Doctor’s Orders: Which KFC SuperCoach stars will benefit from the unique 2020 season?

This will be a footy season like no other. The experts at Doctor SuperCoach have dug into the numbers and unearthed a key insight that will be vital to making the most of our five trades.

Nat Fyfe in action during a Fremantle Dockers training session.

Well, it’s been 73 days since we last saw a match of AFL on our screens. We’ve put our SuperCoach sides into park but it’s now time to restart that engine.

This is a season like no other; there is no road map on how to navigate through it and predicting the timing of events has required a crystal ball at times.

But one thing is for certain now, we are all gearing up for Collingwood versus Richmond on Thursday and with that comes the need to reassess the standing of our KFC SuperCoach sides.

Given the lengthy lay-off, we have been handed five trades to amend any wrongdoings in our original planning or account for what could be vastly different looking team line-ups to the ones we originally selected our SuperCoach sides from.

So how do we best use these trades? The answer may become clearer after reflecting on Round 1.

This is a different game. The quarters are shorter, players’ time spent on ground is different to previous seasons, and while it’s still unknown how teams will approach the year in terms of team management, this could prove quite the headache if we see our stars regularly rested.

But let’s not deal in hypotheticals, what did Round 1 show us? Will this different looking game – mainly in the duration of the match – provide different trends, a different pattern of scoring, and, most importantly, which players will benefit?

One important note to remember is that the SuperCoach scoring system, allocating 3300 points per game, will remain constant despite the shorter matches. Therefore SuperCoach scores will still be big; and there was evidence in Round 1 to suggest the range of scores from top to bottom will be as wide as we’ve ever seen — in short, the rich may get richer.

We saw three 170-plus scores and 30 scores of 120 or higher in Round 1. To put those scores in perspective, over the first 10 rounds of 2019 there was an average of 23.1 120-plus scores per week, with the highest weekly tally being 28, in Round 10. That’s a significant increase.

Applying some real examples as to why this might be the case, we saw Todd Goldstein play a huge amount of game time, 98 per cent time on ground — 11 per cent up from his 2019 average — on his way to scoring 136 points.

Todd Goldstein was one of 10 ruckmen who scored over 100 points in Round 1.

Nat Fyfe was another star who was able to minimise his bench time, playing 95 per cent of the match against the Bombers, scoring 110.

These are two examples of the star players of the competition being offered more time on ground, able to push through the quarters with less bench time given the quarter and halftime breaks creep up that little bit quicker under the revamped shortened quarters.

While their Round 1 scores were not way up from anything we’ve seen from them before, some players did go massive in the way of the three 170-plus scores. Despite the small sample size, if the game’s greats are offered more time on the ground, there is no doubt we can expect our stars to shine brighter in 2020.

Delving deeper into the Goldstein example and ruckmen in general, Round 1 saw some big ruck scores with Brodie Grundy (174), Goldstein (136), Sam Jacobs (134), Rory Lobb (133) and Sam Naismith (121) all topping 120. In all, 10 rucks scored in triple figures.

Could we see ruckmen become even more valuable given the extra time on the field and ability to ruck solo for longer percentage of game time? Again, it’s a small sample size, but it’s definitely something to consider following the first week. Several clubs have also flagged the option of playing just one ruckman in shorter games.

Nat Fyfe could be one of the stars to benefit from a spike in scoring.

Overall, there were some clear trends from Round 1, but can we confidently say those scores are purely related to the changes implemented due to the shortened season? Probably not. There is no doubt this season will be different to others and it will be a matter of assessing the evidence put forward in the coming weeks, which may support some of the early theories mentioned.

But we can’t wait to make those five trade decisions, so for now the key differences appear to be that superstar players will have even more of a say on matches and, therefore, some big scores will be on offer.

MORE SUPERCOACH:

SuperCoach Round 2 trade guide: Melbourne solves defensive rookie crisis

KFC SuperCoach rookie bible: Every cheapie rated ahead of Round 2 price changes

Doctors Orders: How to plan you trade moves for KFC SuperCoach restart

Champion Data guru Fantasy Freako reveals his five Round 2 KFC SuperCoach trades

Team management by clubs will be something to monitor — for example, how often will players be rested? Will this be as relevant with shorter quarters and a fairly traditional looking fixture across Thursday to Sunday? We will only get a gauge of this as we get deeper into the season.

In a season like no other, coaches will have to roll with the punches and manage their sides even better than previous years. It all begins on Thursday.

Listen to the latest Doctor SuperCoach podcast below and get more expert tips here.

Originally published as Doctor’s Orders: Which KFC SuperCoach stars will benefit from the unique 2020 season?