What Is It?
The “Flex” is an innovation that is new to Supercoach in 2025. For the first time, you will have 31 players in your squad and 23 players on the field – the regular 6/8/2/6 arrangement on field, 8 guys on the bench, and the lone flex player right at the bottom of your screen.
While you will have an extra player on the field, generally speaking you’ll still only have 22 players contributing to your score each week. Your lowest-scoring on-field player will be disregarded for the purposes of calculating your team’s weekly score. The exception to this is in during the byes in Rounds 2, 3, 5, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16, where five scores will drop out and “Best 18” scores apply as per previous seasons.
But Why?
The Flex is Supercoach’s response to the AFL’s infuriating persistence with the Sub Rule, and the effect that said rule has had on Supercoach. (This article originally included a long withering rant about the sub rule, but let’s stay on track!). If you’ve played this game before, you will know there is nothing worse than seeing one of your players wearing a red vest and contributing minimal game time and points. It kills off cash generation if it’s a rookie in the vest, and if it’s a premo – well, we won’t go there. Even worse, it pretty much annihilates your score for that week and if it happens in a league final, it’s virtually game over.
By introducing a 23rd player, the Supercoach admins are trying to ease some of the pain associated with that cursed red vest.
How Do We Use The Flex?
This is one of the great mysteries heading into the 2025 Supercoach season. Looking at the early selections in SCT’s trademark Rate My Team threads, there seems to be a few schools of thought:
RUCK COVER
The early favourite, and still a significantly supported strategy. Picking a third ruck in the Flex enables coverage of any short-term injuries on that line that you may run into during the year, as the R3 position has historically been quite unhelpful for this purpose due to lack of active ruck rooks. Similarly, a third ruck may be very useful throughout all those bye rounds, depending on exactly who you decide to go with, which clubs they play for, and when those clubs have their assigned byes.
There’s the added bonus that rucks don’t get tagged and therefore are typically consistent scorers, which provides reassurance that your 23rd player may actually be able to contribute to your weekly score on a regular basis. Favoured selections at this moment are the super-budget option in Saints mature-ager Harry Boyd ($99,100), or the mid-priced option in Eagles big man Matt Flynn ($261,900). Both of these will require close monitoring during the pre-season to ensure their selections are viable.
For all you ruckophiles out there, there’s also the nuclear option of picking three genuine premium rucks – again, with carefully misaligned bye rounds to maximise your returns – which allows you to have at least two rucks on field all the way through. For example, a triumvirate of Xerri (Rd 12 bye), Gawn (Rd 15) and Darcy (Rd 13) will fit the bill nicely. Fun!
CASH GEN
The other popular option for the Flex in these early days is to pick an additional cash cow as your 31st player. This is particularly wise for exponents of the GnR strategy, considering we still only have that $10 million salary cap which now has to be spread around even more thinly. But, dare I say it, the rookie stocks look to be reasonably promising this year and so this strategy may have some merit. Going this way is playing the long game and while scores may suffer early in comparison to those sides who slot in a more established player, ideally all that lovely extra cash made by the bonus rookie will lead to a better squad in the back end of the season. The Guns ‘n’ Rookies theory extends to the Flex position too!
The only catch with picking a rookie as the 23rd player is, as with all your on-field rookies, solid job security is non-negotiable. You lose most of the advantages of the Flex if your guy is in and out of the starting squad each week or, just as bad, copping vests all over the place. For these reasons, names like Hewett, Lalor and Kako might be worth considering as the grapevine tells us they are likely to be best 22 at their respective clubs (please note the judicious use of the word “likely” in this sentence).
Anything Else?
One of the happy (possibly unintentional???) side effects of the introduction of the Flex is that we now have greater flexibility with team selections and trades. Because there are no restrictions on a Flex player’s position, you can select absolutely any one of the 781 players available, from Bont to Burke, in that spot.
But when it comes to trades, the Flex suddenly opens up a huge range of possibilities that we didn’t have before. For example, say we’re a couple of months into the season and I want to upgrade Tom Lynch (forward) to a premium defender such as Jack Sinclair. But I don’t have anyone in my back line with DEF/FWD status that I can swing forward to open up the free spot for Sinclair, which makes the trade impossible. What to do?
Using a bit of Flex magic, this trade is now possible if you have a forward (such as Elijah Hewett) in this position. Simply swap Lynch with Hewett so that Lynch is now the Flex, and then trade Lynch straight to Sinclair. Voila! You have successfully traded a forward to a defender without using any old-fashioned DPP swings. This is definitely something to keep in mind as we progress through what is sure to be another wild and wooly season.
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What are your plans for the Flex?
The article pretty much nailed my early thoughts. I will start with my regular team and just put in the next best highest cash generating rookie, regardless of position.
Unless there is a better cash generator, I will also start with a R/F as my R3 for the ability to move the pieces around.
Ultimately, I think there will be a ruckmen as the flex for the run home; covering a 1-2 week injury in the ruck lines and probably scoring better than the 7th best F/D or 9th best M.
FLEX is the new set and forget.
That’s the way I’m leaning. Go for the highest floor player.
Great article thanks just a note that they reduced the price of all players by 3% to accommodate the extra position.
From playing BBL supercoach it was always good to have a duel position player in the flex spot to make it easier to swap in and out players.
I feel if your going to go a ruck in that position then your R3 should be a R/F.
I currently have JHF in that spot just because the value and rookies in the fwd line shouldn’t be ignored but I don’t want to fade JHF because everyone is going to own him.
Ah good to know about the player prices, thanks! Makes perfect sense.
I am going for a premo who will definitely be top 23 scorer each week. The spot this player frees up in my 22 can be used to loop inconsistent scorers or rookies.
No difference between gun or rookie as flex. If you pick a gun you can change him for on field rookie and it exactly the same side. I think the only question is to ruck or not to ruck.
There is a difference. you can’t loop a flex. So best strategy is to pick a flex who is almost certain to score in best 33.
You are spot on here Baz.
First premium who is playing and eligible within team constraints to move into the flex should go there.
Also noting, they don’t have a corresponding emergency if they are a late out.
What also is a benefit is a late game (Sunday) flex.
You may get an emergency laughing at you with 100+ so you maybe then able to shuffle and get a non playing player on field so the emergency then cops your gloating.
That’s why I intend to focus on which of my prime rucks is going to be playing the latest game to be flex.
Note this will not be viable every week, but it can also help vc/capt changes too.
Should be easy to do as you can run most of your team via flex unless you take ruck.
Giday fellas, starting flex for me will be a high price DPP, which will be either Flanders, Sinclair, JHF or Holmes, depending on where I land the team and rookie depth. Logic is maximum flexibility, high scoring potential and someone who I’m unlikely to want to captain given I’m likely to start Bont, Gawn, Butters and Xerri. Have a great season, love the site updates and thanks for the content.
Gidday BJSO,
That just about covers everything.
Just make sure when one of your primary rucks may have a week or two off, that you have cover so your flex +1 is not wasted and you only have 22 players until they return.
Cheers
I’m avoiding going with a ruck as a flex option.
We want to have 23 playing each week, and the flex is just another line which goes into this – except it has no bench.
So if you pick Flynn as a flex and he is suspended for a week or has a minor injury, you’ve got no cover at the flex spot – you’d need to make a trade to have 23 playing.
Going with a DPP player takes away this risk (you’d have two lines worth of bench players to cover it) and gives you more flexibility trading players into your team.
For example, say there’s a perfect fallen premium defender, but none of your DEF cows are ready to trade out – you could trade out some ripe midfield cows and bring in the premium defender to the flex via that DPP.
None of that ‘flexibility’ is possible if you’re running another ruck down there, and I think doing that is actually quite a risky play with regards to having a full 23 playing each non-bye week.
All very good points. Extending it even further, as mentioned by others in this thread, it reduces the risk even further if you play a DPP premium as the flex. Due to the lack of a loophole option on that line, it’s probably going to be better to have someone there who is going to score well more often, i.e. a premium, who will usually be in the best 22 scores.
Of course there is always a chance that a premium may get injured or even subbed, but that is what the flex is there for after all.
Question? Will your Flex player position (say forward) will only be counted in the 22 final score IF the scores from any of the other forwards are lower than its score?
Hi Steven – the flex is one of your 23 on-field players (not a forward, just a generic “player”). If your flex’s score is in the top 22 of your players’ scores for the week, it will count towards your total score for that week.
For example, say my flex player Elijah Hewett scores 60 in Round 1, and one of my premium defenders (Sheezel) rolls an ankle in the first minute of his game and is subbed out on 1 point. Then Sheezel’s score will be excluded, and Hewett’s 60 will count towards my weekly score.
Rook for me. Cash gen then pick up a fallen premo, probably 3rd ruck, before byes
I have currently got Sam De Koning sitting in flex didn’t like the look of him at D3. If he has moved to full time ruck he will be DEF/RUC at round 6