NRL SuperCoach: 10 things we learned Round 5
Daly Cherry-Evans the best halfback option, Cody Walker heart attack material and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck approaching 2015 form.
Round 5 was another rough one in terms of injuries – the NRL injury fairies and the SuperCoach gods haven’t been kind to us this year! The silver lining however is the amount of cheapies that keep rolling through – almost too many in fact! It’s a question of what we can glean from each week’s information, so let’s get into it.
1. Greg Inglis should be remembered as a SuperCoach great
I’ve stolen one of the lessons for this week to celebrate the incredible highlight reel that is Greg Inglis’s rugby league career. Unfortunately his last two or three years haven’t been amazing, so it’s a little hard to remember just how incredible he was for SuperCoach as well. As far back as 2012, he averaged 59.2 points per game – back when attacking stats were less rewarding. For context, Ben Barba’s Dally M winning 2012 season saw him average just 60 as well! Then from 2013 to 2015 he consistently averaged between 63 to 65 points per game. Some of his freakiest plays didn’t earn SuperCoach points, and for that reason he is far greater on the field than on the SuperCoach scores lists! The game has lost one of its most talented players ever today.
2. Roger Tuivasa-Sheck is approaching 2015 RTS form
It’s been a while coming but we are starting to see the RTS who took out the overall SuperCoach points award in 2015, his first full year at fullback for the Roosters. That year, he averaged around 50 points in his base and base attack stats alone (tackles, hitups, tackle busts and offloads). The other 27 points per game were his tries, try assists, linebreaks and other major attacking stats! So far this year RTS is averaging 79.4 points per game across his first five games – with approximately 47 points per game coming from his base and base attack stats. That’s a seriously impressive floor and he could very well maintain this form for the year given how integral he is to the Warriors’ attack right now. He has currently scored more points than Teddy and looks like he could be a real POD option at fullback for the season.
3. Daly Cherry-Evans is the standout SuperCoach halfback option right now
Pending final updates, DCE will finish with a five-round average of around 76 points per game, and he will have averaged approximately 15 points per game more than the next best option in that position (who will most likely be Michael Morgan). He will be priced at around $714,000 and have a breakeven of nearly 120 for Round 6 though! Owners will be sitting pretty as you won’t find many who could afford him, with even two consecutive 65-70 scores most likely dropping his price back to $640,000, if not lower (he has two tougher match-ups with the Dragons and the Raiders). In any event, he is a genuine contender for the highest averaging halfback for the 2019 season.
4. Cody Walker is heart attack material
Fresh off an amazing score of 150 (pending final updates), Walker will potentially be the most expensive player in the game in two weeks’ time, given his upcoming match-ups. He will have scored six tries, set up six others, broken the line four times and assisted three other linebreaks in just five games so far this year; you would be hard-pressed arguing that he will be able to maintain such an incredible level of attacking stats moving forward. The heart attack aspect of Cody is his low base stats, averaging just 18.2 points per game in pure base stats (tackles and hit-ups) and another 9.6 points per game in his base attack stats (tackle busts and offloads). With upcoming match-ups against the Bulldogs, Panthers, Broncos and Cowboys coming up though, owners and non-owners alike will probably be watching Cody and having heart attacks!
5. Jai Arrow may not be the 2RF keeper we all thought
Now this is not a criticism of Jai Arrow’s on-field performances at all. He is a workhorse who churns through the metres and gets through a mountain of tackles. However, his minutes… his MINUTES! Garth Brennan is clearly managing his star forward carefully – perhaps too carefully though. It is coming to negatively impact his SuperCoach performance though, which obviously is what we as SuperCoaches are most interested in. The difficulty for SuperCoaches is that Arrow is SO good as a SuperCoach option when he gets quality time on the field; selling him when he’s actually healthy and playing seems like such a luxury! All we need is the extra 5-10 minutes Garth… the ball is well and truly in Garth’s court here…
6. Payne Haas – that is all
Not much really needs to be said about his incredible 2019 season debut for the Broncos – he started at lock and smashed out 64 minutes, scoring an incredible 69 points in pure base stats. Throw in two tackle busts and an effective offload, and you’ve got a ridiculous score of 77 points from someone who had not played 64 minutes combined across his three games in the NRL before this one. He’s still young, and the Broncos have yet another ridiculously promising young forward contending for minutes.
7. Esan Marsters is a must-have for your CTW at some point
14% of SuperCoaches already know this, but Marsters is putting up some ridiculous numbers. He dropped a stinker last week, but even including that he has averaged 66 or thereabouts across the first five rounds. He is putting up CTW keeper numbers predominantly in BASE stats – he hasn’t even scored a try! Only one try assist and two linebreak assists, he is just an absolute monster in terms of his workload, tackle busts and offloads. Plenty might be waiting until Round 13 to grab him, but it’s very tempting to lock up one of your four CTW starting spots with such a high floor option.
8. Leipana are back
Their scores aren’t amazing this week but it’s the base stats, the work rate, which is very interesting. In 2016 and 2017, BJ Leilua and Jordan Rapana were two of the four or five CTW options that could consistently rack up high base stats, and score 50 or so in a week without any attacking stats. This workrate disappeared in 2018, but there are real signs of life in 2019 that his has returned. With both playing Round 12, it’s a tempting proposition! However, with plenty of us already locking in Bateman and Nicoll-Klokstad as options in the CTW from the Raiders already, adding Leipana could be overkill!
9. Blake Ferguson might be the Eels’ most important player already
It sounds crazy that a winger might be the most important player for a team, but we saw with Semi Radradra how much difference his presence made for the Eels – especially in 2016 and 2017. His absence was well and truly felt last year, and Fergo was brought over to try replicate some of the Semi magic. Fergo’s workrate has been incredible and he has really brought some value to the team, getting their sets off on a roll and making life easier for everyone taking a hit-up after him. This impact was felt as soon as he went off with suspected rib issues in the 45th minute, as the Eels – who had been hanging with the Raiders up until then – started to fall apart. It’s obviously a SuperCoach issue given his injury (and a potential tasty price later down the track when he comes back due to his score of 10 to drop his price) but it could also impact the rest of the Eels too…
10. Cam McInnes is the forgotten hooker
Things weren’t great while he was part of the spine reshuffle in the first few weeks, but since that stopped, he has sneakily scored 86, 60 and 70 in the three weeks he has played the full games. The majority of those scores have been in base stats as well. He’s not Damien Cook, but he is challenging Farah and Smith to be a decent back-up option in the difficult hooker position.
Good luck for Round 6
Things are really settling in and SuperCoaches are really grinding hard with all these injuries. Trades are important but so is setting up your team for the season, so trade hard when you need to! It’s shaping to be another tricky week so good luck preparing for the coming round!
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