SuperCoach NRL Draft 2022: Tips and tricks to help you win your league

Whether you’re a KFC SuperCoach Draft newbie or a seasoned pro, these are the tips you need to follow if you want to come out on top in 2022.

The NRL season is almost here KFC SuperCoaches, which of course means it’s time to DRAFT!

With the pre-season in full swing, now is the time to create your leagues and get all your mates to sign up in time for Draft Day.

This is one of the most important days of the KFC SuperCoach year, but if you don’t know what you’re doing it can also be one of the most stressful. While some other teams head into the draft blind and just wing it, we are going to go in with a strategy to help prepare us to win our leagues!

While you don’t win or lose your KFC SuperCoach league at the draft, it does lay the foundation for the rest of your year, so it’s important to get it right.

Whether you’re new to KFC SuperCoach Draft or a seasoned pro, these are some tips you need to know if you want to come out on top.
Good luck in your 2021 Drafts KFC SuperCoaches! Hopefully by following these tips you can come out of the draft with a better team than the rest of your league mates, and smash them this year!

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KFC SuperCoach NRL Draft 101: Tips to help you win your league

1. PREPARE EARLY, DO YOUR HOMEWORK & MOCK DRAFT!

It should go without saying, but the stats nerd in your Draft league who does heaps of research is more likely to have a better Draft day than the guy who turns up with no preparation! (Unless you’re one of those guys who does no work and somehow wins the league...)

But in all seriousness you don’t want to be one of those guys who hasn’t been paying attention to injury news and suspensions and doesn’t know guys like Adam Doueihi and Tohu Harris (who have extremely high pre-draft rankings) are set to miss half the season.

Try and have a rough plan for the positions you want to have covered for the first five or so rounds, check out our draft rankings so you know the guys you want to target.

And speaking of preparation, the best way to prepare is with MOCK DRAFTS! Mock Drafts are now live in KFC SuperCoach and you can do one with other people or with autofilled bots. Mock drafting is essential to give you a good sense of how early players are going, will give you practice for picking time pressure, lets you experiment with picks & draft strategy, and might also reveal some hidden gems who weren’t on your radar.

2. DRAFT LOCKED IN GUNS EARLY

Again it should be obvious, but the early rounds of the draft is not the time to be making experimental picks or taking someone you think will have a good year. The first 2-3 rounds are purely for drafting the best players possible: the proven guns.

For example, in one of my draft leagues this season Reed Mahoney went in the first round, while Matt Burton, Apisai Koroisau, Valentine Holmes, Sam Walker and Luke Keary all went in the second round.

This kind of tomfoolery allows the guys picking after you to get a lot of value from the superior players you passed on! Guys like Angus Crichton, Cameron Murray, Clint Gutherson, James Fisher Harris, Ryan Matterson were all still on the board at when these guys were taken.

But we’re not going to take massive punts in the early rounds, we’re going to go off the stats to take the guys that consistently produce gun scores. I know I’d rather have Angus Crichton than Matt Burton or Valentine Holmes!

The early rounds of the Draft are for locked and loaded guns! Don’t be like the guy in my league who took Matt Burton in second round.

3. FILL YOUR LOW DEPTH POSITIONS EARLY

Now while I said before you want to use the early rounds to get the best guys you can, you do also want to try and use them to grab guns that cover the key low depth positions of Five-Eighth, Hooker and halfback (fullback also used to be one of these but depth at that position is now really good!).

You’ve got to keep in mind that this is Draft of course and once a player is gone, no one else can have them. So once the best options at a certain position are gone you could be stuck with an average or mediocre player there. For example at hooker, there are only a few guns and very few guys that actually play the whole 80 minutes. So if you can grab someone like Harry Grant, Brandon Smith, Damien Cook early you won’t be stuck with someone like Blayke Brailey or Reece Robson late (who are serviceable, but a massive downgrade on the best guys). Five-eighth depth is particularly dire in 2022, so don’t be afraid to grab someone like Cody Walker or Cameron Munster in the early rounds.

Now this doesn’t mean you should reach on a player and draft them earlier just to fill a key position, but it does mean you need to be aware of the shortage of quality options at these positions when drafting.

4. LOOK FOR VALUE: DRAFT PLAYERS WITH UPSIDE MID-LATE

Now we’re getting into the real juicy stuff, the things that truly decide where SuperCoach draft is won and lost. Now while the focus early in your draft is all around guns, but everyone else is probably drafting guns too. It’s the value picks in the mid to late parts of the draft that can help set your team apart from the rest.

For example, players like Brian To’o, Daly Cherry-Evans, Adam Doueihi and Alex Johnston were all still available in the mid-late round of many Drafts in 2021 and ended up outscoring some first/second Round picks like Ryan Matterson, Damien Cook, Harry Grant and Cameron Munster.

Make sure you keep your eye some players who you think will go later in drafts but have the potential to breakout like these guys did, and don’t be afraid to take some punts here.

Look for value in your drafts! Brian To'o was available mid to late in most drafts in 2020 and ended up as the second best CTW and had the sixth highest average overall. Picture: Adam Head.

5. YOU DON’T WIN YOUR LEAGUE AT THE DRAFT

Just building on my last point it’s important to keep in mind that while the draft day itself is important, it isn’t everything and you can make trades or waiver moves during the season that can get your team back on track. For example, players like Reuben Garrick, Isaiah Papali’i, Nicho Hynes weren’t drafted at all in many leagues in 2021, yet ended up being some of the highest point scorers of the year and won some people their championship matches.

6. PAY ATTENTION TO OTHER TEAMS

Keep track of who every other teams have drafted and what positions they have covered, especially the people on other side of you in the draft. If you know you need a halfback and all the people around you also need one then you know you probably can’t afford to wait to long. And conversely if its coming back to your pick and you know the people after you all have a halfback already, then perhaps you can afford to wait, grab someone else, knowing there will still be a nother good half when it comes back to you.

SEE MY FULL DRAFT RANKINGS FOR EVERY POSITION HERE.

7. PLAN YOUR DRAFT PICKS

It’s vitally important that you head into the Draft with a rough idea of players you want, positions you want to fill early and players you can reasonably expect to get with your draft spot. If you’ve done some mock drafts than you should be pretty confident of who you can get with your first pick and the players who are likely to still be available when it comes back around to you.

8. HAVE BACKUP PICKS IN MIND... AND BACKUPS FOR YOUR BACKUPS

Now while I did just say it’s important to have a battle plan you have to keep in mind that some people will do some crazy thing during the draft that throws all your plans into whack. Between all of your draft picks you need to be thinking about who you will get with your next pick, but there is a good chance someone else could take your guy. So for every guy you want to take, make sure you have a backup pick in mind, and a back up for you back up in case they both get taken. You don’t want to be caught panic picking after the guy you wanted to draft gets taken right before your pick.

9. AVOID CTW’s EARLY

This is one of my more controversial tips since many CTW’s end up being some of the highest scoring players on the season, but I stand by it since the position is just so unpredictable for Draft. While it can be tempting to grab someone like Reuben Garrick in the early rounds (who was the second highest point scorer of 2021), you have to keep in mind that an injury to Tom Trbojevic would immediately cut Garrick’s ceiling significantly.

In 2021 drafts guys like David Nofoaluma and Zac Lomax went pretty early in many people’s drafts after strong 2020 seasons. Yet they ended up being massive disappointments and anyone who wasted a first or second round pick on them would have been spewing. In my opinion, as good as Brian To’o and Reuben Garrick are I wouldn’t take them in first two rounds. And outside of them there isn’t any other CTW I’d consider taking in the first four rounds at all.

Now, with all that said if one of these guns falls fairly low in your draft and you can grab one at a super value price and pair them with one or two non-CTW guns, then I would consider it.

You needed to draft David Nofoaluma early if you wanted him in your team in 2021... and you would have been very disappointed. Picture: Getty Images.

10. DON’T REACH

Building on my earlier point of getting value out of your draft picks, it’s important to note that taking players well before their expected draft position can be a massive mistake. The early rounds are for getting guns and filling your key positions, so unless absolutely necessary you should avoid taking other players too early. The exception to this would be if the other players in your league all start filling their key low depth positions early and all the best options start to disappear.

11. KNOW YOUR LEAGUE SETTINGS

Not all leagues have the same settings, and knowing how best to take advantage of these could completely change your draft strategy.

If your league plays during the bye rounds then you know you’ll need to draft players that cover the byes and avoid picking key players from the same team.

If you’re playing in a smaller league than player depth is not a big deal at all and you can just focus on getting the best of the best.

If you’re playing in a league without captains then stocking up on players with reliable base stats becomes more important.

And with player team structure customisation features now available if you’re playing with in a league without the usual 1 HOK, 2 FRF, 3 2RF, 1 HFB, 1 5/8, 4 CTW, 1 FLB layout than your draft strategy will be completely different. For example if, you’re playing in a league with just 2 CTW for example, than it is much more important to get a gun at that position early.

It all depends on what your league looks like, but being prepared and having a plan relevant to your league settings could make a massive difference.

12. BONUS TIP - Have fun and enjoy your Draft Day!

And last but not least just as a bonus tip, don’t forget to have fun! While winning your league and shoving it in your mates faces is obviously a lot fun, don’t let it consume you and take it too seriously. After all it is just a game!

Originally published as SuperCoach NRL Draft 2022: Tips and tricks to help you win your league