SuperCoach NRL Draft 2023: Tips and tricks to help you win your league
Whether you’re a KFC SuperCoach Draft newbie or a seasoned pro, these are the tips you need to follow if you want to come out on top of your league rivals in 2023.
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The 2023 Pre-Season challenge is upon us and the NRL is almost here, which means it’s time to Draft.
Now is the time to create your leagues and start assembling your mates, to get everyone signed up in time for your draft.
Draft Day is the most important day of the KFC SuperCoach year, but if you don’t know what you’re doing it can also be one of the most stressful. But don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.
KFC SuperCoach NRL: Draft Rankings
Whether you’re new to KFC SuperCoach Draft or a seasoned pro, these are some tips you need to know if you want to come out on top.
While you don’t win or lose your KFC SuperCoach league at the draft, it does lay the foundation for the rest of your year, so it’s important to get it right.
Hopefully by sticking to this 101 guide you can come out of the draft on top, and smash your league mates throughout the season.
1. PREPARE EARLY, DO YOUR HOMEWORK & MOCK DRAFT!
Every league has a stats nerd who has spreadsheets going and does arguably too much preparation, while there’s also the guy who does no study and just wings it at the draft. And while on occasion the guy who does no work can somehow still beat you, in my experience the players who do a bit of study usually perform better.
You don’t want to be the guy who hasn’t been paying attention to the pre-season news and drafts injured players. Try and have a rough plan for the positions you want to have covered in the first five or so rounds, and check out our draft rankings so you know which guys to prioritise.
The other best way to prepare is by doing mock drafts. You can join temporary mock drafts with other real people or with autodraft bots, and if you can join one with other people you can get a good sense of where players are being drafted. It can also give you practice for picking players under pressure, and also experiment with your draft strategy. It may also reveal some hidden gems who weren’t on your radar at all. Just probably don’t mock draft with your league mates or you’ll risk giving away some of your strategy!
2. DRAFT LOCKED IN GUNS EARLY
I say it every year, but the early rounds if the draft is not the time to be making crazy picks or drafting someone on gut feel. The first 2-3 rounds should be reserved for only drafting the proven guns.
Every year there is some fool in your league who will take a punt on someone silly in the first few rounds and someone goes way earlier than they should. In several of my leagues last year Matt Burton was being drafted in the first two rounds, and while he was solid enough, many players who were passed over ended up outscoring him by a lot.
By passing over proven guns for someone like this, you’re allowing your league rivals to get massive value from the players you passed on.
3. FILL YOUR LOW DEPTH POSITIONS EARLY
While you do want to take the proven guns early, if possible you also want to use your early picks to try and fill the key low depth positions of five-eight, halfback and hooker.
This is draft, so obviously once one of your rivals drafts a player, no one else can have them. So once the best options at a certain position are gone, you could be stuck with a very mediocre player there. For example, halfback is one of the positions with very few proven guns, and a massive drop-off in scoring output once those guys are drafted. So if you can land a gun halfback in the first few rounds, you can avoid being forced to start someone like Luke Brooks or Anthony Milford each week.
Now this doesn’t mean you should reach on a player and draft them earlier just to fill a key position, but it does mean you need to be aware of the shortage of quality options at these positions when drafting.
4. LOOK FOR VALUE: DRAFT PLAYERS WITH UPSIDE MID-LATE
Now we’re getting into the real meaty part of the draft. While the first few rounds are important for loading your team with guns, the mid-rounds can truly decide who comes out of the draft with the best looking team. While the focus of the early rounds is getting guns, the other teams are also getting guns, so the midgame is where you want to fill out the rest of your spine, get some reliable base scoring guys and fill any gaps in your team. Often some of the players you land in these rounds can end up being some of your best pointscorers overall!
Make sure you keep your eye some players who you think will go later in drafts but have the potential to breakout, and don’t be afraid to finally take some risks here.
5. YOU DON’T WIN YOUR LEAGUE AT THE DRAFT
Now while the draft day itself is the most important day of the SuperCoach season, it isn’t the be-all and end-all, and if you fall apart at the draft it isn’t the end of the world. I have seen teams who have been forced to auto-draft due to unforeseen circumstances come back and win their leagues. The secret is to make smart trades and waiver wire moves throughout the season. Every year there will be someone who goes undrafted or is dropped and ends up being a SuperCoach league winner.
Players like Reuben Cotter, Scott Drinkwater, Shaun Lane, Beau Fermor, Taylan May, Jeremiah Nanai, Siosifa Talakai (the list goes on) all had breakout years in 2022, some of whom were drafted very late or available on the waivers early or even halfway through the season. And other players like Jamal Fogarty, Adam Doueihi, Tohu Harris and Jayden Brailey, all missed the start of the 2022 season due to injury but came back strong and some savvy SuperCoaches picked them up off waivers early and stashed them on their bench and were rewarded for their patience.
Not to mention that depending on your league settings you could still end up making finals with a losing record. You don’t need to necessarily finish first to make finals
6. PAY ATTENTION TO OTHER TEAMS
You’ll want to keep a tally of who the other teams in your league have drafted and what positions they have covered, especially the people on either side of you in the draft. If you know that someone picking after you (and other teams picking before your next pick) all need a halfback, then its probably not a position you can afford to wait on. And vice versa, if you notice all the teams around you have already drafted a fullback, then you can probably afford to wait a while to draft a fullback, because most people won’t be drafting two fullbacks in quick succession.
7. PLAN YOUR DRAFT PICKS
It is imperative that you head into your draft with at least a rough idea of players you can 1) reasonably expect to land at your draft position and 2) players you want in your team to fill key positions early. For example, if you have the third pick overall you can reasonably expect to get one of the key spine guns like Harry Grant. But if you’re drafting at eight you’re more likely going to be looking at someone like Cameron Munster or Damien Cook with your first pick. If you have done some mock drafts you should have a pretty good idea of who you can land at your draft position and know the kinds of players who will likely still be on the draft board when it comes back around to you.
It’s vitally important that you head into the Draft with a rough idea of players you want, positions you want to fill early and players you can reasonably expect to get with your draft spot. If you’ve done some mock drafts than you should be pretty confident of who you can get with your first pick and the players who are likely to still be available when it comes back around to you.
8. HAVE BACKUP PICKS IN MIND … AND BACKUPS FOR YOUR BACKUPS
Now while it is vitally important to have a plan of attack, it is also key to have a plan for when the unexpected happens. Sometimes someone will draft a player early or someone you weren’t expecting to be available goes undrafted before your turn. Either way you need to have a response plan. Between each of your picks you need to be thinking about who you want to target next, and also have a back up pick. And a back up for that back up. Many times in draft you will have one or two guys in mind for you next pick and they both get picked right before you. And you don’t want to be caught panic picking or reaching on someone else.
9. AVOID CTW’s & FRF’s EARLY
Building on my point about filling your key positions early, I always encourage SuperCoach players to avoid drafting CTW’s in the early rounds, but this year I am adding FRF’s to that list. This can be controversial, since some CTW’s end up being among the highest point scorers in the game by seasons end. However it is worth keeping in mind that CTW is the most unpredictable position in the game and some players who you put a lot of draft capital into can end up being a massive disappointment. Front Rowers on the other hand, while far more consistent than CTW’s, simply lack the minutes and upside to make them worth taking a punt on early, outside of the clear guns like Payne Haas and Tino Fa’asuamaleaui.
10. KNOW YOUR LEAGUE SETTINGS
Not all leagues have the same settings, and knowing how best to take advantage of these could completely change your draft strategy. Particularly this year, with the introduction of byes, some leagues could be considering drastic rule changes, or changes to team sizes.
Obviously if your leagues opt to play during the big bye rounds, you want to avoid picking players from teams who miss two of these rounds. If your league has less than 10 teams in it, the importance of drafting players in the low-depth spine positions becomes far less important. And if your league has no captaincy, then the players who have reliable base stats become more valuable, or if you play in leagues with a custom league, some positions become even less important. For example if your league only needs two CTW’s instead of four, then you don’t really need to worry about filling them early since there will be way more guns available to pick up. It all depends on what your league looks like, but being prepared and having a plan relevant to your league settings could make a massive difference.
11/ PLAN FOR BYES
And building on what I mentioned before about byes, while many leagues will opt to skip the big bye rounds, the introduction of a 17th NRL team means that there are now at least one team on bye every single week. While bye planning has been a non-factor for many draft players in the past, now it is unavoidable. Some teams will be unavailable for two or even three weeks for you during your season. If your league skips the big bye rounds, you may want to load up on players who get two of their byes out of the way during these weeks (they wont miss any games for you if their byes are during rounds you skip). And perhaps most importantly, you may want to reconsider drafting a gun if their bye is during your draft grand final week. For example, many teams will have their draft grand final in Round 25 this year, when the Broncos are on bye.
12. BONUS TIP - Have fun and enjoy your Draft Day!
And last but not least just as a bonus tip, don’t forget to have fun! While winning your league and shoving it in your mates faces is obviously a lot fun, don’t let it consume you and take it too seriously. After all it is just a game!
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