KFC SuperCoach NRL: The big scorers you can count on every week
Big points scored on a regular basis are the hallmarks of KFC NRL SuperCoach success, Rob Sutherland identifies ’Mr Reliable’ at every position in the game.
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While total points is the final arbiter of KFC NRL SuperCoach success, those players who deliver big scores on a reliably consistent basis make the life of their owner a lot more tolerable.
We crunch the numbers to identify the Mr Reliables that you can count on to deliver week in and week out.
* Note players must have played a minimum of 10 games in 2019 and where a player was dual position eligible they are included in just one category.
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HOOKER
St George hooker Cameron McInnes (who is unfortunately a no-go for round one due to an injury picked up at the NRL Nines) is the poster boy for consistency at this position with his phenomenal workrate (he averaged 53PPG in base alone in 2019) providing a great base around which he is adding a developing attacking game – McInnes threw 12 successful offloads from rounds 15-24 and just five from rounds 1-14. However, despite the consistency McInnes lagged well behind the two leaders at the position. Storm skipper Cameron Smith matured like a fine wine in 2019 averaging 66PPG in rounds 1-10, 77PPG in rounds 11-18 and then 81PPG over the final eight rounds of the season. Smith reached triple figures six times last year achieving the feat five times in the final nine rounds – largely off the back of attacking stats with goalkicking and try assists massively boosting his totals.
Betting against Smith has been a mug’s game for years now – but I’m a mug and will not be starting with him in round one 2020 but more on that later. The ’worst’ of the Big Three at the position for consistency is also the first for season average – South Sydney flyer Damien Cook (did you know he used to be a beach sprint champion?). Cook’s 60/60 percentage plummeted in 2019 hitting just 61% as compared to the 77% he achieved in 2018. However, his 2019 season average of 76PPG barely dipped from his 2018 average of 78PPG thanks to an increase in try assists which offset a decline in hit-ups and tackle busts.
FRONT ROW FORWARD
Arise King (Payne) Haas the most consistent player of 2019 and a man sure to see most SuperCoaches sacrifice elsewhere in order to start from round one in 2020. The young Bronco averaged an incredible 12PPG more than his nearest competitor at position, and he did it with incredible reliability. Haas scored below 60PPG just twice in 2019 and those two ‘poor’ games (51 and 57) came in rounds seven and eight. Following those blips Haas scored three 60s, seven 70s, one 80, two 90s and three triple figure behemoths. Safe as houses and capable of going large Haas looms as captain obvious every week in 2020. David Klemmer can thank his beastly base workrate for his consistency – that and an uptick in minutes played in 2019 at the Knights as compared to with the Bulldogs in 2018. Last year, Klemmer averaged 61MPG (Minutes Per Game) and 66PPG of which 59PPG came in base and with a developing offload game (20 effective and two ineffective offloads last year) he is firmly entrenched among the elite at his position.
I’m bracketing Josh Papalii and Addin Fonua-Blake (AFB) as they produced very similar stats last year with near identical MPG, PPG and base points per game though if I had to split the pair I would note that AFB produced his points on a consistent basis across the season while Papalii benefited from a surge over the close of the season. If I were to nominate one player on this list I expect to finish higher in 2020 it’s Rooster Sio Siua Taukeiaho ( TKO). The Tongan Torpedo MKII started the year with a bang but injuries limited his minutes over the back end of the season bringing down his average and thus 2020 entry price. TKO played 18 games last year, in the 10 games of 50+ minutes he averaged 72.3PPG, in the eight where he played less than 50 minutes (averaging 34.9MPG) he averaged just 39.8PPG.
SECOND ROW FORWARD
Let’s take a minute to mourn the departure of Manu ‘Mean Eyes’ Ma’u to the Super League … and for good measure you may as well shed some tears for the fact that John Bateman and Ryan Matterson will not be dual 2RF/CTW next year. With that emotional moment behind us we can now move on to praising the wrecking ball that is Jason Taumalolo (Lolo). The big man recorded his career high PPG average and 60/60 figures last year pumping out 56PPG in base and augmenting that with 69 tackle busts, 10 linebreaks and 23 effective offloads). Despite the positional limitation, Bateman will still be very much SC relevant (once he recovers from late off-season shoulder surgery which is now expected to keep him out of the game until at least round seven) in 2020 thanks to his superb blend of base stat reliability (50PPG average last year) and blend of attacking stats (Bateman busted 64 tackles and threw 22 effective offloads) last year. Young gun Cameron Murray had a heck of a season in 2019 averaging 69PPG at a superb 1.17PPM (Points Per Minute). Murray did have a quiet period over Origin as the Rabbitohs managed his workload, and his score was boosted by what I see as an unsustainable 10 tries last year. South Sydney coach Wayne Bennett has said he will use Murray on an edge more in 2020 as he looks to preserve his slightly built youngster and while that means more minutes it means less work which is not good for KFC SuperCoach NRL. I’m tipping Jake Trbojevic (Jurbo) to bounce back somewhat. the Manly workhorse made a (personal) record number of tackles last year, but his attacking stats completely fell away (to wit in 2018 Jurbo scored 7 tries, had 13 offloads, six linebreaks and five linebreak assists whereas in 2019 he scored two tries, had six offloads, just one linebreak and two linebreak assists) though he is another that is battling injury to be ready for round one.
HALFBACK
Anyone who cannot quite squeeze Nathan Cleary into their side for the first round of 2020 can thank the Knights. Heading into the final game of the season, Cleary was averaging 62PPG, after a four-try, nine goal 186 point masterclass in round 25 the Penrith halfback finished the year on an average of 68PPG. That six point jump in average will lift Cleary’s Round One price by around $60,000 – thanks Newcastle. Shaun Johnson took a while to settle into the Shire, and when I say a while I mean he didn’t really start playing well for the Sharks until round 17. To be fair – something I’m rarely accused of – Johnson was injured in round seven and only returned to the field in round 14, but it was from round 17 that he really returned to form. Johnson played nine games from Round 1 – 16 inclusive and averaged 47PPG, from round 17-25 he averaged 81PPG.
Mitchell Moses is often maligned as a rocks or diamonds kind of player, and up until 2019 that was a fairly earned slur with him recording 60/60 percentages of just 25% in 2017 and 14% in 2018. However, last year, Moses found his groove adding fully 21PPG to his per game average of the 2018 season largely thanks to an increase in try assists (29 in 2019 compared to 10 in 2018) and goalkicking (86 successful shots with an 80% strike rate in 2019 compared to 45 successful kicks at 77% in 2018). The Eels have a cracking draw to start 2020 and I expect Moses to get off to a fast start. A smoky in this high-class field is Luke Brooks from the Wests Tigers. Brooks, finished 2019 on a tear averaging 76PPG from rounds 19-25 and I expect him to continue to improve in 2020. One word of caution is that unlike the first three players mentioned, Brooks does not kick goals and thus posts fewer monster scores.
FIVE-EIGHTH
The quality of Cody Walker’s season really stands out in this graph. Only one other five-eigth averaged better than 50% of games over 60 points (Shaun Johnson covered above in the halves played the bulk of his time at five-eighth) and Walker was the only one to surpass the mark more than 60% of the time. And that was despite Walker having a very average middle portion of the season averaging just 38PPG from rounds 11-18. Rooster Luke Keary finished 2019 in stellar form with his last nine regular season games being 105, 54, 96, 26, 110, 53, 93, 69 and 53. Often just on the line of being SuperCoach relevant, perhaps 2020 is his year with the departure of Cooper Cronk seeing the playmaker make the star-studded Roosters his own. Cameron Munster’s average tops the list here and yet he only exceeded 60 points in 43% of his games. That’s not a problem if you picked and played him every week but his inconsistency saw plenty of coaches rest him when he went large and play him when he went low. Don’t get me wrong, points are king in this game, but a little more diamond and a little less rock would be nice in 2020 thanks Cam.
CENTRE-WING
The value of goalkicking is illustrated by the two players at the top of this list with Latrell Mitchell adding an average of 14 PPG and Jarrod Croker 11.4 PPG via their boots. Mitchell’s workrate is notoriously poor – and has declined every year since his debut, but his average has increased every year since too – if you own him you don’t care how the points come you just celebrate that he keeps scoring. That said, with the move to the Rabbitohs, Mitchell will almost certainly lose goalkicking duties and he gained nearly 14PPG from the kicking tee last year so you should factor that in when asking yourself if he is good value to start 2020. David Nofoaluma did not get a chance to play until round 11, but the hard working tackle busting winger made the most of his opportunity when it came. In 14 games ‘Nofa’ hit triple figures twice, and scores 70+ a further four times. Nofoaluma has a good base (average 33) to which he added 18.8PPG in offloads and tackle busts combined. Don’t bank on picking Briton Nikora, Corey Harawira-Naera (CHN) or Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad (CNK) at CTW in 2020 as all three have lost their dual-position status and are no longer available at the position.
FULLBACK
James Tedesco was the undisputed king of his position in 2019 and as the top averaging player in the game he will start 2020 at the highest price. Just four players exceeded 60PPG more consistently than Tedesco in 2019 and all four where forwards (and just for completeness only nine players scored a better 60/60 percentage 2015-2018 and all were forwards). Tedesco is so reliable that in the 108 games he played from 2015-19 he failed to exceed 45 points just 14 times; over the same span he exceeded 100 points 18 times.
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck (RTS) had a sensational year, thanks in no small part to the opening ten games of the season over which he averaged 78PPG with just one ‘fail’ (a 48 in round eight). The knock on Tuivasa-Sheck, if one is to be critical, is that he does not go ‘large’ as often as others at the position with just four triple-figure scores in the past four seasons (for comparison Tedesco scored 100+ five times in 2019 alone).
Kalyn Ponga started 2019 out of position and finished with a whimper, but in-between he was phenomenal. The Knights opted to start Ponga at 5/8 for the first three games of the season and – to be kind – it was a bad move. If we excise these three games from his averages then Ponga’s 60/60 percentage lifts six points to 71% and his average jumps five points to 73PPG. In the 11 games he played between rounds four and 19 (inclusive – with four games missed due to injury), Ponga scored 60 or more every game and exceeded 80 points eight times. Ponga lost the goalkicking duties over the back portion of the season and this hurt his consistency. Tom Trbojevic’s injury riddled season was limited to just 12 games, and yet Turbo still managed to crack triple figures four times including a season high of 167. His average of 77PPG is even more impressive when you factor in that he scored just one point in round 24 before succumbing to injury – remove that game and Trbojevic’s season average was 83.9PPG!
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Originally published as KFC SuperCoach NRL: The big scorers you can count on every week