Stat analysis: Vital numbers to beat the best

• SQUAD BREAKDOWN: Round 10 team insights
• DRAFT BREAKDOWN: Waiver-wire, trade targets

Analysing the top 20,000 teams after Round 9

What more can be said about James Tedesco? Last week I suggested that the 31% of teams in the top 20,000 teams who didn’t have James Tedesco should give themselves an uppercut. 

With a monster score of 178 and an obvious captaincy choice, it’s fair to say that Teddy has once again had a huge impact on the overall rankings of teams. 

Those who didn’t captain (or VC loop) the great man find themselves sliding down the rankings fast.

Let’s take a look at team ownership by position and ranking zone after Round 9.

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Fullback

As per previous weeks, the table below sets out the percentage of teams ranked in the top 100, top 500, top 1,000, top 10,000 and top 20,000 teams that own each fullback and contrast that with the ownership levels as per the SuperCoach site. 

To mix it up a bit, this week I have added each player’s 5 Round Average (5RA) and ranked the table by 5RA – just to see if we can find any hidden gems and potential PODs. 

Not surprisingly, Teddy dominates ownership of the highest ranked teams – only two teams ranked in the top 1,000 do not have Teddy! 

A whopping 85% of the top 20,000 teams now own Teddy – remarkable considering his price. 

Could Teddy become the first $1m priced player? I certainly won’t be betting against it in the next fortnight.

The big change to FLB ownership levels is related to Kalyn Ponga. This time last week, 74% of the top 1,000 teams owned Ponga. 

That has now reduced to 44% through a combination of people trading him out and some teams retaining Ponga being leapfrogged by those with Clint Gutherson. 

At least it makes it a bit more interesting again. Personally, I’ve had Ponga for three weeks for scores of a 3RA of 39. Not happy Kalyn!

Interestingly, Matt Dufty now has a 5RA higher than that of Ryan Papenhuyzen, RTS or Ponga. With upcoming matches against the Bulldogs and Sharks he is a serious POD.

CTW and dual FLB/CTW

Round 8 saw some very disappointing scores at CTW. Owners of Bradman Best, Josh Mansour, Siona Katoa, Josh Morris, Jarrod Croker, HTF, Tyrell Fuimaono and Ben Hampton were all left licking their chops.

At least they played though unlike super POD Brett Morris whose owners not only suffer a late withdrawal but then had to watch his replacement pile on a whopping 172 points!

Looking at the rankings by 5RA highlights some interesting PODs. Brett Morris is the obvious case, but with his price, lack of base and injury risk you’d be brave to invest your money there in my opinion. 

Kurt Mann continues to deliver for his owners whilst the likes of Kotoni Staggs (when he comes back) and Stephen Crichton are interesting. 

Latrap’s owners will surely put themselves out of their misery this week now that he has been suspended for two weeks. 

Honestly, I think he’s done you a favour – albeit an expensive one! He has an average base of 12 points…that is not even close to good enough for me.

Halves

With most teams running with Shaun Johnson and Nathan Cleary, the halves get more interesting this week with the return of Cameron Munster. 

With his next four games against the Titans, Broncos, Knights and Bulldogs he will no doubt attract a lot of interest. 

I would love to find a way to get him in my side – I’m just not sure I can prioritise it over some other options this week. 

The other big POD in the halves in my opinion is Kyle Flanagan. A goal kicking creative half in the Roosters side – sounds like a recipe for consistent points. Scott Drinkwater is surely a sell for those people who still own him?

2RF

Not surprisingly, the top five 2RFs are heavily skewed towards the leading teams. In particular, the four most owned 2RFs occupy 4 of those top five spots. 

Tohu Harris is the POD option within that grouping, although 16 of the top 100 teams now own him. 

But with a 5RA higher than that of the more fancied Jason Taumalolo he is rewarding his owners big time.

The standout POD in the pack is Matthew Eisenhuth. Eisenhuth has been a PPM gun for a while now – and with Alex Twal still injured he averages 4 points higher than the likes of Jurbo and 7 points higher than a Cam Murray.  A very interesting option.

At the other end, Viliame Kikau continues to disappoint owners (despite being a weapon for the Panthers in real life) and Jai Arrow should have been sold weeks ago. 

Over 25% of teams have already brought in cheapie Beau Fermor and he is easily the most traded in player this week.

With a starting 2RF gig again this week, I imagine his ownership amongst leading teams will be 60%+ this time next week.

FRF

As predicted last week, JTB was heavily sold last week with his ownership amongst leading teams almost halving – I expect his ownership levels to further plummet this week.

Arranging our table by 5RAs makes very interesting reading. For a position where Payne Haas was simply a must have last season – and a viable captaincy option most weeks – he has actually been outscored by four different FRFs over the past five weeks.   

Tevita Pangai decided last week (against my Bulldogs) was the week to pull out his ‘once a season blow you away performance’ – but we know he won’t do that every week. He is a viable FRF option nonetheless.

The interesting one for me is David Klemmer. Over 35% of leading teams have big Klem, yet looking at the 5RAs there are plenty of other POD options at cheaper prices. 

Whilst guys like Aiden Tolman and Josh McGuire don’t offer many 100+ scores (but let’s face it, neither does Klem..) there are other options like Josh Papalii and Sio Siua Taukeiaho who are still under owned in my opinion.

As flagged last week though, I think I will stick with Haas and Carrigan and look for other upgrade options with even higher ceilings in different positions.

HOK

Poor old Josh Hodgson – it sucked to see him go down with another ACL injury – and with it the Raiders’ premiership hopes.

How about that young rookie hooker now playing 80 minutes and rocking the second highest 5RA of all hookers! Harry Grant you say? 

How about Reece Robson from the Cowboys…owned by a measly 30 of the top 20,000 teams! 

Harry on the other hand is owned by an additional 18,000 of the top 20,000 teams. Reece also has a 94 in 54 minutes in Round 3 to match his 5RA so it’s no fluke. He may just be the ultimate POD for teams looking for something different.

Round 8 Captaincy Choices

Whereas last week had lots of variation in captaincy choices, this week couldn’t be more different. A whopping 98% of teams now ranked in the top 1,000 either captained Teddy or used the VC loop to achieve the same result.

The only real data of interest this week is seeing the percentage of teams who straight captained Teddy versus those that used the VC loop.

Roughly 70% of teams went the straight armband. Most loopers would have been sweating when HTF pulled out a 12 in the same match but with many fancied CTWs scoring so poorly anyway HTF was not as costly as he could have been.

It will be interesting to see who everyone captains this week. Whilst Teddy is pretty much bombproof against any opposition, the Raiders do have the fourth best defence in the NRL.

Meanwhile, the likes of Ryan Papenhuyzen, Cameron Munster and Cameron Smith take on the hapless Titans and Nathan Cleary takes on the Cowboys at Panthers Stadium… who actually have the worst defensive record in the whole comp and have Mitch Dunn lining up at five eighth.

And then we have a guy like Zac Lomax who could potentially go nuts against the Bulldogs and Ryan Matterson taking on a busted Manly side. 

Summary

With only 11 rounds left, it’s time for teams to start making POD moves if they want to climb the rankings. That’s easier said than done though. I never thought I would miss the dreaded bye rounds as I do – they traditionally introduce a lot of opportunity for skill based trading and for team variation so without them this year is very different. The leading teams will be very hard to catch. 

Good luck to everyone in Round 10.

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