Everything that could go wrong very much went wrong in SuperCoach Round 1 with plenty of injury concerns, mid-pricers flopping and rookies requiring correcting.
However, because the prices only change after a 3-round cycle, there is no need to act so hastily (yes, I see the 5000 of you that have traded in Kade Chandler). Today I will be discussing the best replacements for your injured premiums such as Tom Stewart and potentially Josh Kelly (He will be max 2 weeks out, so hold), which rookies to look out for before they are on the bubble (no it does not mean you should jump early even on safe picks like Harry Sheezel) and finally I will reiterate the point about not chasing points because again there are numerous amounts of coaches that are reactively trading in guys like Dane Rampe and Jason Horne-Francis.
Injury replacements
Tom Stewart (SC $604k Def) went down with a knee injury early on in their blockbuster Friday night game which sent shockwaves to the 32% of teams that own him. The latest news we have received is that he is a 3–4-week injury likely to force a trade out of most players. Now there are plenty of ways to go about trading him. Some will go for a straight swap; some will want to restructure their team and downgrade him to raise funds in order to help with their rookie correction. Ultimately there isn’t a wrong answer but some of the trades that players have already made like the 754 players that have brought in Dane Rampe need to reconsider their current trade and I won’t be recommending mid prices to jump on especially after a one-game sample size.
Straight swap
You can’t go wrong with any of James Sicily (SC $625k Def), Jordan Dawson (SC $604k Def), Sam Docherty (SC $604k Def) or even Jack Sinclair (SC $627k Def). All 4 played the exact roles we expected them to, are taking kick-ins and are involved in the intercepting plays quite often. If you have a little bit of pocket money I would be getting on James Sicily as he showed he only managed to get involved in one kick out but still pumped out a 111, so with a few more under his belt he could be onto a 120+ each week. I would rate Docherty over Dawson purely on the basis that they are putting Docherty as the first player behind the stoppage, so he gets plenty of chances to intercept, be on the end of handball receives and still takes the kick-ins for the Blues. Dawson is also a primary kick-in taker at the Crows, but I feel will be more prone to position changes whether that’s pushing onto a wing or into the midfield or even down forward, but still, he won’t be a bad pick.
Slight Downgrade
The most popular trade-in for Tom Stewart is currently Nick Daicos (SC $503k Def) and for good reason, he went on and picked up a lazy 35-disposal effort that rewarded him with 129 points. However, there’s a reason why his ownership fluctuates from 50% in the offseason to 30% now and that is due to the defensive attention he can receive, as teams recognise that he is very dangerous with the ball in hand so a 35-disposal effort might not be able to be replicated each week. Port have already come out and said, “we will do everything to stop him” Not the worst trade-in option, however. A lot of point chasing with the likes of Luke Ryan (SC $532k Def), Hayden Young (SC $509k Def) being the 2nd and 3rd most popular trade-in options which likely arises from the fact that they scored 171 and 137 respectively. Even Freo teammate Brennan Cox (SC $446k Def) has snuck in as the 10th most traded-in option. Now while I believe Ryan and Young will be solid picks, this scoring is far from sustainable, especially from someone like Brennan Cox. They are not going to be playing St Kilda every week which consists of a forward line of Anthony Caminiti and Zaine Cordy as the best tall forwards. So your Freo defenders won’t be seeing 10+ marks every week, so it is a buyer beware.
POD picks
My favourite pod trade-in for Stewart would be someone like Daniel Rioli (SC $507k Def) who’s taken the mantle as the running halfback in the Richmond side. He’s overtaken Short as the kick-in taker plus is following a nice upward trajectory after finishing the last 9 games of the season with a 100.4 average. Adam Saad (SC $568k Def) is another great POD to look out for but is on the pricier side, even though on the stat sheet he didn’t get a lot of the ball he managed to win a lot of contested ball at important stages so even though he only had 18 disposals he was involved in the key moments scoring 115 which bodes well when he finds the ball more often. Furthermore, when Zac WIlliams went down with an injury last year Saad was the player that benefitted the most out of all the half-back flankers averaging 109 from Round 10-22.
Rookie watch
Already there are plenty of rookie corrections being made with the likes of Sheezel, Conor McKenna and Chandler all being brought in hastily by many coaches, however. I want to remind everyone to hold their horses and wait another week for these popular trade-in players. Regular first-team members returning from injury, changes to players’ positions and overall strong team depth at the team they’re playing at are all factors we need to consider when trading in a rookie selection.
Kade Chandler (SC $124k Fwd) had a fantastic game against the Dogs playing as a pressure forward, he managed to have 16 disposals, 8 marks, 7 tackles and a goal to his name and while that is most definitely an overperformance in terms of what you see from a pressure forward normally. He also has some shaky job security as this Melbourne side played without May, Viney, Fritsch and Salem. At some point, they will have to try and fit all 4 of these guys in which doesn’t leave much room for Chandler especially if he has a poor game. If you remember back to last year poor Toby Bedford was the sub for the Dees for pretty much every game, he plays a similar role to Chander and their sub, Jake Melksham also plays as a pressure/defensive forward. If you’ve brought him in this week then it may be worth undoing this and giving it another week to observe his job security in the side.
Harry Sheezel (SC $199k Fwd) was drafted as a mercurial forward who can change the game with his boot, and it wasn’t until the 2nd half of the preseason game against the Dogs that we got to see him utilised along the half-back flank where he showcased his classy ball use and high footy IQ. This then carried over to Round 1 where he played in the backline against the Eagles and just kept getting the pill and to no surprise, he scored brilliantly. However, does he keep this up for the rest of the season? Well if he’s in the backline then potentially can be compared to if he was playing in a forward line in a struggling team. If you don’t have him, you’ll probably have him at some point next week but again there’s no reason to bring him in now if you’re going for cash generation as his price won’t move. Give him another week of playing well and then you can assess all your options as to which rookies you need to prioritise getting in.
Conor McKenna (SC $168k Def) was left out of quite a few teams at the start of the year as there was doubt as to whether he or Wilmot would hold their spot in the stacked Brisbane side. Even after a year out of the game, McKenna didn’t look out of place and played very well picking up 20 disposals and a goal in a Brisbane team that was very poor. Once again though let’s hold off because Brisbane is a team with lots of depth to it, the signs are very encouraging to own Mckenna but let’s give it one more week and see if he can replicate his form. It was great to see him on kick outs as well.
Do not chase points
I love to bring this up every year because, for a lot of coaches, the Round 1 score of players seems to dictate early correction trades for premos, while some will go on to be a genuine premium in their position others will be a big trap and only scored well because of their matchup or just because they had a blinder. I like to go through previous years’ scoring to help me show where the player started and how valuable they were as an asset to keep all season. These are the top 25 round 1 scorer, and I checked their position ranking relative to their average. Some players did benefit from a mid-season DPP which made them more relevant.
From this list, the players highlighted in green were the ones I considered a successful pick as they were top 10 for their position or close to it, the only outlier, in this case, was rookie Jack Hayes who made us a lot of cash before doing an ACL injury. There was a very low hit rate for mid-pricers as the likes of Green, Rowell and Keays didn’t keep up with their season average. The only notable mid prices to be successful picks were Witts and Hewett who were hyped to be great selections as both were coming off long-term injuries (Lipinski you could debate being a successful pick as he made you coin and was a serviceable F6 option)
So how does this translate to this year though? For the most part, your premium selections should stick fat, only the likes of Dangerfield and Boak were considered non-keepers while other players like Bazlenka and Parker were fortunate to get an early DPP to make them a successful choice, I would expect to see the same with Luke Ryan, Gawn, Witts, English, Coniglio all being a safe selection. It’s the next bracket of players that are a bit of the unknown will it be Jason Horne-Francis (SC $349k Mid/Fwd) that keeps his midfield minutes even with Boak returning? Will Jordan De Goey (SC $469k Mid) put together a consistent enough year to finally dominate and become a viable pick all year round? Is Tom Green’s (SC $535k Mid) engine big enough to keep this type of scoring up for the whole year? Many questions are to be answered but with very little data. Hence why we need to wait another week before making any rash changes unless you’re dealing with a long-term injury.
