The first week of the season is complete and we’re all satisfied that footy is finally back, and in tandem, the return of SuperCoach.
Five of the nine games were decided by less than two goals and, another two by under five goals.
We only had two real blowouts, with Adelaide and Hawthorn dominating North Melbourne and Geelong.
Overall it was a mostly competitive round. The same cannot be said for SuperCoach.
The 18 highest scoring players for the round all had less then 10 per cent ownership, meaning if you had any of those players heading into the year you would’ve classified them as PODs (points of differences).
Here are the top 10 players for the round:
1. Taylor Walker ($430,400) [FWD] – 177
2. Adam Treloar ($577,800) [MID] – 157
3. Jordan Lewis ($588,200) [MID] – 154
4. Eddie Betts ($426,600) [FWD] – 154
5. Sam Docherty ($412,900) [DEF] – 147
6. Rory Sloane ($616,900) [MID] – 145
7. Jeremy McGovern ($443,200) [DEF/FWD] – 145
8. Brodie Smith ($502,800) [DEF] – 144
9. Brad Ebert ($506,700) [MID] – 142
10. Matthew Pavlich ($459,000) [FWD] – 139
If you picked three or four of those players you have done very well. But the odds are you didn’t. And although you spent the weekend laughing at AFL Game Day’s excuse for a SuperCoach team, you realise you haven’t done much better.
You probably have quite a few villains to blame.
The Villains
SuperCoach should be a pleasant pastime for footy fanatics but for most of us it is quite the opposite – an effective way to ruin the weekend.
Those who helped make this shocking round of SuperCoach occur include:
Dustin Martin ($534,900) with 51 points, owned by 44.4 per cent of teams.
Joel Selwood ($649,900) with 69 points, owned by 24.6 per cent of teams.
Brendon Goddard ($548,800) with 66 points, owned by 15.5 per cent of teams.
Brett Deledio ($553,300) with 66 points, owned by 14.1 per cent of teams.
Garrick Ibbotson ($342,900) with 51 points, owned by 12.9 per cent of teams.
Tom Rockliff ($709,500) with 71 points, owned by 12.6 per cent of teams.
Whether it’s Deledio likely being suspended for his hit on Simon White in the opening seven seconds of the season, or Rockliff severely injuring his ribs, we have a plethora of premiums (or popularly picked players) who just didn’t perform.
I can’t believe the ways that SuperCoach finds a way to be a total smartass. I was rejoicing that I didn’t pick Kade Kolodjashnij after his lousy 47-point effort, then realised later in the round that the guy I picked in his place was Garrick Ibbotson, gaining a whopping four points.
This seems the case for many footy fans as they flock to their footy websites to rant about how terrible of a round it was and threaten to rage-trade Dustin Martin and any other player they are annoyed at.
The heroes
However, while many premiums disappointed, the majority of the rookie-priced players churned out some decent scores.
Mitch Clark (78), Adam Saad (89), Jesse Hogan (79), Cam Ellis-Yolmen (78), Isaac Heeney (96), Aaron Vandenberg (99) and Kamdyn McIntosh (120) lead this group of cash cows.
Robbie Gray, Nathan Fyfe, Scott Pendlebury, Gary Ablett and Daniel Rich are among the commonly selected players who put out some solid scores.
The week ahead
While your itchy trigger finger looms over the red ‘T’ button that belongs to Dustin Martin or Jack Newnes, you should probably wait another week to make a decision.
Unless you have some serious corrective trading to do in terms of rookies (if you don’t have Vandenberg, Heeney, McIntosh etc you may want to bring in one this week) or serious injuries/suspensions there should be no trades this week. Give it another week before the prices change. We don’t know whether the majority of this week’s top scorers were simply a flash in the pan or the real deal.
Drill it in now: no silly trades this week. No silly trades this week. No silly trades this week.
Where do you sit?
Give up now: sub-1800
Round 1 par: 2000-2100
Quit bragging: 2150-2200 and above.
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