SuperCoach bye bible: How to survive the next three rounds

We can’t ignore it any longer — the byes are here. Luckily there are special SuperCoach rules to help us cope. And if you know what you’re doing, you can even get a jump on your mates.

We can’t ignore it any longer — the byes are here.

Six teams will have a week off for each of the next three rounds, wreaking potential havoc with our SuperCoach teams. But fortunately there are special rules to help us cope, and if you know what you’re doing you can use this as an opportunity to get a jump on your mates. We’re here to help!

WHO’S MISSING?

Let’s start with the basics. In Round 12 (that’s this week) Essendon, Fremantle, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs have the bye. That means Nat Fyfe, Travis Boak and Tom Liberatore won’t be playing for us in SuperCoach.

The next week Brisbane Lions, Collingwood, Geelong, Melbourne, Sydney and West Coast have the bye. That one will catch out a lot of coaches, especially if they have Brodie Grundy and Max Gawn in the ruck.

The final bye week, Round 14, we’ll be without players from Richmond, Adelaide, Carlton, Gold Coast, GWS and North Melbourne.

BYE RULES

The first thing to know is you won’t be penalised for having some players missing over the next few weeks.

Only your best 18 scoring players count towards your weekly score — that means you can afford to have up to 12 “doughnuts” and still field a full team.

There are a few things to note:

— The 18 scoring players must be on field to count, so you’ll need to ensure your available players are among your starting 22.

— If you have extra players available on any line you can set them as emergencies as usual. They will replace non-playing players in your starting 22.

— Set a captains and vice-captain as usual.

Lachie Neale is a trade priority after Brisbane’s bye.

IT’S LOOPHOLE TIME

One advantage of having players unavailable is it gives everyone the chance to try the “vice-captain loophole” to maximise your captain score for the round.

Select a player capable of a very high score who plays early in the round and make them your vice-captain. Good options this week include Patrick Dangerfield, Tim Kelly and Lachie Neale.

If they score exceptionally well (over 120 points), make sure a player from a team with the bye (like Fyfe) your captain. At the end of the round you’ll get your vice-captain’s score doubled — just make sure you have an emergency selected (if you have enough players) to cover your zero player.

RAGE TRADES: WHO’S ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK?

HEROES AND VILLAINS: DUNKLEY FIRES, WHERE’S CRIPPS?

You can try the same trick if you have extra available players in any position.

For example, if you have seven defenders available this week put a non-playing player on the field and a player who plays early in the round on the bench as your emergency — don’t use one of your top-scorers, this is very handy when trying to choose between two cheapies such as Noah Answerth and Jordan Clark.

In this example make Clark and emergency and see how he goes on Friday night against Richmond. If he scores well (70 points or better) leave your non-scoring player on the field and you’ll get Clark’s score at the end of the round. If he underperforms you can move your non-playing player off the field and replace him with Answerth. Just make sure you don’t leave it too late since the Lions play the second game of the round on Saturday.

NOTE: All bye players can be moved on or off the field and traded until the start of the last game on Sunday.

Nat Fyfe will be missing this week.

TRADE STRATEGY

Three trades every week should help us navigate each bye round, but taking a medium-term approach can pay big dividends as we set up our teams for the run home.

If you’re trading this week, target players who have the Round 14 bye. Those players will then be available to cover the opening two weeks of the byes and you will have six trades to compensate for their absence in Round 14. Stephen Coniglio — fresh off a 207 against Gold Coast — Rory Laird and Dustin Martin should be on the hit list if you have the cash.

Next week, your priority should be trading in players who have just had their bye. Look at Travis Boak, Fyfe, Zach Merrett, James Sicily and Jack Macrae.

The most popular player that week is likely to be Fremantle’s Brett Bewley. If selected he will be playing his third game and ready to shoot up in price, and trading another cheapie for him will free up the cash to grab the stars listed above.

Some coaches will pull two or even three similar moves to create a huge war chest to spend the next week when the likes of Lachie Neale, Elliot Yeo and Clayton Oliver will be ripe for recruiting after their respective byes — perfect upgrades from the likes of Sam Walsh and Noah Balta who are about to miss a week.

YOU CAN’T WIN THEM ALL

We don’t condone tanking. But if you are sitting pretty in your league and only need two wins from the three bye rounds to maintain your position, effectively throwing in the towel during one of the three bye rounds can pay off.

This strategy involves trading in top-liners such as Neale, Yeo and Adam Treloar early and conceding you will score poorly in Round 13. With these players available for both Round 12 and Round 14, you are banking on picking up wins in these rounds to compensate for a poor score in Round 13. It will cost you in the overall rankings but could set you up to charge home in leagues. However, it could backfire spectacularly if your team loses in rounds where you have pencilled in a win.

Sam Walsh can be traded out before Carlton’s bye in Round 14.

WATCH YOUR MATCH-UPS

If you’re employing the strategy listed above, it will pay to study the fixture to see who you’re playing in your priority league(s) over the next three weeks. This will also help inform trade decisions if you’re starting to run low (16 or fewer).

Do you need to trade to get a win or can you afford to hold? You can use the fixture to your advantage by holding back on your trades as the round unfolds — if things are looking dire in your vital head-to-head match-up you can still use trades in the late Sunday games in a last-ditch bid for victory.

If you’re up against a team which is missing a host of players in a bye round where you have 17 or 18 players, bank on them securing victory and use the three trades later in the season when other coaches are running dangerously low. It could ultimately be what wins you a final.

DON’T PANIC

Short-term thinking can cost you dearly in SuperCoach. In this game, “sideways trades” — swapping a player out for another of similar value — are almost always a bad idea.

As nice as it would be to have Lachie Neale in your team this week, if you trade a player such as Marcus Bontempelli or Jack Macrae to the No.1 scorer, you’ll only pay next week when Brisbane has the bye.

Not having 18 scoring players might not be the end of the world. There’s no point throwing out your long-term strategy or culling a reliable scorer only to make up the numbers with a rookie who scores only 20 points.

And remember — everyone else is in the same boat.

Originally published as SuperCoach bye bible: How to survive the next three rounds