Would you look at the clock? It’s Supercoach 2025 time! And just in time for the glory that is draft day, I came up with the genius idea of using artificial intelligence to help me build a team this year (because once again I’m quoting Sgt Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes ‘I know nothink! Nothink!’)
It turns out however that while I asked it plenty to help streamline a fighting force worthy of Supercoach 2025, apparently I didn’t ask it enough questions. Which is why at the end of draft day, 26% of my team are currently working their way through rehabilitation.
How did I manage to screw this one up? Let’s find out!
Supercoach 2025 – not sponsored by ChatGpt
Now usually on draft day when it’s my turn to pick, my selection is based on two pretty broad criteria:
1. I recognise their name
2. They’re really high up on the list of players still available to pick
Yes that’s as far as scope goes. Which has worked really well for me in the past with such greats as the Bont, The Luggage and Penders and not so great for selections such as Hardwick as well as Daicos and De Goey taking it in turns to be great when I had them benched.
Yes year however I decided that I should throw some control over to AI, to weed out those players with great skills that I keep missing because I’ve barely heard of them. I figured the stats don’t lie and if I got ChatGPT to eat enough of them, it should cough up some great guns for Supercoach 2025.
And it did! To a point..
MY AFTERNOON ADVENTURES WITH TRYING TO CONVINCE CHATGPT TO FORM A WINNING SUPERCOACH 2025 TEAM
You know how they say the more you work with it, the better AI gets? Well I came up with the genius idea of using it the day of the draft, clean forgetting there was a limit to a free account. Which means while I did ask it some pertinent questions, I ran out of options before asking one particularly important one. One which would save me future embarrassment when I stopped using AI suggestions and blindly worked with my own. But we’ll get to that fumble in a sec, in the meantime here’s how I formulated my educated Forward line for Supercoach 2025:
-Firstly since Supercoach gives you points for every goal scored, I had it hunt down the top 20 goal scorers from last year’s season:
Here are the top 20 goal scorers in the AFL for the 2024 season:
- Jesse Hogan (GWS Giants) – 77 goals in 25 games
- Jeremy Cameron (Geelong Cats) – 64 goals in 24 games
- Joe Daniher (Brisbane Lions) – 58 goals in 27 games
- Charlie Curnow (Carlton Blues) – 57 goals in 21 games
- Ben King (Gold Coast Suns) – 55 goals in 22 games
- Josh Treacy (Fremantle Dockers) – 45 goals
- Mabior Chol (Hawthorn Hawks) – 36 goals
- Jye Amiss (Fremantle Dockers) – 36 goals
- Shai Bolton (Fremantle Dockers) – 34 goals
- Logan McDonald (Sydney Swans) – 34 goals
- Ben Keays (Adelaide Crows) – 34 goals
- Dylan Moore (Hawthorn Hawks) – 35 goals
- Matthew Owies (West Coast Eagles) – 33 goals
- Oliver Henry (Geelong Cats) – 32 goals
- Jamarra Ugle-Hagan (Western Bulldogs) – 43 goals in 22 games
- Toby Greene (GWS Giants) – 41 goals
- Tyson Stengle (Geelong Cats) – 42 goals
- Jake Riccardi (GWS Giants) – 26 goals
- Aaron Cadman (GWS Giants) – 26 goals
- Ben Long (Gold Coast Suns) – 26 goals
-Next I asked it to do the same for ‘Behinds’ because even though they don’t score as much, they still count. So who scored the most then?
Here are the top 20 behind scorers in the AFL for the 2024 season:
- Joe Daniher (Brisbane Lions) – 51 behinds in 27 games
- Charlie Curnow (Carlton Blues) – 41 behinds in 21 games
- Jeremy Cameron (Geelong Cats) – 41 behinds in 24 games
- Nick Larkey (North Melbourne) – 46 behinds in 23 games
- Tyson Stengle (Geelong Cats) – 46 behinds in 25 games
- Bayley Fritsch (Melbourne Demons) – 41 behinds in 23 games
- Darcy Fogarty (Adelaide Crows) – 41 behinds in 23 games
- Will Hayward (Sydney Swans) – 41 behinds in 26 games
- Jamarra Ugle-Hagan (Western Bulldogs) – 35 behinds in 22 games
- Toby Greene (GWS Giants) – 33 behinds in 24 games
- Tom Papley (Sydney Swans) – 30 behinds in 21 games
- Charlie Cameron (Brisbane Lions) – 30 behinds in 27 games
- Jye Amiss (Fremantle Dockers) – 28 behinds in 22 games
- Kai Lohmann (Brisbane Lions) – 28 behinds in 27 games
- Bobby Hill (Collingwood Magpies) – 28 behinds in 23 games
- Nick Watson (Hawthorn Hawks) – 27 behinds in 18 games
- Mitch Georgiades (Port Adelaide) – 27 behinds in 20 games
- Kyle Langford (Essendon Bombers) – 27 behinds in 23 games
- Jamie Cripps (West Coast Eagles) – 27 behinds in 23 games
- Joel Amartey (Sydney Swans) – 26 behinds in 25 games
-While it couldn’t find the stats for score assists in 2024, ChatGPT had no problems digging out the best markers in the AFL for ’24:
Here are the top 20 players with the most marks in the AFL for the 2024 season:
- Dayne Zorko (Brisbane Lions) – 213 marks
- Rowan Marshall (St Kilda Saints) – 211 marks
- Adam Cerra (Carlton Blues) – 207 marks
- Harris Andrews (Brisbane Lions) – 205 marks
- Luke Ryan (Fremantle Dockers) – 198 marks
- Marcus Bontempelli (Western Bulldogs) – 193 marks
- Patrick Cripps (Carlton Blues) – 190 marks
- Isaac Heeney (Sydney Swans) – 185 marks
- Max Gawn (Melbourne Demons) – 182 marks
- Caleb Serong (Fremantle Dockers) – 180 marks
- Jesse Hogan (GWS Giants) – 178 marks
- Sam Darcy (Western Bulldogs) – 175 marks
- Charlie Curnow (Carlton Blues) – 172 marks
- Darcy Cameron (Collingwood Magpies) – 170 marks
- Max Gawn (Melbourne Demons) – 168 marks
- Darcy Fogarty (Adelaide Crows) – 165 marks
- Will Hayward (Sydney Swans) – 163 marks
- Jamarra Ugle-Hagan (Western Bulldogs) – 160 marks
- Toby Greene (GWS Giants) – 158 marks
- Tom Papley (Sydney Swans) – 156 marks
-Then in seconds it did the same for tackles. Because you get points for those to in Supercoach and every point counts, so:
Here are the top 20 tackle leaders in the AFL for the 2024 season:
- Matthew Rowell (Gold Coast Suns) – 184 tackles
- Tristan Xerri (North Melbourne) – 173 tackles
- Jack Steele (St Kilda Saints) – 169 tackles
- Tom Green (GWS Giants) – 165 tackles
- Lachie Neale (Brisbane Lions) – 162 tackles
- Touk Miller (Gold Coast Suns) – 159 tackles
- Ben Keays (Adelaide Crows) – 157 tackles
- Andrew Brayshaw (Fremantle Dockers) – 154 tackles
- Clayton Oliver (Melbourne Demons) – 152 tackles
- James Worpel (Hawthorn Hawks) – 150 tackles
- Luke Parker (Sydney Swans) – 148 tackles
- Jack Viney (Melbourne Demons) – 146 tackles
- Jy Simpkin (North Melbourne) – 144 tackles
- Sam Walsh (Carlton Blues) – 142 tackles
- Zach Merrett (Essendon Bombers) – 140 tackles
- Ollie Wines (Port Adelaide) – 138 tackles
- Tim Taranto (Richmond Tigers) – 136 tackles
- Josh Dunkley (Brisbane Lions) – 134 tackles
- Marcus Bontempelli (Western Bulldogs) – 132 tackles
- Patrick Cripps (Carlton Blues) – 130 tackles
-So now I had a tonne of options. But rather than pretend I knew what I was doing, I asked ChatGPT to compile it all together and rank the 20 best from the data available. Which it did in less time than it took me to walk to the work coffee machine for another brew.
Here’s a combined top 20 list based on goals, behinds, marks, and tackles from the 2024 AFL season. Players are ranked considering their overall impact across these four key stats:
🏆 Top 20 AFL Players (2024) – Combined Performance
- Charlie Curnow (Carlton Blues) – 92 goals, 41 behinds, 172 marks, 55 tackles
- Joe Daniher (Brisbane Lions) – 82 goals, 51 behinds, 143 marks, 68 tackles
- Nick Larkey (North Melbourne) – 78 goals, 46 behinds, 150 marks, 71 tackles
- Jesse Hogan (GWS Giants) – 73 goals, 37 behinds, 178 marks, 64 tackles
- Jeremy Cameron (Geelong Cats) – 70 goals, 41 behinds, 146 marks, 59 tackles
- Bayley Fritsch (Melbourne Demons) – 66 goals, 41 behinds, 139 marks, 57 tackles
- Tyson Stengle (Geelong Cats) – 65 goals, 46 behinds, 142 marks, 69 tackles
- Will Hayward (Sydney Swans) – 63 goals, 41 behinds, 163 marks, 75 tackles
- Darcy Fogarty (Adelaide Crows) – 62 goals, 41 behinds, 165 marks, 61 tackles
- Jamarra Ugle-Hagan (Western Bulldogs) – 61 goals, 35 behinds, 160 marks, 66 tackles
- Toby Greene (GWS Giants) – 60 goals, 33 behinds, 158 marks, 72 tackles
- Tom Papley (Sydney Swans) – 59 goals, 30 behinds, 156 marks, 74 tackles
- Charlie Cameron (Brisbane Lions) – 58 goals, 30 behinds, 144 marks, 73 tackles
- Jye Amiss (Fremantle Dockers) – 57 goals, 28 behinds, 139 marks, 65 tackles
- Kai Lohmann (Brisbane Lions) – 56 goals, 28 behinds, 148 marks, 62 tackles
- Bobby Hill (Collingwood Magpies) – 55 goals, 28 behinds, 147 marks, 70 tackles
- Nick Watson (Hawthorn Hawks) – 54 goals, 27 behinds, 138 marks, 58 tackles
- Mitch Georgiades (Port Adelaide) – 53 goals, 27 behinds, 142 marks, 60 tackles
- Kyle Langford (Essendon Bombers) – 52 goals, 27 behinds, 143 marks, 63 tackles
- Joel Amartey (Sydney Swans) – 51 goals, 26 behinds, 140 marks, 67 tackles
-From there I jumped into Supercoach 2025 and put all the options into my watch list so I had a handy reference come official selection time. Except I couldn’t find Joe Daniher until I read that he retired in 2024. Well okay then, that’s still 19 on the watch list and I was feeling pretty damn pleased with myself with a potentially great all round forward line.
And that’s when things started to come unglued. Because I’d asked it so much (including questions about free kicks for and against and to revise the list without Joe in it) suddenly I hit the question limit for the day, a limit that wouldn’t reset until two hours after draft time.
Which meant I had a plan of attack for my forward line…and none for the rucks, the midline or defense. Oh boy. Back to my usual trick then of picking somewhere near the top and hoping for the best:
Now given the option had I not hit the limit, I should have asked (honestly I didn’t even think of it at the time) if any of the players it had listed in the top 19 were currently injured. And writing this up now, it turns out one was.
Jamarra Ugle-Hagan(Western Bulldogs) – The Western Bulldogs have been dealing with several pre-season injuries, including Jamarra Ugle-Hagan, who is currently sidelined.
But then I should have asked it to take the filter away from the top 19 and instead point it at the entire competition because boy howdy did I manage to pick some poor injured blokes when it was my turn, starting with Nic Newman who apparently is so hurt, he’ll return sometime in 2026..
As for the others fellow player Tyson gleefully pointed out after the smoke cleared on draft day, once again ChatGPT jumped in with the answers:
As of February 24, 2025, here are the injury updates for the AFL players you’ve inquired about:
1. Adam Treloar (Western Bulldogs)
- Injury: Calf strain
- Estimated Absence: Approximately 8 weeks
- Details: Treloar suffered an acute calf muscle strain during pre-season training. The club has indicated he will require two months of rehabilitation, causing him to miss at least the first three rounds of the season. foxsports.com.au
2. Sam Walsh (Carlton Blues)
- Injury: Hamstring strain
- Estimated Absence: 1-2 weeks
- Details: Walsh sustained a hamstring strain during training in mid-January. He has been integrating back into full training and is expected to be available for selection within the next week or two. carltonfc.com.au
3. Oscar McInerney (Brisbane Lions)
Details: McInerney is recovering from a shoulder injury and is anticipated to return to play within a week. lions.com.au
Injury: Shoulder
Estimated Absence: 1 week
And guess which clever Supercoach 2025 player had Treloar as caption (double points) with no idea he’d be out for three months? He was right at the top of the list too after last year. Good god, this is not a great start and we haven’t even gotten to the first game yet!
Looks like I’ve got some scouring of the free agency list this week!
Supercoach 2025 and AI – a timely warning
Yes lesson learned for Supercoach 2025, namely if you’re going to use AI to pick a team, make sure your limited questions are as loaded as possible. So instead of asking for the best goal kickers and then the best markers from last year etc, ask that final question first instead:
Please build me the top 20 AFL players based on their stats from season 2024. Compile this list from goals, behinds, marks and tackles but exclude players who are now retired or starting season 2025 with an injury.
-How I would have saved a little frustration
Please tell me every AFL player currently injured with details on how long they’ll be out for.
-How I would have saved so much more frustration here.
And with those two questions, I might not have such a rocky start to Supercoach 2025. Oh well, wish me luck anyway..