KFC SuperCoach Plus Article: 10 tips to win your grand final

Former champion Wilfred Zee reveals his top tips for the grand final and makes some sneaky early calls on best targets for 2022.

It’s the final round of this crazy KFC SuperCoach season. This time next week, we’ll have a new overall champion and right now, The Villi Army is the overwhelming favourite! Still, let’s see what we learned from the round just past.

• Tyson Frizell has been solid all year

Frizell’s first regular season at the Knights has been solid, playing 18 games (hopefully 19 by this coming week) and getting through a lot of work on both sides of the ball. He has averaged 60.2 points per game in base and base attack stats, playing an average of 78.4 minutes per game. He hasn’t gotten many attacking stats which has limited his upside (only averaging 7.1 points per game in major attacking stats), but with one week to go, and a friendly match-up against the Broncos who have shown defensive frailties all season. With so many of the more popular 2RF options unavailable this week, Friz isn’t a bad option for those with trade/s!

Tyson Frizell has been solid this season (Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)

• Charnze is back

We thought CNK was gone for the season but he has thankfully returned quicker than expected; in fact, he looks like he is ready to go at full tilt again. He came back off the bench last week, playing limited minutes, but he saw much more game time this week and in his 53 minutes, he looked fresh and ready to rip in. 17 runs in 53 minutes is quite impressive, and in his score of 90, he scored one try, one try assist, one line break, one line break assist but he also found 29 points in pure base stats and another 16 points in tackle busts! He’s not usually this busy but it showed that CNK was hungry. With the start this week, and an injury-ravaged Roosters, CNK could be a real left-field point of difference for the adventurous.

• Mark Nicholls Appreciation Club

He’s been touted ‘the GOAT’ by many tongue-in-cheek fans and he’s been widely acknowledged as punching well above his weight in the past (mostly just jealousy), but Nicholls brings plenty on and off the field, even if he hasn’t always had the opportunity to show it. That he has been named stand-in captain this week speaks volumes for the respect he has amongst his teammates and coaches; while on the field he can also get through plenty of work. This week, he obviously scored two tries, both with line breaks, but it came off running great lines and plenty of determination to get across the stripe. He also ran the ball 24 times in his 44 minutes of game time, a great workrate and was involved defensively with 17 tackles and just one miss. All in all he managed to score 62 points in base and base attack stats in his 44 minutes on the field – impressive!

• Tyrell Sloan to be the Dragons’ fullback in 2022?

Sloan has been preferred ahead of Dufty and Ramsey in the latter part of 2021, and has done his chances of being the starting fullback next year no harm when given the opportunity. In his four games, he has an average of 56 points per game but it’s worth noting that he has scored a try in every single game so far, plus also set up two other tries and contributed to a third try. His workrate leaves a little to be desired for KFC SuperCoach purposes in particular (averaging just 26 points per game in base and base attack stats) but there is certainly potential there!

• Zac Lomax looks like a great option for 2022

We know Lomax is a KFC SuperCoach gun; a highly involved, goalkicking centre who has the ability to score and set up his winger on multiple occasions a game. He has a season average of 56.7 points per game – respectable – but one injury-affected score of five means his true average is actually over 61, and that includes multiple games where he was without Ben Hunt who has often been the source of attacking stats for Lomax. He seems like he could be very reasonably priced to start 2022.

• Albert Kelly isn’t a spent force

Long time players of KFC SuperCoach will remember Albert Kelly – in particular, when he was first given a permanent starting spot playing in the halves for the Titans way back in 2013. He averaged 59 points per game back then; a number that we barely glance at these days (especially in 2021) but in 2013, it was an average that put him in the top 10 for averages of all halves that season! Even in 2021, Kelly currently averages 61 this season from seven games, but remove the 20 minute game and he has an average of 65.5 points per game. He still has plenty of attacking ability and with a contract for next year on the books, there is a world where he could lock down the five-eighth spot and be KFC SuperCoach-relevant in 2022.

• Harry Grant is mortal

It’s true, despite how amazing he is, Grant started the game at hooker, played 77 minutes and only scored 40 points. That includes 43 points in tackles (but five missed tackles) and just three runs over eight metres. No attacking stats – for once. This isn’t really Harry’s fault though; the Storm forward pack were out-enthused and dominated by the Eels’ forwards who really turned up to play. With his pack on the back foot, slow play the balls and no momentum, Grant wasn’t able to showcase his running game and everything else that comes off the back of his creativity. It may be a reminder to look at his forwards and who is available before deciding on something as risky as captaining the young rake.

• DCE has had an excellent second half of the season

This is acknowledged by many but I haven’t taken the chance to write about him – and I blame Tommy Turbo’s utter brilliance and weekly domination as why. I literally am ignoring Tommy’s 170 score to write about DCE’s 132 score instead, and to highlight DCE’s nine game average of 105.1 points per game (again, while ignoring Tommy’s seven game average of 158.4 points per game – no that is NOT a typo). DCE is both taking advantage of Tommy’s brilliance, as well as creating plenty of his own magic, and the Sea Eagles are scoring points at will as a result. There’s really not much to say about this other than just to enjoy the show!

• We need to talk about Jake

It’s sad but we have to. Jake just isn’t KFC SuperCoach-relevant anymore. Whether it’s the decline in his own game, the new rules under the PVL regime, the pace of the football – who knows. Maybe it’s all of the above. But Jake has a nine game average of just 47 points per game – and his season average of 54.2 points per game is disappointing enough already. Looking at 2020 to 2021, there is an almost 5.5 point per game drop in tackles – this may be reflective of less defensive work due to all the points the Sea Eagles are scoring. Maybe it’s the ball going towards the edges from the opposition – who knows. All we know is that Jake Turbo isn’t so good for KFC SuperCoach in the current iteration of the NRL.

• Viliame Kikau is an enigma

Is there another player in KFC SuperCoach that is harder to predict that big Billy Kiks? He has as many scores over 120 this season than he does with scores under 30. He has as many scores between 30 to 40 than he does between 70 to 100. Kikau is an absolute monster, an imposing physical presence but he is also capable of disappearing and/or having his minutes managed by Ivan Cleary. Even this past score, he came off the bench and destroyed the Tigers, and still played 67 minutes in the process. The favourite to win KFC SuperCoach this year has managed to unlock the riddle that is Kikau, and that’s somewhat poetic that they may win the entire competition as a result.

Bring on Round 25!

Originally published as KFC SuperCoach Plus Article: 10 tips to win your grand final