SuperCoach AFL: Nine players who aren’t in enough teams
Some of the best scorers in SuperCoach are being ignored by most of the competition. See the players who can set your team apart from the pack.
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Picking a “cookie cutter” team in SuperCoach, by taking the most popular players across the board, will ensure a competitive side to start the year.
But you won’t win $50,000 by playing safe.
Including a POD (point of difference) or two in your squad sets your team apart from the crowd, gives you someone to barrack for with extra gusto each weekend – and to spruik all year (and beyond) if they turn out to be a must-have player and you picked them from round 1.
That would also give you a big strategic advantage in saving money and a trade on the competition.
You don’t want to go overboard – low ownership players come with higher risk if they don’t pay off – but there is no shortage of elite scorers that you can almost guarantee none of your mates have thought of.
Here is our pick of the bunch.
Ryan took 149 kick-ins from opposition behinds last season (second-most in the AFL), and turned most of them into effective long kicks that score bulk SuperCoach points. If he’s not playing on from the square, he’s taking marks as teammates look to him at every opportunity to launch the Dockers out of defence.
Last year Ryan averaged 130 over the first 12 rounds, including a 197-point game against Richmond, before finishing the year with a 117 average. Get on now and enjoy another hot start.
Remember this guy? One of the best players in the competition, and elite scorers in SuperCoach, has fallen off the radar after a long lay-off following his scary internal injuries on King’s Birthday last year. But Petracca was back in the Melbourne midfield in the AAMI Community Series and looked like he had never left, scoring 126 points from 33 disposals, 13 contested possessions and eight marks. The Dees don’t have an early bye, either.
Any other season Baker would be right up in the conversation about the best mid-price options to start the year. But he has been swamped by the dominance of Jack Macrae, Bailey Smith and Caleb Daniel in most forward lines. That still leaves a spot or two to take a gamble, and Baker can score well if he gets the right role. A former Mr Fixit at Tigerland (who scored 51 and 140 in successive weeks last season), a regular start at half-back could finally land him in premium territory.
Perennially overlooked, Liberatore will be carrying the Bulldogs midfield early in the season after injuries to Marcus Bontempelli and Adam Treloar. There’s a rush to grab the shiny new toy Ryley Sanders in the hope his centre bounces spike – why not pick a player who has been top three at the Dogs in that stats category for the past four years (behind only Bont and Treloar in 2024).
Last year Libba ranked third in the AFL for ground ball gets and equal second for clearances on his way to his fifth-straight 100-plus average in SuperCoach.
This would take some guts. Powell was a popular early-season pick-up last year after a hot start to the year, but he couldn’t maintain the rage as Alastair Clarkson moved him all over the field. Powell spent time playing deep in the forward line and in defence but this pre-season he has played exclusively as a centre bounce midfielder, the role he dominated at under-18 level in South Australia, passing the 200-point mark twice in his draft year.
Kangaroos track watchers have raved about his summer and he backed it up with 25 disposals and 107 SuperCoach points in the AAMI Series.
The knock on McGovern is that he keeps getting injured, but that’s only partially true. He does seem to end up in hospital more than most players, but he also manages to play the next week on most of those occasions (the exception being late last season when he couldn’t get on a plane due to a punctured lung and famously drove home across the Nullarbor). The injury sidelined him for three weeks, then he returned and scored 125 and 155 SuperCoach points in his next two games.
The simple fact is if Gov plays, he scores a lot of points, through intercept marks, long kicks and controlling the kick-ins at West Coast. With the departure of Tom Barrass to Hawthorn, it’s McGovern’s D50. At age 32 he’s a big risk. Bit imagine it pays off.
It’s going to be a rough year for most Tigers but Nankervis could buck the trend. Last year – when Richmond won just two games – he produced a personal-best season, averaging 110 SuperCoach points a game including two scores over 150. And he was Richmond’s best player in a big AAMI Community Series loss to Collingwood last week with 131 points.
Almost guaranteed to ruck solo every week, Nank builds his scores on elite stoppage work (ranked No.3 for hitouts to advantage last season) and his fierce competitiveness (ranked No.2 for tackles among ruckmen behind Tristan Xerri).
This is a criminally low ownership number for a player who we will look back the end of the season and think, ‘Why didn’t we pick this guy?’. Dunkley averaged 112 points a game last year – only six midfielders scored more points – and has given no indication he won’t dominate again in 2025. He plays in arguably the AFL’s best midfield, will never get tagged, and has an amazing early fixture – the Lions play West Coast, Richmond and a depleted Bulldogs in the first five rounds.
A huge fall from grace from a player who not long ago was SuperCoach royalty – Laird appears in just 861 teams (players I’ve never even heard of are in more). He is no longer in the top echelon of SuperCoach midfielders but it could be a different story in defence, where he has been training all summer. That’s where he made his name as a fantasy gun, averaging over 100 for three seasons before moving into the midfield. If you can’t find a spot for him in your starting team, he’ll be a target after the first round of dual-position changes in round 6.
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Originally published as SuperCoach AFL: Nine players who aren’t in enough teams
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