Supercoach Slow Team Picking Guide

Written by Father Dougal on January 23 2019

Supercoach Slow Team Picking Guide

Hi Everybody! Supercoach is open! Whoo hoo!

The day before the season started, I made a “Quick Team Picking Guide” for those who wanted to play but were running short of time. It has lots of specifics and few explanations. Since we are at the very beginning of the season, why not a guide with few specifics and lots of explanations? (For some value of lots.) Thus, the Slow Team Picking Guide!

Right now, we have lots of time and little hard information about the upcoming season. We know prices and positions. We know historical stuff, because historical. Other than that, we’re mostly making guesses, hopefully educated guesses. Worse, some things we know now are going to change. There are going to be injuries before the seasons starts. Someone’s cat will eat their elbow, and bang, your plans go up in smoke. Well, into a cat with that example. Then the preseason will try to trick us into taking and not taking people even though we “know” not to fall for that, again.

So, what can we do? We can be ready. We can know how we want to put our teams together, and then know ahead of time the players who are most likely to fit into various slots, We can also know who we need more data on so that when we get it, we can be ready to make decisions based on it.

Where do we start? Well, Rule #4 of the Rules of Cow-quisition states “Cow availability determines your structure; not the reverse. Select all the good cows, none of the dodgy cows, and build the rest of your team around them.” Rule #1 is “Start the season with as many good cows as you can get, up to where you have undesired left-over money.”

Cows are very important, and we are limited in our options. We need every good cow we can get. But we don’t know which are going to be starting until very, very close to the start of the season, and for Sunday games, not even then! That means we simply can’t have a final team until we have final cows. So, we need to be able to adjust based on what happens. How? By knowing the roles and who can be swapped out for who to make the best use of our cash.

We do not know how many good cows there will be playing round one. Each extra cow means more cash to spend on non-cows. Every cow less means less to spend per non-cow. So we need to have upgrade and downgrade options available. We do not know what positions the good cows will play, so we need to know who we are most willing to lose on any given line and who we would bring in for them on other lines. Sometimes with an up or downgrade as part of that move?

So, we need to have a list of non-cow players that we like, at different price points and for all positions. Well, maybe not rucks, if who to take is clear……right, rucks too. It’s never clear enough not to have options available. What would those lists look like? Well, here’s my first take on defenders, by price: Laird, Sicily, Whitfield, Blakely, Witherden, Z Williams, Newman, B Smith. Eight guys, of which I will take at most six. However many cows I have in defense I subtract from eight, and pick that many from my list.

Doing the same thing for the other lines:

Def: Laird, Sicily, Whitfield, Blakely, Witherden, Z Williams, Newman, B Smith.

Mid: Macrae, Cripps, Oliver, Yeo, Martin, Merrett, Zorko, Liberatore

Ruck: Grundy, Gawn, NicNat, Naismith (some loophole bloke)

Fwd: Dangerfield, Westhoff, D. Smith, Heeney, Dunkley, McLean, Reiwoldt, Wingard, Lycett

Let’s say at the start of the season the cows look like they are going to be 4 Def, 6, Mid, 0 Ruck, and 3 Fwd, I juggle 4 defenders, 5 mids, 2 rucks, and 5 forwards until the cash comes out ok. If I hear someone was savaged by Sid the Vicious Hamster*, I replace them with someone about the same cost. If that does not work, I swap two players in for the hurt guy and someone else who’s costs add up.

At the moment, my non-cows are:

Def: Blakely, Witherden, Z Williams, Newman

Mid: Macrae, Cripps, Martin, Zorko, Liberatore

Ruck: Grundy, Naismith, (some loophole bloke)

Fwd: Dangerfield, D. Smith, Heeney, Dunkley, McLean

So, as the pre-season goes on. I move guys onto and off my list, and into and out of my team. Eventually we see team lineups and the final cow structure becomes clear and I can make “final” decisions about who is in and out.

If you play around with this, you can see how some lines may end up having more high value players than others without messing up the overall strength of you side. Pulling from the above lists, I have four discount defenders to allow me to have more of the high priced forwards. I’m feeling they are more likely to be worth their price than the expensive defenders and I think the cheap defenders are more likely to produce then the cheap forwards. But, if that changes, I just update my lists, and move guys around.

Another benefit, I hope, is being less prone to over-reacting to preseason scores. We can learn a lot from the preseason, but going in with a clear idea of who you want and why might make it easier to resist those temptations that need to be resisted.

So, this season I’m keeping a list for each line of players I want, and will update it as we get closer and closer to first bounce. Some players will move off, some on. I’ll make sure to know my cows. And when the teams are announced I will hopefully be ready to get in all the “best” cows and then fill in around them as needed, with players I have already researched and feel comfortable with.

In a way, this is what I and most people do every year, just with a written list rather than a mental list, along with following Rule #4.

Thanks for reading!

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13 thoughts on “Supercoach Slow Team Picking Guide”

  1. Great stuff FD.

    Nice to have you back. Some very helpful planning tips.
    I may have to add one myself.

    I have mentioned this earlier but this seems to be a good spot to repeat it.

    I also like to colour code my “Want list” Bye weeks.
    I find this can really help me decide when choosing the best fit on any one line,and also make sure in the inevitable last minute scramble Round1, I retain some sort of Bye structure.

    Eg in Defence I have.

    R12 Bye.
    Sicily, Blakey, Ryan, Hurley,Roberton.
    R13 Bye.
    Lloyd, Hurn, Crisp, Andrews, Witherden,
    R14 Bye
    Laird, Whitfield, Williams, Newman, Hanley, Ellis.

    My prioritised list reads more like this:
    ( Imagine Bye weeks colour coded)

    Solid Premos.I plan on starting 1 or 2 of these at most.

    Lloyd, laird,Whitfield, Sicily, Crisp, Hurn.

    Value Picks/ Breakouts. I only really want to start Williams,
    but may need to start only one solid Premo (above), and a few more of these guys if the rookies don’t show up.

    Williams, Blakey, Witherden, Andrews,Newman, Roberton, Hanley.

    Once again thanks FD and great to have you back.

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  2. I don’t think forward rookies will be too much of a worry. We know about Rankine, Lukosius, King, Corbett and Burgess who at least three will debut round 1. On other teams, I expect Cavarra and Setterfield to debut round 1 and Parker, Woodcock and Hill are in for a chance.
    That’s 4-10 rookies guaranteed to play round 1 for the forward line.
    I will go heavy in the midfield, though, with most rookies to be available there.

    My defense is pretty much locked:
    Lloyd, Laird, Whitfield, Blakey, Ellis, Collins (Wilkie, Wigg)
    We’ll see how it plays out over JLT

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    1. Agree. With Wilkinson, Koschitzke, Will Kelly and Sam Durdin looking like interrupted preseasons I have gone very backline heavy, with only Rozee, Logue and Ben McKay in the budget lineup.

      If Wigg even looks like a chance I’m all over him, but it’s been a 2 season wait so far and he’s starting to smell like a burnman.

      My backs are Lloyd, Whitfield, Blakely, Mills, Roberton, Logue (Rozee, McKay). A lot of “going to be midfielders” in my defensive list.

      I’d like Zac Williams too, but that would only happen if I chop Hanners and Roberton, which is still a likely proposition. Once I have a bit more confidence in the rookie mids that can easily happen.

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  3. Great advice FD. I had my team set last year and read your article at the last minute , completely changed my season. Was reaching my goal of top 1k finish with 1 round to go thanks to you.

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  4. Great work as always, Father.

    I’m approaching the pre-season in much the same way (this is why I have been unsighted in the ‘Rate My Team’ threads, in case anyone is wondering). The only major difference is that my lists are still mental ones… I probably should write them down.

    This is not to say I haven’t been playing around with the team picker, but so far this has mostly been to remind myself of what I can afford at the start of the year, and to experiment with different bye structures, etc. But I have avoided taking any of the combinations too seriously, because I really want to avoid becoming emotionally wedded to starting a particular player or structure. In all, I only have about two or three ‘locks’ at this point. I intend to keep it that way until after the JLT.

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