Six strategies for selecting your SuperCoach midfield in 2019

The midfield is the engine of any great SuperCoach team, and getting it right is crucial to your premiership plans. What’s your plan of attack? Here are six approaches you can adopt.

The midfield is the engine of any great SuperCoach team.

Most of the champion SuperCoach players are midfielders, last year midfielders occupied 34 of the top 50 scorers for the season, and we try to stack our team with extra mids by picking dual-position players in defence and the forward line.

So getting your midfield right from Round 1 is very, very important.

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To do that, you need a plan. What will yours be this year? Here are six selection strategies you can employ. As with our analysis of other positions, players listed here can be interchanged with others of a similar price (the structure is what’s important), and you can assume the sample teams listed below all feature three basement-priced rookies on the bench ($123,900 or cheaper).

1. MID-PRICE MADNESS

The temptation is real.

Selecting a midfield full of severely underpriced players offers the tantalising possibility of an all-star onball brigade at a fraction of the price others are shelling out for the likes of Jack Macrae and Josh Kelly.

Nailing these selections is notoriously difficult, but you can increase your odds of success by looking for players who have a proven scoring history or fit the profile for a breakout season, and avoiding anyone who is under an injury cloud.

Picking the right mid-pricer in your initial team can give you a significant advantage over the rest of the pack — not to mention the satisfaction of correctly nominating a risky bargain.

The players listed below will save a significant amount of salary cap room to be more aggressive in other positions.

But, as you will know if you’ve been reading our strategy articles, this approach has big potential downsides.

For every Clayton Oliver who breaks out and becomes an elite scorer, there are just as many “value” selections who stagnate or even go backwards (remember David Armitage last year?). Finding that diamond in the rough isn’t as easy as many think.

Trading your way out of a large number of mid-price misses can turn into a downward spiral you can’t escape all season, leading to sideways moves to other dubious selections and missing out on other trades that would improve your team.

You’re missing out on early points scored by high-priced guns, and starting with fewer midfield rookies could rob you of cash generation for future trades.

What a mid-price madness SuperCoach midfield could look like.

2. FULLY LOADED MIDFIELD

Midfielders score lots of points, so lots of topscoring midfielders equals a points bonanza. Sounds simple.

You will get off to a flyer by picking a midfield packed with stars, but this approach also doesn’t come without risks — unavoidable when shelling out such a huge portion of the salary cap in one position.

If you used the same approach last year and started with the topscorers from the year before the midfield would have featured players like Matt Crouch, Rory Sloane and Dustin Martin, who all underperformed based on their high starting prices. Can you be confident the same won’t happen this year?

Dustin Martin is a great value selection in the midfield.

You’re also restricting your ability to generate cash from midfield rookies, who tend to rise in value the most, and pouring cash into the midfield inevitably means cutting corners in other parts of the field. You don’t get anything for nothing in SuperCoach!

What a fully loaded SuperCoach midfield might look like.

3. ALL ROOKIE MIDFIELD

This strategy makes the most of a talented crop of rookies including the higher-priced kids who went at the top end of the draft.

Midfield rookies are historically better scoring and more reliable than cheapies in defence and the forward line, and this year there appear to be a lot of good options again. This means making cash quicker, allowing you to start upgrading your side earlier than most other coaches.

It also frees up money to spend big in other positions, including both top-line rucks and make most of potential points gains in defence.

However, you also miss out on all the topscoring midfielders who will be generating big scores for your opponents every week.

And first-year players are always at risk of being rested or dropped.

If you decide to go with this high-risk approach, pick one expensive star you can entrust with the captaincy each week.

What an all-rookie SuperCoach midfield might look like.

4. GUNS AND ROOKIES

The tried and trusted method of picking a SuperCoach side in any position, based on limiting selections to A-graders priced over $600,000 and rookies priced under $200,000 — although this year we can make an exception for Carlton’s Sam Walsh.

Guns and rookies teams have been the most successful in the past and they limit the risk of starting with too many rookies on field or any mid-pricers.

Sam Walsh hard at work on Carlton’s pre-season camp.

But you could miss out on a great value selection if Tom Liberatore or Matt Crouch return to their high-scoring glory days.

What a guns and rookies SuperCoach midfield could look like.

5. UNDERPRICED MIDS

There is a ton of value in the midfield this season with players who have been right at the top of the SuperCoach scoring pyramid available for well under their likely value.

Marcus Bontempelli is the 17th most expensive midfielder this year, Dustin Martin is 18th, Matt Crouch is 28th and Zach Merrett is 29th. That’s nuts! Martin, Crouch and Merrett have all averaged at least 110 points in one of the past three seasons (Bont hit 108 in 2016).

Picking underpriced midfield guns could allow your midfield to run deeper than your rivals, picking one extra premium or mid-pricer.

This is not as big a gamble as mid-pricers but the risk is similar. Will all these players work out? They could all improve average by five points and you’d be well behind others with A-

grade mids.

But the biggest drawback is being brave enough to start without any of Jack Macrae, Patrick Cripps, Nat Fyfe, Lachie Neale, Clayton Oliver ... the list goes on.

What an underpriced SuperCoach midfield could look like.

6. COOKIE CUTTER MIDFIELD

A healthy mix of A-graders, underpriced premiums, mid-pricers and rookies — this midfield has something for everyone.

Not throwing all your eggs in one basket spreads the risk. If your team is hit by injury or a selection who performs well below expectations, you should be able to change tack without too much pain.

Is it the best of all worlds or sitting on the fence? You are unlikely to fall far behind the pack but it will be hard to get ahead as well. Part of the fun of SuperCoach is backing yourself with selections others may not have thought of — if you go down this road try picking one left-field premium or mid-pricer to keep things interesting!

What a cookie cutter SuperCoach midfield could look like.