SuperCoach 2023: This ‘perfect’ team would be leading overall without using a trade

See the team that would be leading the KFC SuperCoach overall rankings by almost 1000 points without using a trade – and what we can learn from it.

The game of KFC SuperCoach is defined by picking a good starting squad. Every year we look for a variety of players to fill the 30 positions available under the $10 million-dollar salary cap. Do you think you had a good starting team in 2023?

The problem with picking your starting team is we don’t get everything right. Our star premiums, those we selected to be our captains, get injured. We play rookie roulette every week … and fail. Our mid-pricers have “so much upside” at the start of the season, yet fail to deliver.

We painfully watch as that player we didn’t select has a breakout year. That flip-a-coin decision between two premiums costs us hundreds of points, and an even bigger cost for our salary cap. I’m sure you know the players I’m talking about, we all own them!

Now, imagine a reality where our entire starting team performs excellently. No more underperformers. The best rookie selections. Mid-pricers that turn into high scoring premiums. A team where there is no room for failure – every single player outperforming their pre-season expectations.

The perfect KFC SuperCoach starting team

What would a perfect team look like? We need to define what we want to optimise. How about picking a starting team that maximises points on field? Let’s set our bench to eight basement rookies at $102,400 each. That leaves us with the most amount of cash left over to use on field.

The optimal solution for an on-field team is one that maximises points without going over the salary cap. I solved it and it produced the team below! I’ve used starting prices and total points.

Jaiden Popowski's ‘perfect’ 2023 KFC SuperCoach team.

This team has a total score of 21,851 points after nine rounds, meaning it would be first in the overall rankings by 910 points. And that’s without needing to make any trades or changes to the team! It’s amazing how much value these players provide. There’s $28.4k left over in the salary cap with a basement bench.

Filling in a proper bench

This first iteration is nice for overall points, but no SuperCoach player would start with a bench of $102,4k rookies that aren’t playing. We still need cash generation!

Let’s fill the bench with the biggest price increases to maximise team value. To add higher starting price players like Reuben Ginbey or Max Michalanney, we will need to sacrifice some points on field to generate extra cash.

A refined perfect team to include the best starting bench.

The bench is very healthy and there haven’t been too many on-field changes. Christian Petracca and Max Holmes have made way for Adam Cerra and Oscar Allen to free up the cash required to start an expensive bench. This has left the team with an overall lead of 659 points.

The most impressive stat that we wanted from this is team value. This squad fits under the initial salary cap with $9.8k left over. The current team value as at Round 10 is $14.18 million, over one million dollars more than the current No.1 ranked team. How awesome would it be to have that much cash before the byes begin?

What can we learn from this?

Every year, this “perfect” team completely exceeds my expectations. To be almost 1000 points in front after nine rounds, without making any changes at all, says a lot about how perfect it is. Over the years, there have been a few common themes with the structure of a perfect team.

Minimise on-field rookies

We are officially in KFC SuperCoach upgrade season. We are trying to reduce the number of rookies on our fields by replacing them with premium players we want to keep for the rest of the year. What if we tried to do this before round 1 starts? Picking a mid-pricers is risky due to the cash difference, but the benefit is that some can score like a premium. Think about the roles that Jack Ziebell and Mitch Owens have had this year.

Jack Ziebell has been one of the bargain picks of 2023. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

Too many full-priced premiums

The team above still has some premium picks like Marcus Bontempelli, Tim English, and Jordan Dawson, but all three have had exceptional seasons so far. Bontempelli and Dawson are enjoying more time around the midfield, while Tim English has been injury-free in 2023. If you are picking premium players, maybe they need to have a reason to improve?

Bargain forward lines

The forward line in these teams is very cheap, with only two potential “keepers” based on our pre-season definitions. Taranto and Gulden are definite premiums for the rest of the year. Unlike the popular structure this year of paying up for forwards, these teams have lots of bargains. Rookies in the forward line allows more mid-price midfield depth. This helps to get rookies off field in the more valuable midfield positions.

Jaiden Popowski recently graduated from UTAS with a Bachelor of Science majoring in Statistics, and works at Cricket Tasmania as a research analyst. He posts fantasy and KFC SuperCoach content on Twitter – follow him at @jaiden_popowski