Captains & Late Mail: Round 1 | SuperCoach AFL 2026

0:00Hello and welcome to the official Supercouch AFL podcast, Late Mail and Captain Show, brand new show for 2026. We're done with the preseason. Lockout day is here. It's time to make some big calls and stick to them and to help me do that. Chloe Williams has joined me. Chloe, you pumped for the Tigers in the Blues tonight and a brand new season of Supercouch. I'm very pumped. I've got Dragos Smith locked into many of my teams really as we all know, so happy to be here today and plenty going on for a big day of action. Yeah, absolutely. So we'll go through some of the teams news that we know already some captains advice, all the tips before the first game of the season tonight. But we do have some breaking news straight off the top and that is that this has arrived at the Supercouch HQ office, magnificent trophy for the Supercouch Cup. It does look to me like the big Supercouch cups that we will all be playing for new this year. Yeah, exactly. So brand new knockout competition this year, the Supercouch Cup will start in round eight. Pretty much every team in Supercouch will

1:00go into the bracket, I guess you could say. And it'll be knockout one week at a time, all the way down to round 24. We'll have two teams left playing off for this magnificent trophy and a thousand dollars cash. So that's definitely something to aim for this season as well as of course, the 50 grand and just overall breaking rights, which is what we love about Supercouch. I was kind of hoping that the cup would just be between you and I where the carpenter Richmond win tonight, but no, unfortunately not that one will be going home with someone else. I mean, hopefully it's going home with me, but we'll see. Well, good, yes. I think it's kind of a random draw. So we'll see how it plays out. It should be really fun. Actually, there should be some great sort of underdog FA Cup style stories to go with it. So we'll be tracking that later in the year, but I might just put that out of the way because it is quite enormous, but definitely something worth playing for before we get into the news. Quick reminder, you can jump in and join the official Supercouch podcast open league 407756 is the code for that. And of course, like and subscribe on code sports YouTube. If you're not watching there already, you need to get across so you can actually check out what the Supercouch Cup looks like. But we have some late mail already

2:02Chloe. The teams are in for the first game of the real season. We had opening round. We're not worried about that. This is the real stuff. Round one. Of course, Calton, V Richmond, traditional blockbuster, bit of a weird one because Calton played last week. So they had some means in our Richmond's naming a team for the first time. But what were their headlines out of the teams last night? Well, not great news for Supercouchers with Liam Reedy dropped from the carton side, also out Adam's side with Injury and Ashton Moyer. But in, we've got Hudson O'Keeffe, Lockie Cowan and Matt Carroll. I think I'll disagree with you off the top. That is great news for Supercouchers because we find out before round one. That is true. And you know, 100,000 people go into the season with them in their team. So yeah, I would take out Liam Reedy straight away. As a few other interesting names floating around, you could feel that three spot or maybe you just throw the position and save as much money as you can. We might have both. I think I'll throw the position, yes. I was even the team's job. There might be some other options for us there. We had some debutants. Of course, he's one of the great features of Round One and there's plenty of those rolling out that we know about already Sam Grille for the Tigers tonight. 172K defense, mid, any other names there that have caught your eye so far? A few down at North Melbourne,

3:06actually, we've got Tom Blamayers, 99.1K rookie in the midfields. Yeah, it was huge. Yeah, massive. He looks like he can score pretty well, had a great season in the VFL last year. And then we've also got Lockie Doverston at North Melbourne as well, 136K forward. So thank you, North Melbourne. Dan Batten and his team revealed the other day really pumped up Blamayers saying he could be the Tom McCarthy of 2026. So we're sort of worrying about some depth on the midfield bench, but it might be an issue that we want to try and get those points on field. But we'll worry about that when it happens. I think we're safely picking him on the bench for now. But yeah, that's great news. The bombers have announced they're going to have three new faces this week, Dyson Sharp. It's probably the top one that a lot of super coaches have got 149K in the midfield who say in L-Actor in the fourth line, 113K, a small forward, very much in your Isaac Kekko model. Though it is fair to say he's a bit cheaper than Kekko was last year. So he probably will make a little bit of money there, but we know it's a small forward, it's a bit dicey. But if you need someone for your bench, and also a bit of a surprise, they named Max Conda Giannis in the backline, another 113K player. So they've got a few injuries down there. Not sure how long he'll stay in

4:08the team. It'd be a little bit weird if going there, but always good to have some new faces. But the one who wasn't on that list is Jacob Farrow. So he's been a popular pick in a lot of teams over the preseason, but it looks like he won't be there this week. I don't mind it honestly, because hopefully, you know, way to a couple weeks, hopefully a few more than a couple weeks, and we'll be able to use him as one of our first downgrade options. So, apparently plenty of love there for the bombers and what they've been able to provide us with their debutants. We've also got Dan Annabelle at Brisbane as well. 181K mid. He had 27 touches and two goals in the VFL last week, and did average 91 across his eight VFL games for Brisbane last year. So that should be pretty handy too. Maybe also an early downgrade option though with Brisbane having already played. And then Toby Murray for Adelaide, 119K forward, alongside club debutant, Locky McCandrew, 119K Ruck. So yeah, the crowds are confirmed there. So that's massive if everybody picking Locky McCandrew. There were some comments about, you know, don't ride off Riley O'Brien, but I think we are riding off Riley O'Brien. I'm riding off Riley O'Brien, yes. I mean, he is in the leadership group, but for now, I'm happy to ride him off because I do love

5:09to take risks in the Ruck anyway. So don't tempt me with that because I will take it. Yep. So yeah, we're looking at Locky McCandrew. I think you have to put him on field somewhere, whether it's hard to or in your flex position. Now, we've got a bit of injury news around the place suspensions as well. We obviously had not a great week for the Lions with some injuries. He McClugget is out for a couple of weeks with a calf. So that's maybe one to watch with the Anibal. Yeah, opens a spot for him because obviously he wasn't picked for opening round, but if he comes in and plays well, he could try and keep his spot. I know Joey Montana is a huge Dan Anibal fan and he's put him straight into his team. Harris Andrews three weeks out with a suspension. So yeah, there's, you know, a few spots there potentially up for grabs at Brisbane for some of these cheaper guys, but maybe keep an eye on how long they might stay in the team. But there's a few other whispers going around that have made coaches a little bit nervous, leading into round one. Anything you can tell us about Hayden Young and Kobe McClugget. Plenty of whispers yesterday going around, especially on Twitter or Xs as they call it these days, but have a lower leg injury for Hayden Young. So he was carrying that ankle injury out of the Adelaide game in the Aimee series. JL has said that he will have to get through main training,

6:12but it's confident that he will play. But I'm not quite sure that that fills me with much confidence. What about you? Yeah, especially when they play at four o'clock in the afternoon on Saturday, down in Jolong. I guess we will hopefully see if he's named in the team. If he comes over on the plane, that'll be a good sign. But very nervous. What if he's a laid out? It would throw things into quite a bit of chaos. And given how many games in his last year, I'm really the way my team is at the moment. I've sort of started looking at what does it look like without Young. And I'm like, actually, I don't mind that. So maybe I just don't deal with that. Yeah, I think I'll probably go the same path. I just think with his injury history. And then having this little niggle so early on, I don't think I want to be stressing about each one of his niggles every week personally. Yeah, exactly. Now Colby would catch a slightly different situation. So he's missed last few weeks of preseason. We haven't seen him at all really in any of these practice Amy games with I think it was a broken finger. So hopefully they still been out of run and all that kind of thing. He's not on the North Melbourne injury list. They're saying he's in the mix. So hopefully he'll get picked tonight. But there were some whispers that people down at North Melbourne training, saying he's training in the midfield group. We really want him at half back. Does that make you nervous about

7:12Colby? It does. And I think similar to Hayden Young, I don't want to ride off Colby because his average is great when he's playing half back. But I was already I'ming and I'm about whether I could fit him in my team alongside a couple other people who I've got there down back and then hearing that he was playing midfield. I mean, even if he's playing 30% midfield, we don't want that. We want him at half back. So for now, he's not in my side. I might change my mind before lock out. But yeah, I just I would prefer certainty on his role personally. I'm sticking with him for now. It's a hard one because we won't know until we actually see them play. You know, it's one of those things where maybe if you're watching the game and he walks down into the midfield before the bounce, he can quickly jump on it and make some changes to your team. But I don't know if I want to be doing that. I think he can still score right if he's mixing a bit of a kind of Rizzi kind of Rizzi. Sorry, Role maybe swinging between midfield and half back. But you know, maybe this is you know, Blomoyce comes in and he gets the half back, which would be good for us. So yeah, a few things to play at North always like to keep us guessing. There were a few whispers to around Devon Robertson maybe coming off the track at training the other day, but he's not on the West Coast injury list. So again, watch the teams, but hopefully he'll get picked tonight.

8:17But moving on to trade, watch every week. We'll look at the most traded in and out players ahead of the upcoming round this week. A little bit different obviously with everyone frantically scrimmly to get their team locked away before the first game of the season. Two big questions. I will throw out you Chloe that have been gnawing at me over the last 24 hours or so. Naz and Bont, where do we sit? Yes or no? I will start with Marcus Bonson-Pelley. Bont is a yes for me. I know that there's a lot more people now that it teams in the no camp, but for me, I just have so much faith in his scoring power, despite the fact that he's got that 113 now sitting in his rolling average. He averaged 10 more points than the next best midfielder, which was Zach butters last year. So I think you just can't ignore that type of scoring power. Yep. I think I might agree with you on that one and what about Naz? I know go for me at the moment. Once again, in the rolling average score of about in the 60s, I'm not really too keen on that. And then just the fact that he wasn't able to deal with that tag, I think is a bit worrying for me long term, especially when there's some other pretty good options around that price point. And if I'm going to pay up for one of them,

9:19which I think I only want to pay up for one of them, I will pay up for Bont. Yeah, I think, obviously, any afel coach watching that secured game the other day, it'd be crazy not to try and shut down. Naz and I, Wanganin Miller, he's a brilliant player. Win's prize medal, if he comes out and destroys Melbourne on the weekend. But I think you're right, obviously, that price already in that score already in will affect his price. But just the fact that the gap between him and the next best defenders, I don't think he's huge. If you're placing him with a Sinclair or a Whitfield, even a Rosie, I think the scoring will be fairly comparable, whereas Bont, we know he can put a gap on the other guys in the mids, even though you're paying a bit more for it. So I agree with you on both counts there. Now, the next segment, which we love, of course, every week is Rogue Traders. Hang on. Next segment, which we love Rogue Traders. We're looking for the biggest, craziest pods and trade moves every week. So going in to the first game of the season, I've had a quick look at some ownership numbers. Number one, Jaguar Smith, 84% owned. That could be the highest ever in Super Coach. Incredible. If you don't have Jaguar in your team,

10:19I'm not sure what you're doing. Number two, Harry Sheasel at 75%. 72% number three caught me a little bit by surprise. So any guesses on who that might be? All I can see here on this run sheet is a question mark and 72%. Is it Christian Petraka? He's at 71%. So you're very close. It's a rookie who played in opening round. Opening round. Locky Shakes. Very close. It is Jai Sarong. Played in exactly make headlines in the trade period when he moved to the swans, but we love him in Super Coach. Already has that 77. I think it was in his prize calculations and he'll be one. I'll be starting on field in defense. Couple of guys who've gone really the other way. Nas down to 35% ownership from he was over 50, you know, just a couple of days ago. So his ownership is going through the floor. Yeah. Well, I got of him as well. So exactly that contributed to that. Tristan Cherry down to 21%. He was like 60. That's probably going back six weeks ago before the preseason started, but everybody getting very cold feet. Even all the way back to team pickers. Well, he was a must have. Yeah. Yeah. It was definitely one of the first guys I picked. And the bond I thought was just interesting to note 24%, which is basically exactly where he's

11:23been the entire preseason. So I think it comes down to who's prepared to pay over 700k for a midfielder. Any other interesting pods going into the first game? Well, yes. I did go to look a little bit lower than 24% and one guy that I did find who you would know that I do like if you were listening. Last year's Matt Kennedy at 0.4% after a strong showing in opening round. Yeah, more CBAs than Bond the other night. Yeah. And then also rain marriage 0.2% for your backlines if you're looking for someone with a pod back there and Kane McCall of two also in the midfielder 0.8% for the Tigers. A bit more expensive, but you know, if you've got some extra cash to splash and looking for a midpriceer. If you was in that sort of Caleb Windsor kind of price range, I think I'd look pretty close at it, but I think he's over 300, which makes it tough. But he doesn't seem to have a spot in the Tigers team and look pretty good in the preseason. Yeah. And then we've also got Lucky Last Locky Neil at 5.4% even after a strong opening round showing obviously by issues there, but he could be flying a bit under the radar. Yeah, definitely set a massive preseason, a couple of, you know,

12:26serious, serious pods. 103 people statistically 0% of super coaches have Ivan Soto in their team, paying 314K for a guy on the inactive list is a bold strategy. I'll give him that. But if you scroll all the way down, number 789 in terms of ownership, last on the list, Aidan Corps at North Melbourne, he's in 47 teams. I don't know, he's ever been a great super coach scorer and he has missed the preseason with injury, although I saw the other day he was back playing in the VFL. So maybe they're under something. Those 47 people, they must have read the injury report. Okay, very important that we nail our captains every week. So this will be huge. Every week we'll count down the best five captain options going into the round. It's always a bit of a tricky one on round one, sort of an afterthought that you think, oh, I've got to pick a captain. And it's potentially even tricky this week when if you got a full squad playing, unless you're picking a zero player on the bench, potentially no loophole. So you have to pick someone and stick to it. But I think you might have that zero like me because I have zero dollars in the bank. So I couldn't afford 119K bench players. I have plenty white. Yeah. Two cracks at the captain's here at least.

13:29Start with a few honorable mentions guys. I think it will score really well this week. Petraca versus West Coast. I don't have a huge amount of data behind that. But we saw what he did last week. Fives. Yes, exactly. NAS versus Melbourne did score 162 against them in the corresponding game last year. Of course, about 62 of those were in the last 30 seconds of the game. But yeah, I'm not sure who they have to stop him. Stephen King said they're going to go more of a team approach rather than individual tag easy. You know, we haven't seen Stephen King, you know, what he's coaching solid. So is that is he playing funny bugs there? But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if NAS goes really well for those brave enough to start with him. Jack Sinclair in that same game last year scored 132 against the days. And we know he was really good against the pies. So you're expecting another good score from him. Tim English playing GWS when he played them last year in round 21 scored 202. So he doesn't want to play tricks. The bond as well, you know, had a great record against the Giants last year scored 128 and 151 in his two games against him. If he's back in the mids, he could go very well. Locky Whitfield has a great record against the dogs averages 124 in his past four against them. And a real part of which I saw

14:33I'm Lee Montana has got him in his team. LDU scored 113 or more in his past five games against Port Adelaide. So loves playing the power. So could be a sneaky option for him there. But if we go into the real big dogs, starting with number five, I've got Tristan Cherry. We just talked about him. I'm just this is just to say there is a world in which we've all completely overreacted to us. Cherry wasn't even really trying in the preseason. And he's going to come out and absolutely demolished. Don't say Byzantine. And then the string of sort of backup rucksied he's got coming up in the next few weeks. I'm very good run for him. Yeah. He scored 158 against Port Adelaide last year. I think they might have been Jordan sweet in that game. But yeah, Port doesn't have the strongest rock division. So yeah, Tristan Cherry could go massive. If he prepared to stick with him, that could really pay off. Number four, Nick Daykos against the crow scored 133 against him last year. They don't really tag. He's playing at the MCG 41 disposal the other night. So I mean, that was a bit of a weird game calling. We just chipped it around. Took a lot of marks. I think that was maybe just specifically to cancer. What's and could was doing. So we'll see what they do against the crows. But wouldn't surprise me at all.

15:36If Nick Daykos has a massive score. Now number three, looking to a Thursday night VC. We love that. If you do have the opportunity to try and loophole and semi-walsh of 113 against the swans last week. I think that was pretty under. Really considering he had James Jordan hanging off him for three quarters. Of that game could go absolutely massive against the Tigers who we love this that gave up the most points to opposition midfielders last year. He's had a fantastic preseason and it's pretty good value in supercouch as well. So what do you feel about semi-walsh tonight? Anything could go big. Yeah, I think he will. There's plenty of good captaincy options around this week. But I think that I will be giving him my VC. I just think he will always be cut into top score at least with the team at the moment. They're looking so. Yeah, I would like him a lot. Number two, looking to that Gold Coast West Coast game. I think it might be six o'clock. So we have to wait on a Sunday. But Noah Anderson, again, her tag-affected score in round one, still scored 100, kicked one goal for. So it could have been a lot better. And I don't know who's going to tag at West Coast. Last year he played them twice scored 136 and 151 West Coast second easiest midfield score against last year. I don't see that changing. I love this year. So yeah,

16:38I think people who are picking Noah Anderson are really banking on him going absolutely massive in these first two weeks before that Gold Coast buy. So love him. But number one, can't go past Zach but as playing North Melbourne, Sunday at one o'clock at Marvel Stadium. Last year he played North, played scored 162 and fresh off of 176 in the AME series. Obviously we didn't see him in opening round. But worth noting to you, that was in just 67% of game time champion data extrapolate that out to, you know, what it would look like over a sort of a typical 100 minute game, 205. There's my captain sorted. So that's my number one captain for the week. And yeah, maybe I'd take a flyer on a Walsh on a Thursday and I don't mind that. And now obviously, Noah Anderson, expect him to go massive as well. Welcome to a brand new segment. Coach's edge brought to you by tab. We're on and we're looking to make the best bet of the round. And we're going straight to the Thursday night game season opener four leg same game multi. We're going to, we've talked about Sam Walsh. We think he's going to have a massive game 30 plus disposals. I think that's just an easy one. Tick that off. Jagger Smith got him for 30 plus as well. Throwing in

17:43Sam Lawler to give the Tigers some love. Just any time goal for Samuel Lawler and the big one to cap it off. Get $7 on the four leg multi is Carlton to be leading at half time. And we're not committing to what happens after that because we're not sure about the blues. But how do you feel about Carlton's first half chances tonight? And particularly, I know you love Jagger Smith as a peak. You picked him very early in our Super Coach draft. He had, I think it was 27 disposals last week against the swans in just a, you know, an okay game still manages 27 37 the week before. So I think 30 plus he could easily rack that up against. As I said, the easiest midfielder score against in the competition. Yeah. And I think as you mentioned before, 84% owned in Super Coach. So I think 30 plus disposals wouldn't necessarily be beyond him. And yeah, I got to put the Carlton first half result in there. Very good at first halves. And yeah, we'll leave the rest to them. We saw what happened last year. I think it was about halfway through the second quarter count. Was 40 points in front. And we saw what happened. I think not that I remember a repeat of that would be pretty pretty great. And especially with semi looking and couple of goals as well to

18:45ticket right off. So you can find that in the tab at the look up your Super Coach AFL same game multi chances are you're about to lose for free and confidential support call the number on the screen or visit the website. And that Chloe is it for our round one. Late male captains show Super Coach of Visual Podcast preseason done. We made it. We made it. Congratulations. I will say, though, that probably the thing to remind people, I know it can get quite stressful when teams come out at 630. You're looking at who's been picked or someone's not on the bench. And then the game starts pretty soon after. But it is a rolling lockout. That is an absolute godsend for us. And really, I think the only thing you need to know at this point is lock in Jagger Smith. I mean, we both like Sam Walsh as well. And I think Sam rules a good, good rookie pick made to Sammy Lawler if you want to go there. But Jagger's the one. If you got him in, you can do with the rest tomorrow. Yeah, I think it's no one would want to go without him in their team this year. So get that sorted and then you can figure out the rest tomorrow for the most part. Yeah. Exactly. All right. Good luck, everybody. Good luck, Chloe. Good luck. You're going to touch your team. Look, I say that I won't. I'm still mulling

19:50over one particular pick. If anyone's got any advice for me, Errol Goulden or Clayton Oliver, but apart from that, I think I will try and leave the rest pretty much in touch. Thank you, Chloe Clarick. Okay. I like it. He's a good putt. Thanks everybody. Catch you on the other side.