NRL SuperCoach: The yappy little mutt just took down the big dog

WHEN you’ve had a run of shockers you need to find solace where you can, and mine has come in the form of slaying SuperCoach savant Tommy Sangster.

WHEN you’ve had a run of shockers you need to find solace where you can, and mine has come in the form of slaying SuperCoach savant Tommy Sangster.

Having reached an almost satisfactory ranking of 1,397th at the end of round five, my boys put in a series of shockers — aided by some horrible captain’s picks from yours truly — to see me on the brink of tumbling out of the top 5000 at the conclusion of round nine.

Needless to say I was copping plenty in the office.

But none of that matters now, because thanks to the mighty Milf I’m back baby! I finally got my captaincy choice right, resisted the urge to loop big Semi, and took down Sangster. Bragging rights are mine this week.

SOME LOOPY MOVES

I’m a big fan of the VC loophole. I like the extra degree of planning and opportunity the loophole adds to the game. I like the opportunity risk the biscuit and loop the loop.

After Jarrod Croker, BJ Leilua, Jordan Rapana and Semi Radradra lit it up on Thursday and Friday night there were plenty of SuperCoaches testing out their VC trigger.

Quite a few pulled it.

Plenty of those that did shot themselves in the foot.

I’ve read plenty of hard luck stories of those that looped the loop only to see their erstwhile captain Anthony Milford go massive. That hurts but is not fatal.

Then there are the 130 odd self-haters who used Cory Denniss as their captain for the loop, only for Newcastle coach Nathan Brown be forced to play the kid due to an injury in the pre-match warm-up. Denniss scored 15. That’s a SuperCoach killer right there.

* For the uninitiated the ‘VC loophole’ involves a gamble. If your vice-captain goes large then you replace one of your original 17 players with a non-playing reserve. Your VC becomes your captain and scores double points, however, the score of the player you transferred out is lost and you cop the lowest of your emergency players’ scores.

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GENIUSES, JOKERS AND MIDNIGHT TOKERS

Here’s a breakdown of some of the smartest, flukiest and downright worst trade moves of the week.

Genius move

Will Matthews in for Corey Oates (110 trades) Jacob Saifiti (70 trades)

When Jack De Belin copped a long-term injury in the City-Country match, opportunity knocked for Will Matthews. Plenty of SuperCoaches opted to wait a week and see how the young Ned Kelly lookalike coped with the extra minutes on the Dragons’ edge — and we’re kicking ourselves after he scored 64 points, 61 of which were base stats. Having beaten his BE by almost 50 points Matthews will now cost us laggards $25K extra next week. Well played to those who backed themselves and got on early — particularly those who dropped Corey Oates before he leaked any more points and the 70 JSaif owners who not dodged his injury-affected low score.

You lucky duck

Latrell Mitchell out for Valentine Holmes (6 trades)

Latrell Mitchell had a three-round average heading into Monday night’s match against the Titans and plenty of SuperCoaches were banking on him maintaining that with the Roosters looking to have turned the corner and the Gold Coast coming off a thrashing by the Storm.

Holmes had impressed everyone with his form on the wing for the Sharks but despite scoring two tries in his past three games, the young flyer boasted a lacklustre three-game average of 44.3. So while the Sharks were expected to give the young Knights team a bit of a thrashing, six SuperCoaches can still consider themselves a tad lucky to land the second-highest SC score for the round with this trade.

Were you under the influence?

Anthony Milford out for Ryan Matterson (13 trades)

The Milfmeister posted just 37 points when the Cronulla defence stifled his attacking flair in round nine. His BE had soared to 138 and SC Gold was telling us he stood to lose $30K. With these facts in mind maybe it’s too harsh to suggest the 13 self-haters who traded out the top scoring player in SC for the year so far in favour of a bench warming rookie who scored all of ten points against the Titans are abusing pharmaceuticals ... maybe they’re just stupid.

Moses Mbye out for Ryan Matterson (43 trades)

This move is not stupid, it’s just odd. Sure, Mbye has not returned to the dizzy heights of his opening four rounds, but his two-game average exceeded 50, he has very solid byes and was set to play the Tigers, Roosters and Raiders in next three games. As noted above Ryan Matterson is a bench warming auto-emergency nightmare. Mbye scored 80 against the Tigers and could be a sneaky bye pick-up, Matterson is a no-go zone.

Sosaia Feki out for Aaron Gray (5 trades) and Konrad Hurrell (1 trade)

Sosaia is your classic non-SuperCoach relevant players. A quality on-field performer who just does not have the workrate to be SC relevant. However, he did score 68 points on the back of a double in round nine so was set to make cash and he played the Knights in round 10 so surely you’d back him to bag at least a bit of meat? Well he was a sure thing to beat the injured Aaron Gray and Konrad Hurrell who appears to have burnt all his bridges at the Warriors. And waddayaknow? Feki tonned up on the back of a three-try masterpiece ... gee guys come on!