AFL SuperCoach 2024: The Phantom’s breakout contenders and players who could take the next step
The Phantom predicted Errol Gulden’s huge 2023 SuperCoach season. This year he is going all in on a young bull midfielder as the next big thing. See his top six breakout contenders here.
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Every SuperCoach knows the big guns – the stars of the game almost guaranteed to score well.
But the key to getting the jump on the rest of the competition – in your league or in the race for the grand prize – is identifying the players set to take the next step.
Sure, it can backfire – we’ve all been there – but finding the value in SuperCoach is one of the keys to building the foundation of a successful year.
Here are six players The Phantom is tipping to increase their average significantly in 2023.
George Wardlaw (NM)
$365,400, Mid
2023 average: 65.4
Predicted average 2024: 93
Every SuperCoach has been waiting – and hoping – for the next Clayton Oliver second-year breakout.
Sure, Nick Daicos eclipsed Oliver’s sophomore season numbers of 2017 last year, but we all kinda saw that coming after what the young Magpie did in 2022.
But matching the 45-point increase – Oliver went from 66 to 111 – has proven too much for even the brightest of young stars.
In 2024, though, Wardlaw might be the one to give it a shake. We can’t expect the young Roo to average 110 and finish the year as fully-fledged SuperCoach premium, but a significant jump is on the cards.
The way Wardlaw wins the footy and fires it out by hand is definitely reminiscent of Oliver’s work in the clinches. Similarities that stretch to Wardlaw’s junior career.
He’s been a standout on the track over summer and, importantly, the numbers are similar, too.
Wardlaw averaged just one point less (65) than Oliver did in his first eight games, despite low time-on-ground and a sub-affected 30.
The Melbourne star went on to average 70 in 13 debut-season games, recording a contested-possession rate of 49.6 per cent.
Wardlaw won 46.8 per cent of his possession in a contest last year – for context, that’s the same figure as the No. 1 contested possession player in the game, Tom Green, in 2023.
And the 19-year-old’s 5.8 tackles per game ranked 19th in the competition of anyone to play more than one match.
On debut, Wardlaw tallied nine tackles, eight contested possessions, six clearances, six score involvements and 85 SuperCoach points in 63 per cent game-time.
In his fourth senior appearance, the young bull finished with 10 contested possessions, nine tackles, six clearances, five score involvements and 94 points in 70 per cent time-on-ground.
And to finish the year, after recovering from a minor hamstring injury, had 11 contested possessions, nine tackles, four clearances and 87 points in just 55 per cent game-time.
The foundation of a SuperCoach scoring weapon is there.
There’s no guarantee, given his injury history – Wardlaw had a very interrupted draft year – but if that time on ground does increase in 2024 and Alastair Clarkson does unleash the player who caught his eye before he officially returned to coach, then his disposal count – and, in turn, the key stats above – should increase, too, as Oliver’s did in 2017.
Phantom’s verdict: Despite all of the good signs, it’s still hard to say he’ll be a keeper. But I’m starting him, given he technically doesn’t need to be at the price.
Jason Horne-Francis (Port)
$433,900, Mid
2023 average: 77.6
Predicted average 2024: 100
Given the expectations put on him, the highly-publicised, early move back to South Australia and an already growing-list of match-winning performances, it’s easy to forget Horne-Francis is a 20-year-old kid, who has played just 41 senior games.
And one who, before this summer, was yet to complete an AFL pre-season.
Yet, in his first year at Alberton, one who still scored 80 or more 13 of his 24 matches, and posted three SuperCoach tons.
Horne-Francis can do it all – he can win the ball on the ground and in the air, at the contest and away from it, and he kicks goals and sets them up.
But Horne-Francis, who won 50 per cent of his possession in a contest last year, just hasn’t yet been able to do it consistently, too often caught between contests and unable to win the footy over four quarters.
Again, though, with a very limited pre-season under his belt, and given the explosive, burst nature of his game, that was always going to be difficult.
The explosive, high-intensity nature of Horne-Francis – one that saw him dominate the SANFL as an 18-year-old before he was drafted – also contributed to a league-high 48 free kicks against.
All 48 of them negatively affecting his SuperCoach score. And when they happened early in games, which they often did for Horne-Francis in 2023, you’re left playing catch-up.
Arguably his best pure football performance of the year was against St Kilda in Round 7, when he tallied 25 disposals, 18 contested possessions, 11 clearances, seven score involvements and seven tackles in just his 24th senior game.
But a few early free kicks, among eight total clangers, saw Horne-Francis finish with just 83 SuperCoach points. Regardless of what you think about how the points were adjusted, it highlights just what’s holding him back in this format.
Can he tidy that part of his game up in 2024? Because he’s undoubtedly going to be fitter, stronger and spend longer in the midfield.
“That was a thing he wanted to really focus on, his running capacity,” Power fitness boss Stuart Graham said of Horne-Francis’ pre-season last month.
“We saw glimpses of it and his capability from a physical perspective so we challenged him on that and through the off-season he sought personal trainers to help him and it has really set him up to be one of our elite mid runners so it is exciting to see where that goes to.”
Phantom’s verdict: I’d love to start him, too, but as a midfielder-only at $433k, it’d be a big call.
Finn Callaghan (GWS)
$408,600, Mid
2023 average: 73.1
Predicted average 2024: 90
After recovering from foot surgery at the end of his debut season, the player taken two picks after Horne-Francis in the 2021 draft, Callaghan, made his mark last year.
He exploded out of the gates, posting the first SuperCoach ton of his career in the opening round, tallying 25 disposals at 84 per cent efficiency, 19 uncontested possessions and 101 points against Adelaide.
But it was when there were no SuperCoach points up for grabs that Callaghan really caught the eye.
With the preliminary final on the line, it was Callaghan, in just his 26th senior game, who almost got the Giants into a grand final.
In a seesawing final term against the Magpies, Callaghan recorded 10 disposals, four contested possessions, two tackles and two clearances in a reminder of the developing inside-outside game that recruiters fell in love with towards the end of his draft year.
The classy left-footer wasn’t just on the end of things, he was starting the drive, as he did infrequently in the back-half of the season with increased centre bounce attendance.
Keep in mind, too, he missed a month of footy leading into September with a calf injury.
Purely on the eye, you’d go all in. To be fair, purely on the eye, you could say he might soon be their best player.
But just exactly how Adam Kingsley sets up his midfield mix this year remains to be seen.
Phantom’s verdict: The good thing is we might find out before SuperCoach starts, given GWS’ Opening Round fixture against the Magpies. The bad thing is the Round 3 bye. But if we see enough…
Connor Budarick (GC)
$301,200, Def
2023 average: 77 (2 games)
Predicted average 2024: 84
Remember this guy?
He’s the Gold Coast Academy product who added $130k to his SuperCoach price tag in the first five games of his career in 2020, playing as a small defender.
Since then, he’s done two ACLs and played just 13 games in the past three seasons.
But two of those came in the final rounds of 2023, with Budarick working his way back into the senior side to tally 29 kicks – 24 of them effective – and record SuperCoach scores of 71 and 83 in the club’s last two games of the year.
He was still playing as a small-defender, but the attacking traits of a player who averaged 25 disposals and 155 SuperCoach points in his draft year were on full show.
And new coach Damien Hardwick was impressed by what he saw.
“He sees me as similar to Jayden Short or Liam Baker, those boys he used to look after, as that ball-user off half-back,” Budarick told the AFL website of his pre-season conversations with Hardwick.
As I always say, good kicking is good SuperCoach and that rings true for the well-balanced defender.
Phantom’s verdict: Another one who SuperCoaches will get a look at it in Opening Round. At $300k, the value might be too hard to ignore, regardless. High on the pre-season watchlist.
Keidean Coleman (Bris)
$398,800, Def
2023 average: 66.9
Predicted average 2024: 100
What’s better than a SuperCoach ton in a grand final? A SuperCoach ton in the first half of a grand final.
That’s what the rebounding Brisbane defender did after a blistering start to last year’s decider against Collingwood.
Coleman had 13 disposals and seven marks to his name at the first change and, while his influenced curtailed after half-time, the neat-kicking left-footer finished with 127 points.
The same score – on the back of 21 disposals and six intercept marks – he recorded in the preliminary final victory over Carlton.
In fact, he averaged 99 points in the final seven games of the season, if you include finals – 30 points more than his 2024 starting price.
Coleman might see an uptick in kick-ins this year season, in the wake of Daniel Rich’s retirement, but it was Conor McKenna who was handed that responsibility more than anyone at Brisbane in 2023.
As Coleman showed in the final series, however, he’s the man the Lions want with the ball between the arcs, rather than on the last line.
Without Rich in the side, the ball should find its way to Coleman more – regardless of kick-ins – and result in a consistent increase in SuperCoach scoring.
As it did last year, with Coleman’s 2023 average 23 points higher in the in the 15 games he played without Rich, compared to the six with him in the side.
Phantom’s verdict: We’re probably not going to see anything we haven’t seen from Coleman – even if just in glimpses – in 2024. But in terms of players who could increase their SuperCoach averages significantly, Coleman is at the top of the list.
Hayden Young (Fre)
$525,100, Def
2023 average: 94
Predicted average 2024: 106
You knew it was coming.
If we are just meeting for the first time, the left-footed Fremantle gun has featured in this article in the past two years.
And I’ve been close. Ahead of the 2022 season, I forecasted a jump from 77 to 95 in his third year, and he finished on 92 after fading late in the minor round.
Last season, I said he’d push that figure to 104 and become the Dockers’ main man coming out of defence.
But after a huge 137-point round 1 performance, teammate Luke Ryan re-cemented himself as the one Fremantle play through and Young’s average stagnated.
Things changed for good late last year, however.
“He has midfield traits, and could very well end up there, but he’ll be the go-to man across half-back for the Dockers for a while yet.”
That was me in January, 2022 – I guess I was half right?
After four SuperCoach tons to finish the season shifting into the midfield, and training with that group almost exclusively this summer, Young is already there.
Young’s contested possession numbers went through the roof in the four-match stretch which included scores of 123, 118, 113 and 111.
And, as Fantasy Freako tells me, only Marcus Bontempelli laid more effective tackles than Young (32) when the Docker played as a full-time midfielder in 2023.
Phantom’s verdict: There’s absolutely no way I am missing out when Young finally hits three figures. The full premium breakout is – hopefully – finally here.
Originally published as AFL SuperCoach 2024: The Phantom’s breakout contenders and players who could take the next step
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