NRL SuperCoach: Reigning champion Sam Rohlf’s last word ahead of round one
A TOUGH pre-season and a cheapies recession means reigning NRL SuperCoach champion Sam Rohlf is still chopping and changing his team. Let him take you though the latest changes.
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AWKWARD. That’s the one word that best sums up my team this year after Team List Tuesday (TLT).
No one in SuperCoach NRL — presented by hipages — is ever really happy with a round one team and I was already uneasy with the team I had before the lists came out.
Like a lot of coaches, I looked at my squad and had no choice but to make downgrades, downgrades that I just didn’t want to make.
In other seasons the tough decisions on TLT were which cheapies to leave out. This year we are in a cheapie recession and my plans are out the window. One or two extra cheapies in the Centre/Wing would of made life easier and I could have kept my intended squad together, but it’s not to be.
So I made some adjustments, then I made some more. Then I looked at my team and it looked like someone else’s team. It didn’t look like the team that I had intended to start with. OK, time to give it a spell, clear the mind for a bit. So two minutes later, the app is open again because I can’t help myself. The chopping and changing continued and I still couldn’t get a balance I was happy with.
This continued for a little while before I decided to pull stumps and sleep on it.
Wednesday I wake up, the house is quiet. The wife and kids have left for work and school. Sometimes working shiftwork has some positives. It allowed me the chance to grab a coffee and get back into trying to sort out my team.
LISTEN: Tom Sangster, Rob Sutherland and Dave Campbell give their final tips heading into Round 1.
I opened the app and wondered what I was thinking the night before. Players who I hadn’t looked at all pre-season were sitting in my team. Time to get the scalpel out and start making some cuts again.
Each time I was coming up short of having 25 players all playing in round one. It could be done but was that 25th man really worth it? I had narrowed my choices to two squads to pick from.
It had come down to a decision of running with the team that went online a few days ago that only had 23 starters and one spare centre/wing which wasn’t ideal or the second option was to downgrade a gun, try to replace him with someone I was content with and try to find an extra centre/wing just to provide a little more cover.
The gun I decided to downgrade was Jason Taumalolo. I wanted to keep him, I still want him now but something had to give.
There are legitimate reasons as to why Taumalolo could have a decrease in minutes from last season and I didn’t want to be stubborn and not acknowledge those. In the end “Lolo” made way for Trent Merrin.
The $150K that was left from that gave me a chance to upgrade Adam Doueihi to Solomona Kata. Upgrade is probably too strong a word, however it gave me a chance to field at least 24 starters in round one.
The thing that caught me out on TLT was the benching of Cameron Murray. I had been big on Murray since the back end of last season as he reminded me of Shaun Fensom.
Considering Murray didn’t play any of the trials, it’s not a complete shock to see him on the bench. At the moment, I’m keeping Murray for another few days.
I’m going to take advantage of the lockout and wait till the South’s team list is named an hour before kick off. If Murray is elevated into the run-on team I’ll be a happy camper. If not, I’ll make a switch from Murray to Mark Nicholls then move Siliva Havili out and bring in Damien Cook.
These are the changes I made since the team lists dropped from the updated team that went up a few days ago.
Jason Taumalolo to Trent Merrin
Luciano Leilua to Kelepi Tanginoa (middle player over edge player plus d/p)
Adam Doueihi to Solomona Kata (needed a 6th centre that’s playing)
And possible trades of Murray to Nicholls and Havili to Cook.
Have a great season everyone, all the best to you all.
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