and Tom Stewart.
If you only copped three or four of these injuries, you were doing well. Some people would have traded one of the players above in for another on the list, only to have a secondary injury occur. This means rather than one corrective injury trade, some coaches had to burn two or three trades in an injury sequence.
This game does require a touch of luck and unfortunately for some this year, that luck just wasn’t there.
Here are my final ranks for the year:
And here’s how my team ended up at Round 23:
Fair to say the last 3 weeks were pretty ordinary as I ran out of trades at Round 19 and then couldn’t cover the loss of Lloyd, Stewart and Ziebell at different stages in the remaining rounds.
Let’s have a look through my trade history and go through a few trades that were successful and a few that were not so much.
Round 1
OUT: P. Dangerfield and C. Lazzaro IN: T. Mitchell and J. Jordan
Dangerfield was suspended in Round 1 and as a result missed the next three games. I hit the trade button straight away, bringing in Titch and also correcting into James Jordon from Melbourne. These were both great moves — Titch averaged 117.2 for the season, finishing with a higher price than what I got him for and Jordan was one of the best rookies of the season. Dangerfield subsequently hurt his ankle and missed a chunk of games mid-season.
Round 3
OUT: L. Neale IN: J. Macrae
I think everyone learned the ‘never start a midfielder who’s over $700K’ lesson this year as Lachie Neale couldn’t replicate his Brownlow-winning best from last year. The writing was on the wall early and I jumped ship before the first price changes, bringing in Macrae. This turned out to be a crucial move — Neale got injured in Round 6 and missed the next 5 weeks, while Macrae played every game and averaged 128.6 at a profit (at the time of trade) of nearly $72K.
Round 5
OUT: E. Gulden, B. Campbell IN: S. Walsh, B. McCreery
This was my first genuine rookie-to-premo upgrade and it paid huge dividends. I traded Gulden at the peak of his early-season price and Campbell had just come off his high-water mark a week earlier. This allowed me to bring in Sam Walsh who was Carlton’s best SuperCoach performer this year and will be a mainstay of our fantasy teams for many years to come.
Round 7
OUT: J. Dunkley, C. Warner IN: D. Zorko, T. Greene
These, at the time, were good trades. Dunkley had just cooked his shoulder against GWS and was headed for a shoulder reconstruction (not before he scored a ton in the same game), while Warner from the Swans had hit his ceiling. I traded in Zorko (more on him later) at his season-low price and also brought in Toby Greene. The timing of these trades was key and if Greene hadn’t busted his shoulder would have probably been my best trading week for the year, despite losing Dunkley.
Round 11
OUT: A. Scott, M. Bergman IN: J. Steele, C. Weightman
This was a classic one-up, one-down manoeuvre to bring in an absolute rolled gold premium midfielder in Steele and Weightman who eventually ended up being my F6 for the majority of the second half of the season. Big tick here with Steele who I got for just $563K.
Round 13
OUT: M. Flynn, B. McCreery IN: I. Heeney, N. Reeves
In hindsight my bye round trading wasn’t great this year and this week was a big reason for that. Heeney absolutely stunk it up so I traded him two weeks later and Reeves was in and out of the Hawthorn side in the second half of the season which stymied his cash generation. Players who are sub-$400K are in that price bracket for a reason!
Round 14
OUT: D. Zorko, I. Heeney, C. Poulter, T. Brockman IN: A. Hall, K. Langford, T. Hawkins, J. Newcombe
Zorko was rubbed out for a week against Melbourne and so I used his cash to bring in some more ‘premo’ players. Unfortunately, this didn’t really work out, despite the huge success of Aaron Hall. Langford ended up being traded a month later with a hamstring injury, Hawkins was very up and down and Newcombe wasn’t a best 22 player at the Hawks, despite some promising performances.
Round 18
OUT: K. Langford, C. Jiath IN: N. Haynes, J. Dunkley
These trades were stinkers. I rolled the dice on a returning Dunkley, who was very quiet in the remaining games of the regular season and burnt me for not picking Rowan Marshall instead. Haynes was the best player available who I could afford and he didn’t really do much in the time he was in my side. I had the option of trading in Marshall and Jack Crisp instead of these two, which will haunt me for a while.
Round 19
OUT: D. Martin, T. Highmore IN: N. Blakey, S. Bolton
Desperate times called for desperate measures at this point, and Bolton and Blakey were the best players available that I could afford. Blakey got injured in Round 22 and Bolton was far from inspiring and is on the ‘never again’ list as far as I’m concerned.
Here’s my full list of 2021 trades:
With the trades out of the way, let’s take a look at some more ticks and crosses from season 2021.
Ticks
Avoiding a couple of ‘trap’ players
Geelong’s Jordan Clark was the textbook definition of a pre-season trap and he was avoided accordingly. I also avoided Matt Rowell for two reasons: his price (he was way overvalued as a second-year player with no proven track record) and the major shoulder injury he copped last year. He was injured again early on and we didn’t see the best of him in 2021 as a result.
Nailing main rookies across each line (for the most part)
I started with (or corrected into) the major must-have rookies before the first lot of price changes at the start of the year to maximise cash generation. Gulden, Warner, Campbell, Jordan, Flynn, Powell, Bergman, Scott and to a lesser extent Highmore, Berry and Rowe were the standout selections.
I did miss bargain picks Jarman Impey and Joe Daniher in my starting team, which hurt big time. Particularly Impey, who I left out for Paddy Dow (more on him below).
Trading rookies at the right time
Trading rookies at the peak of their value was key to a couple of my upgrades. I was able to trade Gulden, Campbell and Warner at their maxed-out prices for a sub-$600K Sam Walsh, a $485K Dayne Zorko and Toby Greene (who broke his shoulder three weeks after I brought him in — very unlucky)
Crosses
Paying top dollar across every line
I started with Lloyd, Neale, Gawn/Grundy, and Danger across all four lines. Dangerfield was traded at Round 2 after his suspension, Neale at Round 3 who was underperforming and Lloyd couldn’t reach the heights of last year although lots of people had him, which lessened the impact. It just goes to show you don’t need to start with the most expensive players. Others at a slightly cheaper cost may serve your overall team structure better and allow for more balance across the board.
Elevated price rookies
I got burnt by a couple of elevated price rookies in Paddy Dow and Hayden Young, who were both traded by Round 5. Rookies with starting prices over $200K rarely work and chances are there are cheaper rookies who may come with more risk in terms of lower scoring potential and job security, but also less cost if they don’t work out.
Not starting either of the Jacks
Macrae and Steele were stand out midfielders this year and I had to trade both of them in, which put me behind those coaches who started them over the likes of Neale.
Traded too aggressively
By the time we got to the byes, I’d already used 18 trades and ran out by Round 19 due to injuries. I’ll need to be more conservative next year with holding onto underperforming players or rookies if there is no clear replacement. Particularly if we’re still dealing with COVID and border restrictions across the country, then preserving trades for affected rounds or fixtures will be important. Hopefully that isn’t what we’re faced with though!
What would I change about the game for next year?
There was lots of talk during the season about some changes to SuperCoach which would make the game more enjoyable for all involved. For those who follow me on Twitter you probably would have seen my opinions on this, but if I was in charge of SuperCoach here are three changes I would make.
1. Rolling DPP players
This one seems like a pretty easy one and although it would bring SC in line with AFL Fantasy, introducing dual position status at various points throughout the season would make the game a lot more flexible and interesting for coaches. For example, Jack Ziebell could have ended up a FWD/DEF which opens up a useful swing set. You could do this at Rounds 7 and 14 (or similar) and would be completely based on TOG in certain areas.
2. Reversing trades prior to players being locked
We saw a few times with all trades being locked once the first game of the round had started that people were caught with players being late outs or not named at all in teams later in that round. If there’s a way for SuperCoach to allow trades to be reversed (provided no players involved in the trade/s have already played), then I think that’s a great way for people to stay engaged with their teams, rather than giving up because a player they traded in didn’t play and they copped a 0.
3. Introduce a ‘utility’ bench player
Again this is a concept that would be taken from AFL Fantasy, but it makes a lot of sense. Rather than having to pick a set amount of rookies in one area of the field, the utility player can be any position and can be used as an emergency the same way any other bench player is. So if there are a number of promising rookies in defence for example, you can pick an extra defender rather than having to squeeze one out.
So that’s it for 2021! It’s been fun doing these write ups (although I didn’t have much time for them in the second half of the season). Looking forward to getting stuck into SuperCoach Racing and then onto SuperCoach BBL!
