Stat analysis: Vital numbers to beat the best, RD 15

• SQUAD BREAKDOWN: Round 15 team insights
• SUBSCRIBER SPECIAL: Question and answer

Analysing the top 20,000 teams after Round 14

Round 14 is best summed up by taking a quick look at the highest scoring players. It’s hardly a who’s who of SuperCoach guns! 

In fact, of the nine players to score over 100 last week, only two have over 1% ownership amongst the top 20,000 teams – and one of those was Siosifa Talakai! 

Of course, the other was the season’s top scorer in David Nofoaluma who top scored with a monster 134. So much for my death riding him…

Let’s look at some of the key changes to team ownership by position and ranking zone after Round 14 and find some PODs and anti-PODs for the run home – I think there’s quite a few out there.

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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 – again ordered by 5RA to see if we can find any hidden gems and potential PODs. 

With Kalyn Ponga once again tearing it up, the top teams almost all own Teddy and Ponga.

In fact, amongst the top 1,000 teams, 987 own Teddy and 952 own Ponga so there is almost no differentiation at FLB. 

On one hand, this provides a great opportunity for teams outside the top 1,000 to try to find a POD to outscore Teddy or Ponga – on the other it could just be a way to solidify yourself outside that top 1,000. 

I suspect the bigger issue for many teams is that there are more pressing trades elsewhere.  Let’s move on…

CTW and dual FLB/CTW

The cream is certainly rising to the top at CTW. In fact, the three players with the highest 5RA’s are the three players with the highest ownership levels – so SuperCoaches are nailing CTW. 

The fourth most popular CTW in Kurt Mann is just a few places behind. In fact, looking at the top teams, a huge number are running with the Nofo, Yeo, Lomax and Mann combination.

That is very understandable, but you can’t win the $50,000 by having the same team as the teams in front of you.

David Nofoaluma smashing out 134 means he now has the highest 5RA of any player and an amazing 94% of the top 100 teams and 87% of the top 1,000 teams own Nofo. 

Surely his upcoming draw is an anti-POD opportunity? Perhaps that is just my non-ownership bias coming through! 

Not bringing in Nofo early on was the single biggest mistake of my own SuperCoach season.

As expected last week, ownership of Bradman Best dropped once again this week, from 32% to 13%. Ownership of Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow also reduced from 63% to 45%.

So who did these teams buy?

The biggest change in ownership was for two nuffs – Jarred Anderson and Ben Trbojevic.  Between them they are owned by 63% of the top 100 teams – up from 44% last week. 

Beyond the nuffs, we also saw ownership increases amongst the top 20,000 teams for Nofo (+8%), Josh Mansour (+4%), Talakai (+4%) and Latrap (+3%).

Looking at this week’s trades, I’d expect ownership in Bradman Best and Tommy Talau to fall further and ownership in Talaki and Staford To’a to increase.

Halves

Like CTW, the top three performing halves are also the top three owned halves. Ownership in Nathan Cleary and Shaun Johnson increased yet again (by 5% and 10% respectively) and almost all top ranked teams now have both.

Not surprisingly, ownership in Cameron Munster fell from 54% to 32%, but 54% of the top 100 teams are still holding him. It will be interesting to see how patient they are. Whilst he looks a clear top 17 player for the run home, that doesn’t help if he is out for too long.

Alexander Brimson attracted some interest amongst the top 20,000 teams with 6% of teams now owning him. Note that not one of the top 100 teams went there though – there is a reason these teams are ranked in the top 100!

I notice that around 4% of teams gambled on Jack Wighton last week. I looked at Wighton myself – his draw was so tempting – but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Whilst he is a fabulous player, I’m just not convinced he is a consistent enough scorer for SuperCoach purposes.  

2RF

Readers of last week’s article will recall that 2RF was all about John Bateman, Cameron McInnes and Jazz Tevaga. That trend continued this week – just throw in a dash of Jake Trbojevic, David Fifita and Tohu Harris.

Once again, most of this movement looks like it was at the expense of Cameron Smith and Harry Grant going down at HOK.

The player that attracted the most interest this week was Cameron McInnes. His ownership increased to 67% amongst the top 20,000 teams – up from 50% last week and 42% the week prior. 

John Bateman continued his surge in ownership. Whilst Bateman is only owned by 7% of teams overall per the SuperCoach site, he is now owned by 24% of the top 20,000 teams – and a massive 60% of the top 100 teams (versus 1% a fortnight ago). That makes him the fourth most owned 2RF behind Lolo, McInnes and Matterson.

FRF

Last week finally saw some ownership changes at FRF, with Tevita Pangai’s demise causing his 13% of owners to rush for the trade button.

The two players teams brought in for TPJ were Sio Siua Taukeiaho (6% to 10%) and Josh Papalii (10% to 15%). Both sets of new owners would have been terribly disappointed with their scores last week. 

After tossing up all week between Fifita and Papalii, I went for big Josh because of the Raiders soft draw and the hope he could jag some attacking stats. 

Instead I watched on as Josh enjoyed an early shower whilst the Raiders smoked the Broncos. Meanwhile, TKO’s goal kicking status wasn’t particularly useful with the Roosters unable to score more than one try against the Storm. Dammit. 

With Payne Haas now incurring a two week suspension it gets very interesting. On one hand, Haas is out for a third of the remaining season. That’s a lot. 

On the other, do you really want to be without him for those last four rounds – particularly if you are playing head-to-head?

I suspect it comes down to depth for most teams. Those who can field a strong 17 without needing to trade Haas should probably hold – but if trading him makes a big difference as to who your 17^th player is then you probably need to trade him out. 

Dave Klemmer seems to be the most popular trade out option at this stage. I’ve said before that I would go others in front of Klem – but he’s starting to make me look stupid so maybe I should just stick to the facts this season!

HOK

HOK is certainly now the most interesting position in terms of ownership variation – and could well determine the fate of the leading teams.

This week saw a huge drop in ownership of Harry Grant – with his ownership falling from 52% to 24%. Most new owners went for Cameron McInnes (or a 2RF via Cam) or Api Koroisau, whose ownership increased from 32% to 44%. And didn’t Api reward his new owners!

One of the most interesting stats at HOK is the ownership of Cameron Smith. 30% of the top 20,000 teams – and 35% of the top 100 teams have held onto the GOAT so far. That’s a lot of teams betting that he will deliver when he returns. Smith v Cook v Api will be crucial over the last six weeks of the season.

Round 14 Captaincy Choices

There has officially been a changing of the guard in the captaincy department. After weeks of almost all teams captaining Teddy, less than 10% of teams went his way last week. 

In fact, amongst the top 1,000 teams, Teddy was only the sixth most popular captain choice – behind Nathan Cleary (51%), Kalyn Ponga (19%), Jason Taumalolo (19%), Shaun Johnson (6%) and John Bateman (5%). And every one of those players outscored Teddy so SuperCoaches were on the money.

The most surprising captaincy stat to me last week was the low captaincy rate for David Nofoaluma. He always tends to attract interest in good match ups so I’m surprised only 2% of the top 1,000 teams had a crack last week. No doubt many wish they did!

Note that the 2% of teams near the lead that went with ‘other’ were VC loopers – not some crazy captain choice.

This week will be interesting – last week Cleary and Ponga looked the obvious choices but the captaincy choice doesn’t look as obvious to me this week. 

Ponga and Cleary (in that order?) will probably attract the most interest at home, but Teddy and even John Bateman will be popular too. Zac Lomax may even have some admirers against what looks a very ordinary Broncos side.

Good luck to everyone again in Round 15.  For those who want to get these stats on Twitter, feel free to follow me here @adamdriussi

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