NRL SuperCoach: Wilfred Zee’s fearless predictions round 11
CAPTAIN: Damien Cook. FLOP: Top of the props Andrew Fifita. UPSET: Sea Eagles to continue their resurgence against a Cam Smith-less Melbourne Storm.
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SO … uh … I didn’t do too good last week with my predictions. However, I still got one right — I picked the highest SuperCoach-scoring game of the round.
One out of five is still better than the dreaded duck egg, which I was staring down the barrel at.
What have I learned from the past week? Not to annoy Wests Tigers fans, clearly ha ha! Also, I’m going to play it a little safer this week. Perhaps my sustained period of 60 per cent or more prediction success rate made me get overconfident and started looking a bit too far for “Fearless” — straying into “Crazy” or perhaps “Foolish”!
Let’s look at SuperCoach NRL — presented by hipages — for Round 11.
1. Captain Pick — Damien Cook
The Rabbitohs are one of the teams to beat at the moment, and much of it is coming off the back of Damien Cook’s great work at hooker. On the other side of the fence are the Cowboys who are in serious danger of already writing off their finals hopes for 2018. That’s not good for a preseason favourite! The Cowboys have conceded the most points of all teams to opposition hookers. In fact, opposition hookers have been scoring — collectively — at a PPM of 0.94. That’s an incredible number, which bodes well for an 80-minute Cook performance.
Some of the other scores the Cowboys have already conceded this year — 88 (McCullough), 74 (Smith), 94 (Luke), 74 (Rein), 78 (Havili) and 76 (Wallace). Cook is in better form than every single one of those players … this could get ugly.
2. Stud of the Week — Sam Burgess
Surgess will be licking his lips at the match-up that awaits him. I mean, the forward formerly known as the “Best Forward in the Game” is always going to fire up whenever he comes against the forward who is currently known as the “Best Forward in the Game”, right? Surgess v Taumalolo would probably sell out tickets as a match-up in itself, and I have no doubt that those two will at each other all night. Surgess holds a career average of 71.1 points per game across nine games against the Cowboys, so he’s a strong chance of improving that average this week if he plays 80 minutes.
3. Flop of the Week — Andrew Fifita
So much for going conservative, right? Fifita is in red-hot SuperCoach form right now. I mean, how do you better an 80-minute performance from a prop. Well, my worry for him is the return of Paul Gallen, which has traditionally resulted in lower scores for Fifita. Gallen’s return should see Fifita’s minutes drop, as he will play more minutes at lock than any other forward that replaced him previously. Now, I’m expecting Fifita to still score 55 or more, so it’s not going to be a full-on “flop” — but I just can’t see him going 70+ and notching a captain’s knock that you’d be happy with.
4. The SuperCoach Gold Mine
Four games this week broke the 1500 SuperCoach mark, with my tip for highest — Sea Eagles v Broncos — just taking out top score for the week with 1547 points, five points clear of the next highest. That’s a win for me! This week there’s a clear standout — the Titans against the Knights. This year the Titans have allowed 45 opposition players to score 60 and above against them; second only to — you guessed it — the Knights, who have allowed 48 opposition players to score 60 or more points against them. It follows that Newcastle and the Gold Coast are the two leakiest defences in the NRL right now (the Knights have conceded just six points less than the league-worst Titans), while being the 10th and 12th best attacking teams respectively. Below-average attack meet worst defence — a good combination for SuperCoach generally!
5. Upset of the Round — Sea Eagles
Cam Smith is SUSPENDED! Unbelievable scenes. Do you remember the last time the Sea Eagles played the Storm when Smith was suspended? Only one occasion comes to my mind, and that is obviously the 2008 Grand Final which saw an admittedly far stronger Sea Eagles team absolutely torch the rudderless Storm outfit — it showed just how important Smith was to the direction and organisation of that team. Well, for some inexplicable reason Melbourne are still heavy favourites at home against Manly, who have been poor for most of the season but their past two or three games have been much improved from their earlier performances this year. The Sea Eagles middle just rolled through the depleted Broncos pack and I can see a repeat of that this week, with rookie rake Brandon Smith now tasked with defending and controlling the middle with a pack still missing their leader in Jesse Bromwich. If the Sea Eagles turn up, and the Storm play as poorly as they did last week, then we may see another big scoreline in favour of the Sea Eagles.
Bring on Round 11
The Round 13 bye is just two weeks away, and things are really heating up at the top of the standings. I can see some real potential changes happening over the next month as injuries, suspensions and team changes really kicking in before the byes. This is especially with a few of the teams at the pointy end really lacking in depth and money-making potential. Good luck to everyone with your trades, captain and reserve choices this week!
Originally published as NRL SuperCoach: Wilfred Zee’s fearless predictions round 11
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