SuperCoach Plus: 11 things you need to know for round 10 of the AFL season
Is this man the KFC SuperCoach buy of the year? That, plus every bit of advice you need to nail Round 10, in this week’s SuperCoach Plus article.
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The 2022 season is the year of the mid-pricer in KFC SuperCoach – and one player stands above them all.
Meanwhile, what happened to Maurice Rioli Junior, Patrick Cripps and Stephen Coniglio last weekend?
Scroll down to dig into the stats behind the KFC SuperCoach scores plus 10 more nuggets from SuperCoach plus to help your team.
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RIOLI CASH GEN HITS A SNAG
Maurice Rioli Jr was the most traded in player last round, joining almost 53,000 KFC SuperCoach teams.
And 38 per cent of those sides had him on field for his third game of the year, which didn’t work out so well when he scored just 7 points against Hawthorn.
Rioli could manage only four disposals for the day, and just one of those was effective.
He applied two tackles but lost 14.8 points from negative acts including a dropped mark, a clanger kick and two free kicks against. But it wasn’t all bad – his value jumped by $43,800 and he will make money again if he can score at least 20 points in his next match – hopefully Saturday night’s Dreamtime game against Essendon.
But unless he can spike a big score his cash generation will dry up quickly after that, with SuperCoach Plus projecting he will top out at just over $220,000.
WHAT HAPPENED TO COGS, CRIPPS, DRAPER?
Rioli wasn’t the only player to deliver a disappointing score on the weekend. Stephen Coniglio managed just 37 points against Carlton on Sunday, losing almost 20 points from negative acts, including giving away a 50m penalty and a free kick, two clanger disposals and another no-pressure error. Following a trend of recent weeks, he attended only just seven centre bounces and played most of the match as a forward. In the same game Patrick Cripps’ 83 points were his lowest score of the season, discounting the round 4 match when he hurt his hamstring. Cripps was let down by his ball use, posting a season-low kicking efficiency of just 36 per cent and an overall disposal efficiency of 58 per cent. He also had just two tackles and didn’t kick a goal for the first time this year. But both of them left Sam Draper in the shade. The Essendon ruckman scored 38 points from positive acts but lost nearly all of them through negative acts – sharked hitouts, six frees against and two no-pressure errors – resulting in a score of just 6, a disaster for his 8304 owners.
LYNCH’S PRICE CONTINUES TO SURGE
Rioli’s price rise was the fifth-biggest after round 9, behind teammate Tom Lynch (+$83,300), Cooper Hamilton (+$54,400), Jack Carroll (+$48,700) and Todd Goldstein (+$45,200). Lynch is projected to gain another $36,000 after playing Essendon, a crazy number for a player already valued at $575,000. Meanwhile, the Braydon Preuss money train shows no signs of slowing down. The GWS ruckman posted a season-high score of 120 against Carlton, adding $38,200 to his price tag, which now sits at $457,100 – a rise of more than $250,000 in four weeks. Preuss has a Break Even of 46 against the Eagles then comes up against Brisbane (Oscar McInerney) before the Giants’ bye. With North Melbourne, the Bulldogs, a Brodie Grundy-less Collingwood and Hawthorn to follow, he is projected to be valued at over $550,000 by round 17.
MILLS, NEALE JOSTLE FOR SUPERCOACH’S TOP DOG
Lachie Neale added $15,500 to his value after round 9 to move to $678,500 – making him the most expensive player in KFC SuperCoach. That’s an amazing effort for a player who started the season valued at $543,200. What a bargain! Neale is averaging 32.1 disposals (up from 27.1 last year), 7.9 clearances and 4.8 tackles, and he’s also the topscoring player for 2022, averaging 135.7 points a game. He is 93 points ahead of No.2 on the list, Swan Callum Mills, who held the crown for the most expensive player in the game before last weekend. Mills dropped $16,900 despite scoring 167 points against Essendon and has a Break Even of 167 against the Giants this round. That is clearly not impossible for such an elite scorer and based on SuperCoach Plus projections Mills will be priced over $720,000 by round 13 – non owners will be hoping for one low score to make him affordable after the Swans’ bye.
CLARK THE ROOKIE TO TARGET
West Coast midfielder Greg Clark has the lowest Break Even for round 10 at -97 and is projected to jump in value by more than $80,000 after playing his third game. That would be a great result for more than 33,000 coaches who already own Clark, and the 17,000 who have traded him in this week. Bubble boys Buku Khamis (-32) and Roy Thompson (-16) have negative Break Evens but won’t be huge money makers. Ben Hobbs might be, though. The No.13 draft pick has played five games for Essendon but has a BE of -41 this week after finding form in the past two rounds with scores of 93 and 75. The 13 points he scored against the Bulldogs in round 7 will be out of his price cycle after this round and the Bombers youngster is projected to make more than $60,000 in the next three weeks.
BRODIE THE SEASON KEEPER
Will Brodie added another $16,200 to his price tag after round 9, the seventh consecutive price rise for a player who started the year valued at $224,300 and is now the fifth-ranked forward for total points, averaging 101.1 points per game. In a breakout season after being traded by Gold Coast effectively for two future draft picks, Brodie has had at least 20 disposals in all but one game and had 37 twice. Against his old side on Sunday he had 27 disposals and a season-high eight tackles, scoring more than 120 points for the second time this year. He ranks equal-fourth in the AFL for hardball-gets, equal-10th for contested possessions, 14th for clearances and equal-15th for handball-receives. An amazing result for the 51,000 coaches who picked him in their starting team.
STEELE TO LAIRD? THE TRADE YOU SHOULD MAKE
Brodie now features in more than 88,000 teams (53 per cent), but another super scorer who is flying way under the radar in 2022 is Rory Laird. Overlooked by many coaches after losing his DEF status and missing the first two rounds with a hand injury, Laird returned in round 3 and in the seven games since is averaging a career-high 32.3 disposals, seven clearances, eight score involvements, seven tackles and 122.9 KFC SuperCoach points, the fourth-best average in the game (behind only Lachie Neale, Callum Mills and Jack Macrae). Laird ranks equal-first in the competition for handballs per game, second for looseball gets, fourth for disposals, equal-fourth for tackles, sixth for handball-receives and ninth for contested possessions and uncontested possessions. And it’s not a new trend – he has scored less than 100 KFC SuperCoach points in just one of his past 17 games. Not bad for a player in 2 per cent of teams.
THE MAN NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Laird is Mr Popular compared to Saint Seb Ross, who is in just 557 KFC SuperCoach teams – statistically 0 per cent. The sometimes maligned Saint is quietly putting together an excellent season, boosting his KFC SuperCoach average by almost 20 points per game from 2021. He has scored at least 100 points in five of his past six games, sharing his time between wing, half-forward and midfield – playing 70 per cent of game time as a centre bounce midfielder. In the past two weeks that has jumped to 92 per cent and 90 per cent, respectively. Ross has had 20-plus disposals in every game since Round 2, ranking second at the Saints for score assists with 11. With Jack Steele injured, expect Ross to be a permanent fixture at centre bounces and potentially increase his output. He could be a smart pick-up in SuperCoach Draft.
TOP RANKS START TO TAKE SHAPE
With KFC SuperCoaches looking to finish their teams in coming weeks, we are all keen to target “top six” defenders or forwards or “top eight” midfielders – players likely to finish in the top bracket in their position. The current rankings are a pretty good guide and throw up some surprising names. The current top eight in the midfield is Neale, Callum Mills (av 125.3), Jack Macrae (124.4), Clayton Oliver (120.7), Touk Miller (119.6), Christian Petracca (116.8), Andrew Brayshaw (116.4) and Ben Keays (116). In defence the top six is James Sicily (115), Sam Docherty (113.7), Jayden Short (109.1), Jack Sinclair (107.2), Bailey Dale (109.7) and Jack Crisp (105.3) and up forward it’s Josh Dunkley (113.7), Isaac Heeney (107), Luke Parker (102.4), Tom Liberatore (102.4), Will Brodie (101.1) and Tom Lynch (99.2).
WITTS ABOUT YOU
The ruck provides the biggest eyebrow-raiser with Jarrod Witts overtaking Max Gawn to take the No.1 ranking after nine rounds. Witts is averaging 118.6 points a game (ahead of Gawn’s 115.2) and has a three-round average of 127, an incredible result for a player who started the season priced at $380,300 ($277k less than Gawn) and in just under 18,000 teams (compared to Gawn’s 83,000) – and coming off an ACL injury. Richmond’s Toby Nankervis is the No.3 ruckman this year on total points, ahead of Todd Goldstein, Reilly O’Brien and Luke Jackson, who has boosted his average by 17.3 points per game this year. Based on averages, Tim English sits at No.1 followed by Witts, Gawn and Preuss with Brodie Grundy in fifth spot. Amazingly, Nankervis is No.11 on that measure, but is one of just three of the top 11 to have played every game.
CAPTAINS CORNER
After some slightly disappointing captain scores in round 8 – Lachie Neale (115) was the most popular pick, selected by 31.7 per cent of coaches, followed by Clayton Oliver (99), Jack Macrae (117), Max Gawn (73) and Patrick Cripps (83) – the heat is on to get a big score this round. And there are several fantastic options based on history against round 10 opponents. Cripps averages 132.6 in his past three against Sydney and could be a good Friday night pick, along with Isaac Heeney, who has posted 128 and 137 in his past two against the Blues. Looking at Saturday games, Clayton Oliver averages 120.7 in his past three against North Melbourne, Darcy Parish scored 166 the last time he faced Richmond, and Max Gawn has scores of 212 and 172 in his recent history against the Kangaroos, although he scored only 63 against them in 2021. But you can’t overlook Macrae. We probably should have banked his points last week and this week he returns to his favourite stomping ground at Mars Stadium in Ballarat, where he averages 135.7. And his record is even better against the Suns, boasting an eye-popping five-round average of 153.4 with a lowest score in that time of 124 and a high of 189.
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Originally published as SuperCoach Plus: 11 things you need to know for round 10 of the AFL season
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