| Overall Ranking or League Premiership |
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| Written by Jonny Coping |
| Friday, 13 March 2009 00:00 |
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Ask youself: Am I hoping for a League Win or a high Overall Ranking? These require two separate approaches. Obviously, a team ranked highly overall should do well in league, but this is not always the case. Overall RankingThe Overall Ranking is the more prestigious achievement. With hundreds of thousands of opponents to compete against, the true measure of a great Supercoach is their Overall Ranking. To excell with this aim, a coach must adopt a fairly aggressive trading policy, particularly early in the season. An example of this strategy happens in the first two weeks, before the players first price changes. These trades are used early to correct an obvious fault in the team or to adopt a player who is clearly needed due to their performances, position or current low price. It is also beneficial to upgrade the cash cow rookies to stars as quickly as possible to capitalise on their bigger scores. Rookies tend to have very low scoring weeks more often and are also a far greater chance to be dropped. To be a real shot at a high finish overall, some risks are needed to be taken. Yet if these go pear shaped, it could well be the difference between 50th and 5000th. But they could also be a risk that pays off handsomely, catapulting your side into the top 100. It may also create a point of difference with your competitors. League PremiershipMany others adopt a win the League at all cost strategy, which requires more patience and close attention to the other 15 teams in the league. With a League based strategy, it is more beneficial to save trades for later in the season. Embarking on a finals series with zero trades is suicide. Ideally, a strong finals trading position would see you save 5-6 trades, or two per finals match. Of course this depends on where you finish on the ladder. These trades are crucial to have come finals, which parallels rounds 19 – 22 where teams are tanking and players are going out to surgery. The waiting game is very synonymous with a League triumph, as coaches must wait and wait for the top line guns to finally drop enough in price to pick up. It also requires a lot more fidgeting with cash cows in order to build a strong bank balance. This conflicts with the Overall Ranking aim where you don't not want half a million dollars going to waste on the bench. |
| Last Updated on Tuesday, 22 September 2009 12:32 |