SuperCoach AFL 2024: Champion Data guru Fantasy Freako explains round 1 scores

Who are the best rookies this week? Get the inside word from Champion Data guru Fantasy Freako plus top captain picks and seven stats to help your team.

The 2024 season could not have got off to a worse start last Thursday night as Josh Gibcus succumbed to a serious knee injury with just 19 points to his name.

Fast forward to Saturday and another popular defender, Zach Reid, injured his hamstring with just 15 points on the board. If you had both on field it was a disastrous start, even if you had just one it was a low blow.

Gibcus will miss the remainder of the season while Reid will be out for up to six weeks.

Looking at the positives from the weekend, the standout performance came from ex-Bomber Massimo D’Ambrosio. He starred on his Hawks debut with a team-high 29 disposals and 17 uncontested possessions. Playing the entire match on a wing, he had nine handball-receives and a career-high 122 points. Not a bad start.

Oliver Dempsey won the Rising Star nomination for round 1 after scoring 96 in the win over St Kilda. He was lively in attack with five shots at goal (3.1), also having three score assists and nine score involvements.

We have a few players on the bubble this week as opening round scores count towards price changes. At the top of this list is Blake Howes (Break Even -86) who faces the Hawks this round. Teammate Marty Hore, although not on the bubble, is another option in defence for the injured Gibcus and Reid.

Tom Berry (BE -75) has been praised by Damien Hardwick for his start to the season and scored 104 against the Crows. If you overlooked Alex Sexton (BE -63) he is also up for grabs, but as the seventh-most owned player in SuperCoach, most should already have him.

Jack Carroll (-70) came into the Carlton team to replace Sam Docherty and he has been afforded midfield minutes. He finished with 20 disposals, two score assists and 74 points against the Tigers in Round 1, but he won’t play this week as Carlton has the bye.

Only move for rookies on the bubble this week, otherwise you can wait and see what happens with other transfer targets.

Best of luck for the round ahead!

Massimo DÃmbrosio starred on a wing for the Hawks. Picture: Michael Klein

CAPTAINS CORNER

Nick Daicos will be a popular VC option on Thursday night, with any bye players available to use for loophole purposes. Daicos scored 128 against St Kilda in round 5 last season.

Marcus Bontempelli has an excellent record against Gold Coast, scoring 124, 130 and 133 in his past three against them, while Brodie Grundy averages 136 in his past three against Essendon – although he could face a dual threat of Todd Goldstein and Sam Draper this round.

Zak Butters is a great option on Sunday against Richmond, a team he scored 158 against the last time they met.

Max Gawn is fresh of a 162 but Hawthorn’s Ned Reeves is a tough ruck to score against; Gawn’s past two scores against the Hawks are 91 and 94.

Caleb Serong should score well against North Melbourne but if you can hold out until the final game of the round Tom Green could be the pick of the bunch. His average of 110 against the Eagles is fair, but pay more attention to his score of 152 last week.

Champion Data's top captain picks for round 2.

Seven stats to crack SuperCoach scoring code

The SuperCoach scoring system has been refined over many years by Champion Data to best reflect the impact players have on real games of footy.

Kicks, marks and handballs all score points, but there is a lot more to it than that.

Champion Data’s SuperCoach guru Fantasy Freako will be here every week to explain key scoring trends and moments from the round just gone.

This intel is crucial to gaining a deeper understanding of the game and how players score – info you can use to make the best trade and selection decisions every week.

Here are seven key stats you need to know from round 1.

BAD BOY BRODIE

Brodie Grundy crashed from a score of 139 points in opening round to 71 against Collingwood. But he was his own worst enemy in round 1.

He gave away seven free kicks, losing a total of 19.1 points from this source. It could be a worrying trend – he has already given away 11 free kicks in two games.

Brodie Grundy needs to stop giving away free kicks. Picture: Phil Hillyard

BAD KICKING IS BAD SUPERCOACH

Popular mid-price picks Nic Martin (63 points) and Zac Fisher (50) are being heavily traded this week after poor round 1 scores, despite both players winning plenty of the footy.

The issue for both is that for kicks to score in SuperCoach, they have to hit the target. Ineffective kicks score no points and direct turnovers are worth negative points.

Martin had 16 kicks against Hawthorn, but only eight of those were effective while three were direct turnovers.

Fisher had 17 kicks on his Kangaroos debut, of which 12 were effective, but alarmingly the other five were direct turnovers.

Finding the ball isn’t a problem for either player. Can they clean up their disposal this week to become effective SuperCoach scorers?

BERRY CLOSE

Crow Sam Berry could have received a significant boost to his score when he found himself on the end of a rushed kick inside 50 as the Crows pushed Gold Coast right to the wire. Unfortunately, he dropped the mark, which is a negative act in SuperCoach. All dropped mark result in negative points and Berry lost two in the final stages of the match.

CAT EVEN CLOSER

Another player who was almost the matchwinner was Geelong rookie Shaun Mannagh. After coming on as the sub, Mannagh ran into goal in the dying stages of the tense Cats v Saints game, only for his shot to be smothered by Zaine Cordy.

All kicks that are smothered are deemed to be ineffective and this one was worth 0 points.

Cordy earned 4.7 points for this smother.

Shaun Mannagh was almost the hero for Geelong in his AFL debut. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

GOING BACKWARDS?

A unique feature of the SuperCoach scoring system is that there are 3300 points to allocate in every game, with scores scaled based on the players’ impact in the time they are on the field.

This explains why some players, such as Josh Gibcus and Ryley Sanders, can appear to ‘lose’ points over the course of the game after leaving the field.

Scaling can work both ways. If, for example, a player kicks three goals in the first quarter and scores 45 points and then gets injured, their score may increase over the match to reflect the impact they had. Theoretically speaking, they could end the match on 53 points.

If a player didn’t have a major impact on the game and then got injured or subbed out, then their score may drop marginally by the end.

Overall, every player’s score is a percentage of the overall points that are on offer. In the case of Gibcus, his percentage of the pie didn’t change because he went off injured, but his score dropped by a few points as others around him impacted the match.

UGLY BUT EFFECTIVE

On Friday night Errol Gulden grubbed a kick sideways along the ground which went to James Rowbottom, who kicked a goal.

Even if the ball is kicked along the ground and it goes to the intended target, it is deemed an effective kick. Gulden also earned points for the goal assist.

He had five score assists for the game, ranked second in round 1 behind Todd Marshall (6). Six players had four score assists – Matt Guelfi, Jesse Hogan, Paul Curtis, Jamie Cripps, Jack Billings and Jack Ginnivan.

Errol Gulden’s ability to impact the scoreboard makes him a damaging SuperCoach scorer. Picture: Phil Hillyard

STAT OF THE WEEK: SCOREBOARD IMPACT

Hitting the scoreboard provides a major boost to SuperCoach scoring, no matter what position you play.

Scoreboard impact isn’t a measure of just goals and behinds, with your ability to assist in a score also recognised. Therefore, players that bring teammates into the game are gold in SuperCoach!

From a SuperCoach perspective the goal is the ultimate reward, earning the player eight

points in total. A goal is also recorded as an effective kick. A behind, on the other hand, is worth one point and an ineffective kick (0 points).

In terms of assists, a player is awarded 3.5 points for both goal and score assists, so you’re not disadvantaged from a SuperCoach aspect if the player misses the goal. If the shot falls short of goes out on the full, then no score is recorded, and no assist will be given.

An assist is the last effective disposal or possession before a score.

Assists aren’t always via kicks or handballs. If a player knocks the ball on to a teammate and they score a goal or a behind, then the player with the knock-on will earn an assist. Or in what could be considered as the ideal play, if a ruckman taps the ball down to the advantage of a teammate and they kick a goal or even miss for a behind, then the ruckman will earn an assist – like Luke Jackson on the weekend.

These acts can deliver a major boost given the player receives points for the disposal, knock-on or hitout to advantage as well as the score assist.

Below is a breakdown of scoreboard impact points:

Originally published as SuperCoach AFL 2024: Champion Data guru Fantasy Freako explains round 1 scores