Doctor’s Orders: Nine bye tips to help your SuperCoach team get ahead

If you haven’t thought about the byes yet, don’t panic. But taking them seriously now will help you survive the next month and propel your SuperCoach side into the second half of the season.

Sam Walsh of the Blues.

It’s the end of Round 10 and it’s time we start taking the byes seriously.

While you should have already put thought into your team structure for the upcoming byes, it is by no means season over if you are yet to put any plans into action.

The byes are actually the best chance all season to surge up the rankings, as a sound bye strategy will maximise your scoring potential during these weeks.

The expert team at Doctor SuperCoach have put together some key tips to consider over the coming weeks.

Firstly, let’s talk basics. During the three-weeks spanning Round 12-14, six-teams each round have a week off to rest and recuperate. The 2019 byes are shown below:

ROUND 12: Essendon, Fremantle, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, St Kilda, Western Bulldogs

ROUND 13: Brisbane, Collingwood, Geelong, Melbourne, Sydney, West Coast

ROUND 14: Adelaide, Carlton, GWS, Richmond, Gold Coast, North Melbourne

During the byes only your 18 highest scoring, on-field players count towards your weekly score. You can still loophole both captaincy and emergency options but it’s important to remember that your emergencies work the same as any other week. A forward emergency still cannot have their score counted for non-scoring defender.

The following tips are by no means ground-breaking; however, following them should put you on the path to success.

Tip 1: Plan your trades a week or more in advance

Many coaches trade on a week-by-week basis during the year, however, this can lead you into bye trouble. Specifically during the byes you should have some idea of which premium players you’re looking to bring in each week. A simple list of each premium you want to upgrade to each week will help prevent frivolous and impulsive trading.

Nat Fyfe will miss with the bye in Round 12.

Tip 2: Write a list of your predicted top scorers

This list should be your predicted top scorers in each line for the remainder of the year. Just because a player had a ripping start to the season doesn’t mean they are guaranteed to continue that form. In addition, some premiums will have a better post-bye fixture than pre-byes. That should present some undervalued players to jump on that will surge in the post-bye run home. Likewise, players with easier pre-bye fixtures tend to be overpriced for their post-bye run home. The most expensive or highest averaging player is rarely the same when comparing pre-bye and post-bye averages.

Tip 3: DPP flexibility is nice, but not a necessity

Coaches often get hung up on how many dual-position (DPP) links they can obtain in their team. However, picking a player for their DPP flexibility only works if they are a genuine top scorer in their line. Forgoing a DPP eligible player for a player with better scoring potential nearly always works in your favour long-term.

Tip 4: Hold rookies with the later bye

To help maximise your on-field availability it always helps to have rookies that play during the early bye rounds. You should have upgraded significant parts of your team by the final bye round so you shouldn’t be requiring a plethora of rookies to play in Round 14. This means you should attempt to hold on to the likes of Carlton and Richmond rookies like Michael Gibbons, Sydney Stack and Liam Baker to help during the early bye rounds.

Sam Walsh can provide solid midfield scores until Carlton’s Round 14 bye.

Tip 5: Hold off bringing in Round 12 premiums this week

It sounds controversial, but with their bye only one more round away, bringing in the likes of Travis Boak and Nat Fyfe this week will actually negatively affect your team’s scoring potential. That is because they will only play one of the next two weeks. Instead, wait until they have had their bye to help bolster your scoring potential during Rounds 13 and 14.

Tip 6: Value available premiums over available rookies

Most of our scoring comes from our premium players. For this reason we should prioritise having a consistent number of premiums available each week instead of having at least 18 available players. This is because a score generated from 14 premiums and four rookies is vastly different than the opposite ratio.

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Tip 7: Don’t spread your byes too evenly

Counter-intuitively, having a perfectly even spread of available players each week isn’t the best strategy to go into the byes with. The best plan of attack is to have progressively more players, especially rookies, having the later bye. This means you have more scoring potential in the earlier byes and by upgrading during the byes to players coming off the bye; naturally you will cover the holes caused by the later bye players. Done correctly, you should end up with more players available each round as the byes progress.

Tip 8: Don’t chase short-term fixes

Many coaches find themselves hung up over not having 18 available players in a given bye round. The trades you make during the byes should be to make your team better in the long-term.

If you only have 17 players available in any given bye round due to unforeseeable injuries or rests, don’t make the mistake of trading a rookie or a premium player sideways to bring that number up to 18. Instead, persevere with your planned out trading strategy to make your overall team stronger each week.

Lastly, there is always something we cannot predict during the byes. If 2018 taught us anything, it’s that even the best-laid plans can be brought undone by a surprise rest to a premium or rookie. Hold firm and focus on the big picture — which is to have a fully upgraded team when you come out the other side of the byes.

Get more expert tips from the Doctor SuperCoach team here and listen to their latest podcast below: