SuperCoach Plus Article: Will you profit from Jamayne Isaako or Reimis Smith?

In this week’s deep dive into the stats that matter, Rob Sutherland gazes into his crystal ball to divine whether two popular buys will pay off.

Broncos fullback Jamayne Isaako (4th) and Melbourne Storm winger Reimis Smith (7th) are among the ten most popular buys this week as SuperCoaches chase what many hope will be some nice cash rises.

Both Isaako and Smith play for clubs that will play in the first bye, neither is an Origin selection threat and therefore on top of the hoped for profit, either would provide a valuable round 13 number and so I would expect any buyer would plan to hold for five games until round 14.

Rob Sutherland employs some rubbery figures to see which player can expect the best bounce in price.

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THE METHODOLOGY

Before I begin let me state the SuperCoach obvious – backs, as a rule, are less consistent than forwards. For every triple-figure monster there is usually a number of sub-35 point games.

It’s this unpredictability that makes buying CTW cash cows so risky, and makes forecasting price moves of said unpredictable scorers somewhat of a fool’s errand.

But fool I am so let’s get cracking.

Isaako and Smith have each played eight games so my plan on how to assess future scores is this:

* remove both the highest score and lowest score of each in an attempt to remove outlier results

* average the remaining top 2 scores and assign them as high range (HR), the middle two scores as mid range (MR) and the remaining two scores as low range (LR)

* assign a HR/MR or LR rating to the opponents each will face (based on points allowed to position in 2020/21) and then use that corresponding ratings when calculating price rises. You will note that I’ve hedged my bets with a cone rating assigning a blended HR/MR rating and in that case I averaged out the ‘expected’ scores.

Doing this Smith’s scoring range equated to HR 90.5, MR 45.5 and LR 29 and his next five opponents I assessed as:

Rd 9 Souths LR

Rd 10 Dragons HR

Rd 11 Raiders MR

Rd 12 Broncos HR

Rd 13 Titans HR/MR

Isaako’s scoring range equated to HR 97, MR 58, LR 36.5 and his next five opponents I assessed as:

Rd 9 Cowboys: HR

Rd 10 Manly: MR

Rd 11: Roosters: LR

Rd 12: Storm: LR

Rd 13 Dragons: HR

THE RESULTS

Reimis Smith	Rd 9	Rd 10	Rd 11	Rd 12	Rd 13
Opening Price	$465K	$527K	$561K	$535K	$558K
Opponent (rank)	Souths (LR)	Dragons (HR)	Raiders (MR)	Broncos (HR)	Titans (HR/MR)
Projected score	29	91	46	91	68
Price +/- at end of Rd	+$60K	+$95K	+$70K	+$92K	+$95K

Smith comes into round 9 off the back of consecutive 100s and even though he is assigned a LR score of just 29 he still makes $50K profit. Big scores in Rd 10 and 12 ensure he holds that profit all the way through to the end of our measurement period.

Jamayne Isaako	Rd 9	Rd 10	Rd 11	Rd 12	Rd 13
Opening Price	$504K	$569K	$641K	$613K	$551K
Opponent (rank)	Cowboys (HR)	Manly (MR)	Roosters (LR)	Storm (LR)	Dragons (HR)
Projected score	97	58	37	37	97
Price +/- at end of Rd	+$60K	+$137K	+$110K	+$47K	+$26K

The impact on Isaako’s profit creation of those two LR games against the Roosters and Storm stands out immediately doesn’t it?

At the start of Round 11 Isaako is priced at $641K and has produced $137K profit, entering Rd 13 he has shed $90k of that profit, though to be fair the projected big score against the Dragons begins the profit making cycle again.

THE CONCLUSION

There are obvious issues with the score guesstimates, but what I hope the above illustrates is that CTW are capricious beasts when it comes to making money in KFC SuperCoach NRL.

And if I had to be honest I would say I think Smith’s projected scores are a little high while Isaako’s maybe a little low. But I tried to remove that subjective element to have honoured my methodology.