Have a look at his team below!
Schon: First of all mate, congratulations on the impressive SuperCoach season so far and your current ranking at number 1!
John: Cheers mate, sitting up the top of the ladder has destroyed my daily productivity however it has definitely made this season a lot of fun!
I'll be having a crack all the way trying to stay at the top but at the same time I'm pretty realistic that I'm going need plenty of luck as we go.
Fingers crossed I can nab the $50k but that's no different to basically everyone else playing the game!
If I'm honest I'm surprised to be sitting number one. I certainly did not pick a perfect team to start with, definitely don't have a perfect team now and even missed out on a couple of great rookies (or traded too early) along the way! Just shows how tricky the game is I suppose. I could easily be 200-300 pts better off with only 1 or 2 different selections - no doubt plenty of others reading this could say the same thing! In short, I was no genius in picking this team yet here I am!
Looking at your initial team, who were your best and worst selections?
Looking at my team now, I'd say it was pretty vanilla really! No Westhoffs, Wingards, Goldsteins or Griffens for example.
Here I'd be looking at my Dustin Martin, Jimmy Bartel and David Mundy selections. I also think the defensive structure I went with (only 3 premos) was definitely the right way to go. Some of those rookies are still performing and might end up on the bench at the end of the season. In my opinion its looks to have been a waste of money going in with any more than 3 defensive premos - at this stage at least. If I'm looking for good non-selections, Franklin and Dangerfield spring to mind because both have been much cheaper since.
In terms of worst picks, perhaps again I can say there were no horrendous selections (that I held for long anyway). Like everyone else I was sucked into Patty Karnezis. Of those that remained Zorko was a bad pick and I would also go back and change Rockliff - one of my strategies was to avoid weak teams (except for Port due to their good early run) so in hindsight I wouldn't have expected these two to score highly but Brisbane's form was deceiving.
Rockliff is still an OK player to hold but I would like to think he'll become a bench player for me eventually. The other one that sticks out is Koby Stevens. Not the worst rookie selection however there were others that were cheaper who have since scored better. He was a correction trade early in the piece for me to Matt Jones who was a very handy pick up after not being an obvious choice in the pre-season.
Did you go for many PODs (point of difference players)?
Mundy was perhaps my POD pick. The second half of last year was huge for him and is what convinced me. He hasn't been huge but has played an important role in my strategy of having a high scoring and consistent midfield. He's a player who will determine where I finish come end of the year.
Overall though you can see I stayed away from picking multiple POD players for the sake of it. The midfield is probably the place with most potential to take a POD but I went in with a plan to only pick elite premiums who are known guns in good team. Cotchin is arguably not in that category but I'm a Tigers supporter and love the bloke so he got a jumper. Incidentally I am still happy holding him over Deledio - if only because he is averaging what he is and has barely been sighted. I'm probably biased because I already have him but if Cotchin isn't currently carrying an injury he is a big chance for a monster second half (at least I hope so).
My biggest regret is leaving behind Hibberd who I had in my side for an eternity before ditching him towards final lockout.
Was it a long pre-season or did you pretty much go with your gut?
Last year was the first time I'd played SC having only having been introduced to DT by a mate a year or two earlier. I live up in Sydney so there aren't that many people I know who really follow AFL. Last year my SC squad was put together in 5 mins and I regretted that as the season went on. I prefer the way SC points are allocated versus DT. I also prefer the strategy of having a restricted number of trades.
The rolling lockout is a bit tiresome because you do have to track continuously over the weekend to get every point available so I wouldn't mind that changing next year to be honest. But back to the question. I did my homework but left it until the NAB to really worry about my squad. At that point I went with my gut but really focused on a guns/rookie strategy.
What's been your trading strategy? Conservative, or two most weeks?
I've kept a pretty fluid trading strategy. To date I've traded most weeks but resisted through rounds 6-8 so that I had a few trades up my sleeve post the byes (by about rd 4 I had a team I was fairly happy to hold onto). I traded aggressively straight off the bat and was not scared to correction trade if I thought I made a wrong call. If you look at my round one team you'll see I gambled on Blicavs as my R2 and immediately upgraded to Leuenberger when he came back, using cash from those correction trades. This involved getting rid of Koby Stevens and Patty Karnezis. I also immediately jumped onto JJK (Eagles’ Josh Kennedy). Early on I realised that I didn't want any forward rookies on my field. From from two JJK was my F6. This has meant that I missed out on Mayes - and even led to me getting rid of Macaffer when he was in and out of the Woods’ team. They’d both be handy to have at the moment.
In terms of rookies I have tried to hold onto guys until they really topped out. Dwyer was good to me until his latest hammy scare. Matt Jones played a role all the way up to Dane Swan and like everyone else the Port boys did a job. If you see my team now I don't have many mature rookies left but I don't think I'll need them. Mitchell should generate 200k-300k pretty quickly if needed and should turn into a good bench swingman or even Marc Murphy. Daniher will probably be the last rookie I bring in - but that will depend on whether he stays in the Bombers side.
The other thing I haven't been afraid to do is get rid of guys who I didn't think were final team players for me when they max out in price. Travis Cloke was a great selection and killed it early on but I actually traded him in Round 7 when his price hit $575k, bringing in D Thomas and SJ (for Wines). Even though Daisy got injured (ouch!) I really liked this trade. SJ has been a gun since and is someone I'll hold till the end. Daisy became Priddis - a selection that makes me a little nervous going forward - but in the end the trade got me potentially two keepers (Daisy & Priddis have been ~105av since plus 150k).
Similarly I've got rid of JJK and Zorko in recent weeks for the same reason. Their prices aren't going up and are players I don't think I want at the end. This is probably 'sideways trading' for some but I figure I have to be aggressive at the moment because of my ranking. If I was just going for league wins I would probably say these guys are holds for now.
I also stayed away from 'value' picks, although some would say Priddis fits this mould. In short I won't be picking any Dal Santos. If you want a midfield upgrade, pick one of the top five or six. End of story.
I won't give away exactly how many trades I've got left – hey, it is 50k! Let’s just say I would be very nervous if I was down to 4-5 like some. I've got a few more than that thankfully.
Did you plan for the byes in advance, or just take them on the chin?
I've taken note of the byes (to a degree) throughout the journey so for that reason went Cotchin instead of Danger, and JPK instead of Watson. I did not want to be screwed during any of the byes weeks.
This was big reason I took Priddis (and hey he did score 119 last game so did his job as planned). In fact, I thought the byes may even be a good chance to gain points on people. Once again my ranking means that I can't really afford to just drop the bundle during one of the weeks. I wanted to make sure that I had at least 20 players going into each round. This week I should have at least 20. To me the byes were a good way to trade smartly and come out the other end having gained on the pack. We'll see after this week whether I managed that but so far I've been pretty happy with my scores in rounds 11 and 12.
What does your side look like at the moment? Is it complete?
No, not quite. As you can see I'm light on defensive premiums. That said most of them are up and down this year (which is why I haven't concentrated on upgrading them). I really don't like spending more than $500k on guys back there. Even Heath Shaw has shown a propensity to throw up 50s.
He's the only guy I may fork out for and again only because he is such a popular pick and having him will negate a POD for a lot of the teams near me at the top. I think there are plenty of defence options available in the next couple of weeks for $420k-$480k who you can throw a blanket over. I'm not too concerned about ending up with Hibberd vs Heppell for example. I think they will end up scoring about the same and if they don't I'm not really certain you can pick with confidence today which is the better choice.
League wins is maybe a different thing, but geez, even Hartlett will probably end up with similar total points scored between now and the season's end as many of the 'must haves' people are currently hot on - like Hanley. To me Birchall was a no brainer at $415k. Sure he might score the odd low one but I'd rather he do that for me at that price than $515k. To that end Brett Goodes is almost safe for 80-90 each week!
You've confessed that you've had a bit of luck - is there some more coming your way or has it all been used up?
Luck is almost 50% of these games. There is no way you can be near the top without some. So far I haven't copped a LTI on a guy in the first 10 minutes for example, nor had a player vested mid game. I've managed to throw rookies on-field for the right games - although I'll claim some credit here, but in general 'most' of plans have come off to some extent.
I picked Karnezis and Dale Thomas just like a ton of other people so I suppose it's gone a little both ways. There isn't much you can do when you pick Marc Murphy and he breaks his jaw!
My 'luckiest' moment of the year was the week SJ was a late withdrawal - Dwyer came on and smashed out that 123 on my bench. Brilliant.
Thanks for your time and we hope you can hang on!
Anyway enough rambling for me, cheers for the 5 mins of fame!
Follow John on Twitter @imjohnb