SuperCoach AFL team reveals: Tim Michell’s first 2021 line-up

The biggest lesson Tim Michell learned last season was if a player’s score is annoying you they should be in your team. Here are the names he can’t do without.

Lachie Neale is one of the only players you would pay more than $700,000 for.

Let’s call this team the fast finishers.

I’ve had my head in KFC SuperCoach BBL for months and my first SuperCoach AFL team for 2021 is based largely on the impressions I was left with from the end of the 2020 campaign.

I’ve finally worked out which players are non-negotiables — Jake Lloyd, Tom Stewart, Lachie Neale and Marcus Bontempelli.

The biggest lesson I learned last season was if a player’s score is annoying you (Bont … cough, cough) they should be in your team.

I won’t make that mistake again.

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Beyond those four big guns, it’s all about players who finished with a flourish and rookies set for early action next season.

I loved what Liam Duggan did in the second half of 2020 for West Coast.

Despite swearing I’d never pick another Eagle after the disaster that was trading in Shannon Hurn over Lloyd, Duggan’s average of 98 in his last eight matches is too hard to ignore.

Ditto Jack Scrimshaw, who became the No. 1 interceptor for Hawthorn after James Sicily went down with a knee injury.

Liam Duggan stepped into the midfield for West Coast last season.

Rory Laird gets a gig in midfield with a long-term view to swinging him into defence, where he’d ideally take the place of a rookie such as Lachlan Jones mid-season.

It’s a matter of when Tim Taranto goes to the next level and 2021 could well be that year — even though it’s near-impossible to trust Leon Cameron based on his history of shuffling the magnets.

As a Carlton supporter I should be more confident about getting Patrick Cripps but he's one I’ll be monitoring closely in pre-season.

Any sign he’ll be spending more time forward in 2021 and I’ll need to consider a player such as Jackson Hately instead.

Jack Scrimshaw stepped up when James Sicily went down with injury.

Marcus Bontempelli could score points with his eyes closed.

I looked long and hard at Hately and Dyson Heppell but I feel like both are in no man’s land with pricing.

At best they’ll average about 90 and make $150,000-$200,000.

I was going to roll with four midfield rookies — including three over $150,000 — but needed to swing Braeden Campbell forward to accommodate Cripps.

I’m confident Will Phillips and Tom Powell will play early and Archie Perkins shouldn’t have to wait long for an opportunity at Essendon.

Leaving Max Gawn out just feels wrong after I was badly burned in 2020 but how can you overlook Brodie Grundy for $100,000 less?

Braydon Preuss is going to be hard to overlook after being traded to GWS.

Or Braydon Preuss, who will be the No. 1 ruckman at GWS?

It’s going to hurt watching Max Gawn average 130 in the opening half of the season but that extra $100,000 from picking Grundy helped me jump from Hately to Cripps — a huge midfield upgrade.

I don’t trust any of the Western Bulldogs midfielders enough — and more importantly Luke Beveridge — to start Josh Dunkley.

He won’t be rucking again after the arrival of Stefan Martin but you just know he’ll spend time in the goalsquare or a back flank at some stage.

It wouldn’t be Bevo if that didn’t happen.

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Patrick Dangerfield is an easy choice after regaining forward status and I chastised myself two seasons ago for not picking Rowan Marshall as a forward.

Ben Brown is the forward I wanted but couldn’t squeeze in at a bargain $260,000.

That’s $170,000 cheaper than he started last season, he’s going to be playing in a better team and he averaged 76-83 in four seasons between 2016-2019.

Jye Caldwell wouldn’t have joined Essendon unless he was going to play in the engine room.

Jack Ziebell is a speculative pick and a lot depends on his body, but he’s averaged at least 81 in every season since 2012 bar 2020.

This is the first draft I’ve released for 2021 but it’s about the 10th team I’ve come up with.

Can someone tell me how to get more storage on my phone for all these KFC SuperCoach team screen shots?

It’s a long pre-season and I’m going to need it!

Tim Michell’s first KFC SuperCoach team for 2021.

DEFENDERS

Jake Lloyd (Sydney) $656,400

Tom Stewart (Geelong) $538,000

Zac Williams (Carlton) $458,600

Liam Duggan (West Coast) $448,600

Jack Scrimshaw (Hawthorn) $399,600

Jacob Wehr (GWS Giants) $117,300

Lachlan Jones (Port Adelaide) $139,800

Aiden Fyfe (Gold Coast) $102,000

I’m not starting without Lloyd or Stewart again — it’s that simple. Williams and the promise of greater midfield time is too good to ignore, even though we’ve heard that line plenty of times before in KFC SuperCoach. Duggan and Scrimshaw are bargains for what they produced late in 2020, while Wehr and Jones look the pick of the rookies. Fyfe is a DEF-MID so I can use him to swing Rory Laird into defence if needed to cover an injury.

Is Tim Taranto the bargain buy of 2021?

MIDFIELDERS

Lachie Neale (Brisbane Lions) $721,800

Marcus Bontempelli (Western Bulldogs) $623,900

Rory Laird (Adelaide) $564,800

Patrick Cripps (Carlton) $523,700

Tim Taranto (GWS Giants) $453,700

Will Phillips (North Melbourne) $198,300

Archie Perkins (Essendon) $171,300

Tom Powell (North Melbourne) $153,300

Connor Downie (Hawthorn) $117,300

Errol Gulden (Sydney) $117,300

Alex Davies (Gold Coast) $102,400

Mark my words — Tim Taranto is the bargain of 2021. His season never really got going after shoulder surgery last year and his KFC SuperCoach average fell from 102.4 in 2019 to 84.5. The Giants midfield bull is a much better player than that and he’ll average 105-110 in 2021. Neale and Bontempelli were two of my first-picked, while Laird’s DPP gets him the nod over other attractive options at the same price. Cripps is cheap enough to sneak in for now but is a pre-season watch.

RUCKS

Brodie Grundy (Collingwood) $648,200

Braydon Preuss (GWS Giants) $303,000

Josh Treacy (Fremantle) $102,400

Are you even playing KFC SuperCoach if you don’t start Preuss? His numbers as a one-out ruck for Melbourne were huge and he’ll have that mantle at GWS Giants. I can’t believe I’m going without Gawn again but the extra $100,000 by starting Grundy has allowed me to push Tim Taranto to M5. Treacy is a RUC-FWD and the biggest lesson I learned in 2020 is you always start a DPP ruck at R3.

Rowan Marshall is available as a forward again in 2021.

FORWARDS

Patrick Dangerfield (Geelong) $611,900

Rowan Marshall (St Kilda) $557,200

Jye Caldwell (Essendon) $348,600

Jack Ziebell (North Melbourne) $257,900

Braeden Campbell (Sydney) $189,300

James Rowe (Adelaide) $117,300

Finlay Macrae (Collingwood) $126,300

Corey Durdin (Carlton) $117,300

Dangerfield and Marshall being available as forwards is a huge bonus. I'm convinced Caldwell wouldn’t have joined Essendon unless he was guaranteed greater time in the engine room. Ziebell is a risk but has averaged 90 before. The Swans love Campbell and he could join Callum Mills and Isaac Heeney as academy products to have a big impact in their debut campaigns.

Originally published as SuperCoach AFL team reveals: Tim Michell’s first 2021 line-up