NRL SuperCoach Last Word: Reigning champion Sam Rohlf’s final tips heading into round 13

THE first bye round is here and for those near the top of the rankings, this is one of the most exciting weeks in all of SuperCoach. And last year’s winner Sam Rohlf should know.

• NRL SuperCoach Trade Comparison: Two best trades of round 13
• NRL SuperCoach Stat Attack: Numbers set to decide round 13

THE first bye round is here and for those near the top of the rankings, this is one of the most exciting weeks in all of SuperCoach — presented by hipages.

The chance to consolidate your well-earned spot at the top of the rankings was both fun and frustrating all at the same time for me last year. My advice for those that are in with a shot is to start doing some homework on your opposition.

To get a feel for the depth of other coaches’ squads, I printed out the teams that they ran with the week before the first bye and did the same every week after the bye. Then I just kept doing that week after week until the team numbers with a live chance of running me down dropped down to single figures.

SuperCoach NRL Champion Sam Rohlf has brough in Sam Burgess.

Yes it’s a lot of work, but leave no stone unturned. The more information you can have on your rivals, the better decisions you can make in the final stages of the competition

With a different bye structure this season there is no blueprint that is right or wrong at this stage and it’s going to be interesting to see how it all unfolds over the next few weeks.

I’m so far behind that if I sent up a flare it wouldn’t be seen by the leaders, so I will take this opportunity to wish all those that are chasing the overall title the best of luck.

OK, back to my horror story: chapter 13. I’ll lead off with the good news first. The highlight for my team this week is I didn’t score in the 900s. I just scraped over into four-digit territory, finishing with 1024 points. That’s it for the good news and such is my season.

PODCAST!!! The first bye is here and SuperCoaches are scrambling for numbers. Get the lowdown with Tom Sangster and Dave Campbell.

Overall, I’m still ranked in the 15,000s and have a total point score of 12,138. My team’s weekly scoring average is 1011 points so I’m badly off the pace.

Last week my trades were going to be Te Maire Martin (39 points) and Clint Gutherson (35 points) in for Lachlan Croker (DNP) and Richard Kennar (DNP). But then I decided to make a late change to my trades and kept Kennar just in case he played this week to boost my ordinary bye numbers.

I traded out Viliame Kikau a week earlier than I had planned because of his break-even and the fact he was on the bench again which meant that if he dropped any major cash it would limit my options this week.

Of course he comes on and kills it with 78 points and actually made $9300. It did leave me with a little over $176,000 in the bank but it’s a trade I wish I could have back as I lost out on points and a slight rise in value.

With Richard Kennar not named for the week we held him for, I’ll be trading him out for Sam Burgess by using the dual position of Ryan Matterson and bring him back down to my centre/wing.

For my second trade for the week, and with options only available for no more than $498,000, I did consider Paul Gallen.

The Galbot for under $500k was tempting but he’s not having the same year as last year and neither am I.

In the end I traded out Siliva Havili, who has done a fair job and made $257,900 for me, to Api Koroisau.

I’ll only be fielding 12 players this week and will try to field close to maximum numbers for the last bye round.

Best of luck to all this week.