NRL SuperCoach: 10 things we learned Round 24
Former SuperCoach champion Wilfred Zee wraps a wild and wacky week of NRL action with injuries causing chaos for many star players ahead of the head-to-head grand finals.
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EARLY MAIL: Predicted Round 25 team changes
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The big news this week is obviously the Tommy Trbojevic injury shock, but SuperCoach doesn’t stop and we still have one week to sort out all the fallout from this week and the likely restings we’re going to get in Round 25. Let’s get to it!
1. There isn’t any SuperCoach excitement for 2020 at the Cowboys
An offseason in rugby league is a long time of course, but right now it’s very bleak at the Cowboys.
Looking past Jason Taumalolo, there just aren’t any appealing options that you think you may consider starting with in Round 1 next year.
There’s the potential of Michael Morgan again, who looks on track to start 2020 even cheaper than he did this year.
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There’s also Scott Drinkwater, but he looks likely to be fighting it out in a jampacked position at fullback, where there are a few standout options over him.
You may even point to their acquisition of Reece Robson, but even then he could find himself sharing minutes with Jake Granville moving forward – not an ideal situation at all!
2. The Bulldogs will be interesting for 2020
Frustrations with Dean Pay from earlier this season aside, there is no doubting he has got them clicking finally, judging from the way the Bulldogs played for most of the past two months.
That has some serious SuperCoach implications for next year if they can continue the style of play they managed these past 8-10 rounds – mostly gone would be the common, highscoring affairs of early 2019 where multiple players tonned up, and plenty of grinding, lowscoring games could be the norm.
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There are also some interesting names to consider for next year as well, depending on their dual position status.
Dallin Watene-Zelezniak with a full offseason to adjust to the team’s attacking structures, Corey Harawira-Naera with a defined role finally and consistent minutes across the season, and maybe even Jeremy Marshall-King if he continues to hold an 80 minute hooker spot – but may still be available in the halves. Watch this space.
Kotoni Staggs can’t be trusted on a weekly basis yet
Maybe I’m being a bit harsh when he had a six game average of 74.5 points per game since Round 18 until this week, but he’s still developing as a relatively inexperienced player and one that can fade out of games.
He has generally had a high workrate all year, and for some unknown reason his runs dropped to just four (!) this week, after he had made 16 runs and 14 runs in the past two weeks alone. That hurts those of us who played him, and it certainly gives pause for those who planned to roll him out again this week – after he scored 104 points on the Bulldogs back in Round 18, and he gets the chance to line up against Kerrod Holland this week (who was very suspect defensively earlier in the season).
The Knights v the Titans game shows exactly why saving trades are crucial
Whether for the overall race, or head-to-head preliminary finals, there were a few standout options this week which were touted as real PODs to bring in – Mitch Barnett (125) and Connor Watson (117 – and who I’ve written about several times this year) would be a league winner or could even have elevated one of the teams at the top of the overall standings with a massive boost if they played this POD over a Mitch Moses, Shaun Johnson (RIP), Cameron Munster and so on. Of course, there’s other reasons why a trade next week would be very handy…
Justin Olam breakout hype?!
Okay, I exaggerate a little. There’s no breakout here – although there’s very few players who record an NRL SuperCoach score of 122 within their first 10 games of first grade.
A hat trick, three line breaks, seven tackle busts, an ineffective offload and 29 points in pure base stats; an impressive stat line but the Storm centres can be very hard to rely upon given how the Storm play in attack.
I mean, once Tom Trbojevic went down with injury and the Sea Eagles had to shuffle Garrick to fullback and Gosiewski to right centre, it was always going to be tough for a makeshift centre to make defensive decisions against a left edge attack of Munster, Kenny Bromwich, Olam and Addo-Carr – and Olam cashed in, big time!
Viliame Kikau has been one of the most frustrating players this year
Around this time last season, Kikau had been blasting opposition players all over the place, trampling over them on his way to scoring multiple tries.
Believe or not though, he has actually scored more tries this season than he did last year – yet averages over five points per game less.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what has gone wrong this year but he has been unreliable all season with minutes, illness (who could forget his mid-game toilet stop) and suspension as well.
Ivan Cleary has been willing to rotate his forwards’ minutes without warning and that’s a dangerous combination for SuperCoach. It will be tough to trust him as an option next year!
Corey Horsburgh showed some serious SuperCoach ability
Like, seriously impressive SuperCoach ability. He scored 69 points coming off the bench, but he did it in just 33 minutes, and his only attacking stat was a line break assist!
He scored 51 points in pure base stats in those 33 minutes, plus three offloads (two of them effective).
It’s not something that’s likely to be sustainable if he gets more minutes but he also scored 67 points in 33 minutes in Round 20, with 49 points in pure base plus four effective offloads and a tackle bust.
Obviously the workrate isn’t sustainable every week, but signs like this can often be the hallmarks of future breakout SuperCoach stars. A name to keep an eye on if minutes seemingly free up in that packed Raiders forward rotation!
Andrew Fifita is still a PPM beast
I mean, how else do you explain 67 points in 43 minutes, or this week’s 57 points in 37 minutes?
That’s a PPM of 1.55 points per minute across the two weeks. It shows just how good he is for SuperCoach and why he has been such a stalwart of the FRF position for the past six or so years.
It’s not ideal that he is coming off the bench because there’s a lot of risk involved in playing an interchange player, but he hasn’t hurt SuperCoaches too much in the past three weeks despite his benching.
We’d sure appreciate it if he could be a starter again though, John Morris.
David Nofoaluma is an absolute base stat beast in the CTW
There’s no other way to describe him. This week’s score of 83 featured just a single line break – and 35 points in pure base, NINE tackle busts and five effective offloads.
He is one of the hardest working wingers in the game (alongside the likes of Blake Ferguson) and Nofo reminds us several times a year just how ridiculously good he can be.
He is always worthy of consideration each season for this reason as his floor is unmatched by virtually every single other CTW option that isn’t a backrower.
There’s still life in Benji Marshall’s old legs yet
I’m not making fun of ol’ Benji – I’m being 100 per cent serious here. Benji Marshall has re-discovered his running game!
He’s taking on the line more, he’s displaying some of the vintage Benji footwork and it’s paying massive dividends for him on the field and for SuperCoach purposes too.
More base stats for starters, but also more tackle busts, offload opportunities and also potential for line breaks and other attacking stats.
And that’s a big reason as to why Benji has a three round average of 97.3 and a five round average of 77.2 points per game.
Unbelievable, if you think back to how ineffective he has been in the past few years for SuperCoach purposes!
Bring on Round 25
It’s finally here! One more round to go and the lead has changed yet again. It’s going to be a nailbiting finish and I cannot wait to see how it turns out!
Good luck to everyone still in contention for overall, and also for grand finals in head-to-head competitions!