The Pizza Theory

The Pizza Theory

Every pre-season we all do the same thing. We convince ourselves we’ve spotted the breakout, the role change, the new coach masterplan, and this year we are finally ahead of the pack.

We stare at centre bounce attendances like they’re stock charts and watch pre-season games pretending we understand “match simulation intensity”.

This season everyone is talking about rucks and the stricter out-of-bounds rule. They matter. But the change that will actually mess with SuperCoach scoring the most is far less dramatic.

The AFL has moved to five interchange players instead of four (plus a substitute). Great no Sub to worry about, until you realise it changes everything.

Last year 46 players were named but only 44 were really sharing the match because the sub replaced someone. Minutes moved around, but they didn’t multiply.

In 2026 all 23 players rotate. Same match length. Same rotations. Same 3,300 SuperCoach points.

The only difference is, more people want a bite. So, the real question this year isn’t “who improves?” It’s “who has to share their food?”

The Fixed Pizza Economy

SuperCoach scoring is basically a buffet with a security guard.

Every game produces exactly 3,300 points. No more, no less.

Last year 44 players were eating the pizza. This year 46 players are eating the pizza. Nobody got worse at football. The pizza didn’t shrink. We just invited two extra teammates who “aren’t that hungry bro” and then ate half your dinner.

Maths time:
3300 ÷ 44 = 75 average
3300 ÷ 46 = 71.7 average

About a 4–5% scoring drop across the league. And here’s the key, players don’t score points per game. They score points per minute. If a midfielder averaged 110 at 85% TOG and now plays 80%, that equates to 104 average. He didn’t decline. He just spent more time holding a drink bottle.

The Lachie Neale All-You-Can-Eat Season

Remember 2020?

Shorter quarters, fewer rotations, stars barely leaving the field. Lachie Neale played about 96% TOG and averaged 135.

He didn’t suddenly unlock Ultra Instinct. He just ate the whole pizza while everyone else waited for a slice.

2026 is the opposite. Same pizza. More mouths.

But here’s the twist, AFL coaches are not fair sharers and SuperCoach rewards selfishness.

How Coaches Will Steal Your Points

The important part of this rule is not that everyone automatically loses four or five percent.

That would actually be simple. If every team reduced time on ground evenly, every player would drop about the same amount and SuperCoach would quickly adjust. There would be no real edge, just slightly lower scoring and next year’s starting prices would reflect the drop.

But AFL coaches won’t distribute slices evenly. They’ll solve football problems, and each solution steals food from a different position group.

So instead of everyone losing a little, certain players lose a lot

Instead, each club will use the extra bench player for a specific purpose. And that purpose determines where the lost minutes come from.

Some teams will take a little bit from everyone.
Some teams will take a lot from one position group.
Some teams will protect their stars and remove minutes from role players instead.
Some teams will only change rotations late in games.

This means the scoring drop won’t be uniform across the competition.

A midfielder on one team might lose 10 points simply from reduced involvement, while a similarly priced midfielder on another team barely changes at all. A ruck at one club could collapse in value, while a ruck at another remains almost unaffected.

The goal is identifying which type of rotation strategy a team is using, because once you know that, you can predict which positions on that team will lose scoring before the market notices.

The following scenarios are the main ways I can see coaches are likely to use the extra player, and each one removes points from a different place in the SuperCoach ecosystem.


1) The Double Ruck Teams

This is the classic mate-eating-half-your-pizza scenario.

One ruck = he eats 80% of the pizza, a forward nibbles on the crust.

Two rucks = suddenly half your plate is gone and you’re pretending you’re not annoyed.

A ruck who used to play 90% TOG now plays about 70%. 115 average becomes about 90.

Hawthorn have done this in the past, and are looking likely to do again. However it might be match-up dependent.

LOSERS: Rucks that have to share

2) The Extra Midfielder Rotation Teams

These teams will rotate another genuine midfielder.

Which sounds harmless until you realise midfield scoring is just minutes plus cardio.

85% TOG will become 80% TOG. 30 disposals will become 27. 8 tackles will become 6. 125 SC score will become 105.

LOSERS: Ball magnets

3) Injury Discount Traps

This one hurts the most emotionally.

You pick them cheap thinking they’ll bounce back. Instead, the coach says: “We’ll manage his minutes.” They score exactly their price. Every week.

The bargain never bargains, I’m looking at you Coleman, Young, Parish, Treloar, Newman……

LOSERS: Mid-price ‘fallen premiums’ on the come back from injury path

4) The Fake Substitute (Second-Half Swap)

Some teams will basically recreate last year’s sub. One player plays less, everyone else plays normal.

This is actually good news, the damage is contained. One guy sacrifices his slice of the pizza, so the rest of the team keeps eating.

LOSERS: The designated ‘sub’

5) Rookie Starvation Program

The extra bench kid plays 35% game time.

You expected 60 points. You get 28.

Cash generation turns into a long-term savings account with 0.3% interest.

LOSERS: Our cash generation

6) The Anti-Tag Solution

In previous seasons, if a premium midfielder got tagged he usually stayed on the ground and fought through it. Sometimes he broke the tag and scored 130, and sometimes he spent the afternoon being followed to the bench and scored 70. It was volatile, but at least the ceiling existed.

The extra bench gives coaches another option, remove the problem instead of fighting it. If a tagger clamps down, the coach simply rotates the star off more often. The tagger loses his target, the player returns later, and the team keeps functioning. From a real football perspective this works brilliantly because the player never gets completely shut out of the game.

From a SuperCoach perspective it changes the scoring profile completely. Instead of playing 85% time on ground under pressure, the player might play 65% in cleaner moments. His scoring per minute stays strong, but total minutes fall.

7) Take the boots off

One of the best SuperCoach traditions over the years has been the “junk-time fourth quarter”. The game is effectively over, the opposition drops intensity, and suddenly your premium midfielder turns a perfectly respectable 90 into a beautiful 135 while you sit there refreshing the app convincing yourself this is skill, not luck.

The extra bench player threatens to kill that completely.

When a team gets five or six goals in front, coaches no longer need to keep rotating their stars back on just to manage fatigue. They can simply leave them off. Fresh role players handle the defensive running while the important players are protected for next week.

From a real football perspective it makes perfect sense. From a SuperCoach perspective it removes the safest scoring period of the match.

Fourth-quarter junk time used to be where big scores were made. Now it may be where they quietly stop

LOSERS: Big Captain scores

8) Match-up: Different guests, different portions

The fifth bench doesn’t just change rotations.

It lets coaches change structure week to week without breaking the team.

Previously adding an extra tall, second ruck or additional midfielder meant someone else had to play massive minutes to compensate. Now the extra player absorbs that load, so teams can tailor their setup to the opponent.

Tall forward line? Extra key defender and more backline rotations.
Fast small team? More midfield runners.
Dominant ruck? Two-ruck setup.

Great coaching. Terrible predictability.

The same player might play 82% time on ground one week and 68% the next purely because of the opponent. Nothing about his role changed, only the menu did.

LOSERS: Supercoach managers sleep

 

The Pricing Problem: The menu chnaged but the bill didn’t

Here’s the part that matters most for SuperCoach.

Prices are based on historical scoring.

The starting prices this season were calculated using previous years where players owned larger slices of the match. The game has changed, but the pricing formula hasn’t caught up yet. So everyone begins the year priced for a full meal in a shared dinner environment.

A player priced at a 110 average doesn’t suddenly become a bad pick if he averages 105, he becomes correctly scoring in a different ecosystem. But SuperCoach still treats that as underperformance because his price assumed the old rotation environment.

Across the competition you’ll likely see (on average) premiums averaging 5–15 points below their historical output and large price falls from “keepers”. It might make mid-pricers look ‘safe picks’ this year and upgrades taking longer.

Next season, starting prices will adjust downward and the market will rebalance.

This season is different.

The pizza got cut into smaller slices, but the bill still assumes everyone is eating large.

Which means early in the year almost every premium will look overpriced, not because they declined, but because the competition changed around them.

And the coaches who realise that first won’t panic when 110 becomes the new 105.

The Part That Actually Wins SuperCoach

The rule itself is not the edge.

Identifying which teams share and which teams don’t is the edge.

Some teams will spread minutes across everyone and slowly suffocate premiums. Others teams will keep feeding their stars and those players will hold value while the competition bleeds points. 

One thing is certain, 46 coming to dinner means there is less for everyone. Scores will be affected and player prices will reflect this. The good news is, next year this will be factored into everyone’s starting price, the bad news this year it isn’t.

It’s now up to you to identify what is happening in the teams that have your premiums. You need to recognise the pattern early, ahead of the pack.

You’re not picking the best player anymore.

You’re picking the one who still sneaks back for another slice of pizza

 

As a community, note in the comments below what you have noticed certain clubs are doing or likely to do.