Draft Breakdown: Strategy heading into 2021

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It’s Draft season boys! And how good is it be to be back for another year of Draft pain.

As the first NRL trials kicked off last weekend, we edge closer to the best day of the year, Draft day!

At the moment we are filled with hope and ambition as we have a clean slate and so much potential ahead of us, and we are yet to draft any duds that have us tearing our hair out.

In this article I’ll look at Drafting strategies for the new season, next week I’ll have an article on the depth of each position.

*For players new to SuperCoach, don’t confuse ‘SuperCoach Draft’ with ‘SuperCoach Classic’. Comment below if you have any questions.

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2021 strategy changes

The 2020 NRL season saw a number of rule changes that resulted in more attacking plays in NRL and also resulted in more benefit in having attacking players in SuperCoach.

It’s still great to have a few consistent scorers pumping out the base stats each week, but the high ceiling players are becoming more valuable.

The new rule changes in 2021, such as no scrums and set restart tweaks, is another effort to increase the pace of the game and have even more attacking footy.

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In 2021, Draft players should be targeting high ceiling players more than ever before, especially if they are playing captains and vice-captain rules.

Players like Haas, Matterson and Jurbo are slipping further and further down my draft list as I start to put more value into the high ceiling players like Lil Papi, AFB and Cody Walker.

Of course these players could cost you a game with an inevitable low score, but there are more opportunities for them to get attacking stats and carry you to a win.

I always think it’s valuable trying to pick two spine players in your first three picks.

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Your first three picks

In an ideal Draft I would target an elite half and an elite fullback.

This allows you to secure players in positions that can be quite volatile as you get deeper into the Draft.

It’s fairly easy to find a FRF, 2RF and CTW that can do a job for you and get 40-50 points each week, so don’t go too early on these positions.

Finding a half and fullback option that can consistently get you 50 points and isn’t going to fold 50% of the time is a little trickier.

Having said that, you still have to be adaptable to what players are being picked by other coaches.

If 70% of the league has a fullback in the first two rounds then I would happily leave that position until later in the Draft.

If all things were equal and I had a choice between an elite spine position or elite forward I would take the spine player. For example, I would take DCE over Matto.

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Get players you are keen on, enjoy watching

This sounds lame, but get players you are going to enjoy watching through the year, because unlike classic it’s not so easy to change your side.

Get the players you are super keen on, even if it means over drafting these players.

There’s nothing worse than watching a player you knew would do well, kill it for another coach.

You can’t get everyone you are keen on, but you can prioritise 2-3 players that you are going to go early on and back yourself.