1. New Schedule Means Little Rotation Required
With the revised fixtures for the NRL season ahead it has given a headache for some in SuperCoach as they planned for a season with many ups and downs that included representative football scattered into the schedule. The revised listings could be a breath of fresh air as SuperCoach players will not need to ponder on what cover they need to get for when their best players miss rounds for rep games. This change means all players are getting 5 trades to start the resumption of the game. Use these wisely to bolster your scoring players. Don’t worry about the bench. There isn’t a need for a high amount of rotation within squads for the remainder of the season. We have stated multiple times in other articles and tweets that form generally stays steady throughout the whole campaign for each player. It is more indicative of a player’s performance to look at their 3 and 5 round averages than it is to make scoring assumptions on the fixture schedule. The NRL SuperCoach scoring of players generally follows similar trends every season though matter how hard their opponents are.
2. Don’t play for depth – Play for the Starters
Furthering what was said in the last point, depth isn’t a necessity for the remainder of this season. Put all your efforts into your starting players. This doesn’t mean getting all the maximum players you can and not having any bench players that get minutes but it is about creating a squad through your trades that gives you the most maximum scorers consistently. Seems simple, but we all know that we can over complicate SuperCoach at times. With this season being tipped upside down many of us are thinking we will have to try totally new strategies to keep our team scoring and performing in the ranks. This is not the case. Despite the revised schedule, the game has become simpler. Don’t worry about those Origin game-weeks or getting 3 mid-tier second-rowers so that you can get a bench full of playable options. Those who are in your scoring team are all that matter.
3. Prioritise Premium Players
Another simple one, Premium players are essential. Players like Payne Haas, Jason Taumalolo and James Tedesco were likely in everyone’s team in game-week 1 but then other positions where a state of question. Now that no-one will be missing weeks, maximising the amount of players that have the highest ceiling of consistent scoring is essential to stay ahead of the curve. Playing off the last point of not worrying about the bench players – outside of the 4 reserves required, stack the rest with $171,900 players so that the most cash is available for premiums.
4. Smith/Koroisau Rotation
The best option you can have and we believe is essential for the remainder of the SuperCoach season is to have Cameron Smith and Api Koroisau as your two hooker options. Obviously one will be a scoring bench player but the ceiling of scoring is immense. Smith was considered a second option to priority tagged SuperCoach God Damien Cook, but the disparity is so small that Smith is actually a better option. Cook has a higher price but base points are essentially the same giving Smith and edge, who also has a more consistent scoring trend. His peak game-week scoring ceiling may be lower but the reliability of high-end returns is better than Cook in the current landscape. Over the course of his whole career of SuperCoach followed games Smith averages 63 or higher against all oppositions. Cook only averages that or higher on 4 teams. As for Koroisau, like we said before 3 and 5 round averages are true indicators of future performances. Koroisau is averaging 87 albeit with only 2 games in the bag, but with 69 and 45 in base points in those games it looks a good bet he will be getting a 55-odd average for base the entire season since locking down the starting spot in Penrith. Currently under 350k don’t do anything else but put Koroisau and Smith together in your team. Both are a likely shoe-in to play every minute for the remainder of the season as well.
5. “Extra Trades” allows for Money Making
Despite the reduced fixture schedule the amount of seasonal trades is staying the same making for many players to have more options for trades late in the game where most generally have run out in previous seasons. With the earlier point of prioritising premium players and not going with team depth, these trades can be used to make money on price rising players. Once your essentials have been brought in, use the seasons remaining trades each week to cash in on rising cash cows. There will still be the cap on each week for the amount of trades you can make but if you use 1 trade per week to capitalise on money makers, by the mid-point of the season you could have made 1 million+ in cash easily to then distribute on more starting premiums for the back end of the season. Just another reason to get also get Koroisau as prices have not yet been adjusted from the first two rounds before the shutdown.