Herald Sun digital footy editor Al Paton reveals his SuperCoach obsession

Herald Sun SuperCoach expert Al Paton has ridden the highs, lows and the hilarious moments in between since he picked his first fantasy footy team in the 1990s. Here are a few lessons he has learnt along the way.

The first game of the 2018 season sums up my SuperCoach experience.

On the short walk from the Herald Sun office to the MCG to watch Richmond face Carlton, I made a last-minute change to my team. Abandoning weeks of research, Matthew Kreuzer, the highest-scoring ruckman of the previous season, came into my side — mainly because I had enough spare cash that otherwise would have been left unspent.

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In the first quarter the Blues got off to a flyer, kicking the first five goals to silence the army of Richmond fans who had shown up to watch the unfurling of the 2017 premiership flag. As a lifelong Tigers tragic, this was far from ideal. On the other hand, Kreuzer was dominating. At quarter-time he had already scored 50 points. I was a genius.

It didn’t last. In the second term Kreuzer seemed strangely quiet. A No.8 on the electronic board on the MCC members revealed he was on the bench. Uh, oh. Check Twitter. Oh dear. A groin injury.

I had already experienced the highs and lows of SuperCoach and the season wasn’t one night old, and now I had to make an earlier than planned foray into the great adventure of the SuperCoach season: trading. On the positive side, Richmond won.

I started following Richmond in the early 1980s (great timing) and in the mid-90s I discovered fantasy footy when The Age ran a “Dream Team” competition that involved filling in a form in the paper to list your squad and putting it in the mail.

I can’t remember much about that season past Round 1, when my top pick, a second-year Tigers forward named Matthew Richardson, kicked eight goals but the score didn’t count because the game was still in trial mode.

Trading was also something of a challenge and the concept was abandoned until the Herald Sun created SuperCoach in 2006 harnessing the power of the internet. Back then Chris Judd, Nathan Buckley and Jonathan Brown — now a SuperCoach ambassador — topped the scoring each week; Brown still holds the record for the highest score in a single game: 262 for 25 disposals, 16 marks and eight goals in a game against Hawthorn.

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In the 12 years since, I’ve ridden the highs and lows of the SuperCoach rollercoaster and shared in the friendly competition of private league action in the ultra-competitive environment of the Herald Sun office. Favourite memories include trading in Matt Priddis the week he scored 196 SuperCoach points, trading Cyril Rioli four times in one season and bringing in Jack Macrae last year – chosen ahead of Patrick Dangerfield in another last-minute change to a long-term plan – just before went on a scoring spree that netted 522 points in the next three weeks (you can see why he’s in my side this year).

Another story doesn’t involve my team but is still possibly my favourite. Two extremely competitive colleagues were going head-to-head in SuperCoach and the result came down to the final match of the round. Hawthorn was playing in Perth; I can’t remember the opponent or the result but I do remember the SuperCoach match-up was so close that the lead changed after a goal seconds before the final siren.

The seemingly victorious coach was doing a victory lap in the office, high-fiving workmates, when Alastair Clarkson decided to move Rioli, one of his SuperCoach players, into the final centre bounce of the game. There was time for one final ruck contest and almost as the siren sounded the umpire’s whistle blew. The office stopped as he signalled a free kick. Against Rioli. That’s a clanger. Negative points. Enough to undo a famous victory. Cue pandemonium. Apologies if the paper came out a little late that night.

Cyril Rioli was an occasionally problematic SuperCoach selection.

I’ve seen the arrival of Gold Coast and GWS and their bench-loads of talented rookies, the introduction (boo) and abolition (yay) of the sub rule, the advent of byes during the season that created a big SuperCoach headache and a bye before the finals that cured one (mass resting in the final round), the advent of the rolling lockout, subtle changes in the scoring system that reward the best ruckmen and make it almost impossible for players today to match Browny’s monster total, innumerable late changes and Ross Lyon betrayals, and the Heath Shaw calamity that led to the reverse trades button.

Jayden Short 9 touches, a goal and a long kick from a play-on kick-in before quarter-time. How many of these $400-$500k defenders can we pick in #supercoach?
#JLTSeries

— Al Paton (@al_superfooty) March 3, 2019

SuperCoach is a test of skill and strategy that has helped me become a smarter footy fan. The scoring system has been refined by Champion Data to reward stats, and players, that change the outcome of matches. I now know the difference between a possession and a disposal, why interceptors are the stars of the modern game, and I watch matches I wouldn’t have had a reason to care about before.

I know a lot more players from teams that don’t wear yellow and black. Some, like Michael Barlow, James Podsiadly, Dayne Zorko and Tim Kelly have become favourites. Then there’s Little Gazza, the all-time SuperCoach GOAT, and Tony Olango, a young ruckman drafted by West Coast and delisted after one season without playing a game but who became a cult figure in SuperCoach as a zero-scoring bench player who played a vital role in the vice-captain loophole, doubling the scores of the biggest names in the game.

Tony Olango is gone from the AFL but remembered fondly by many in SuperCoach.

Most of all I’ve enjoyed the social nature of SuperCoach. The banter with colleagues (and private league opponents) is always fun and I feel like I have hundreds of new friends from talking about SuperCoach in the Herald Sun, on our weekly podcast and on Twitter (hit me up at @al_superfooty).

During the footy season my phone is a constant stream of messages and texts, mostly SuperCoach related, including a running season-long strategic debate with my twin brother that can sometimes take a turn to the bizarre.

Typical Paton brothers text message exchange.

So another year begins. I’m feeling extra pressure this year after a pretty successful 2018. I was ranked in the top 300 after Round 1 — largely on the back of smart pre-season selections like Toby McLean, Devon Smith and Patrick Cripps — and while I couldn’t quite maintain it, I was competitive for most of the season, at one stage slipping to around 4000 overall before climbing back to finish 1362nd in the world (not bad in a field of almost 200,000).

One lesson I learnt from that campaign was finding players who get off to a flying start help a lot, even if they can’t keep it up. So I’ll be looking for this year’s Jack Billings and Riley Bonner. Worth noting: Fremantle has a great early draw.

My best tip — enjoy the wins, don’t take the losses too hard, give it to your mates but be funny, not mean, and if things look bleak, remember we have 30 trades. And you don’t have to put them in the mailbox. Good luck!