Stat analysis: Vital numbers to beat the best, RD 16

• DECISION TIME: Answering the week’s big questions
• CAPTAIN’S CHALLENGE: Round 16 skipper options

If Round 14 was characterised by a bunch of randoms scoring well, Round 15 was the round of the semi-PODs scoring well. 

By semi-PODS I mean players with 10-60% ownership as opposed to almost all teams owning a player. 

Bear in mind that even if three players are each 60% owned, only just over 20% of teams are likely to own all three…so it’s still possible to climb the rankings when a Ryan Matterson hits the ton as per last week!

From a personal point of view I was lucky enough to have three such players ton up in Ryan Matterson, Josh Mansour and Sio Siua Taukeiaho.  On top of Nathan Cleary’s 99 and Damien Cook’s 93 I’ll take that.

Round 15 also saw a continuation of the trend of massively owned players going down injured long term. 

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Almost every team owned Jason Taumalolo so his injury at least creates some more variation in teams. 

On top of injuries or suspensions to Payne Haas, Harry Grant, Cameron Smith, Bradman Best, Cameron Munster, Ryan Matterson and Angus Crichton the last five weeks have been chaos!

Let’s look at some of the key changes to team ownership by position and ranking zone after Round 15 and find some PODs and anti-PODs for the run home.

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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. 

Not surprisingly, there was minimal movement in fullback ownership last week. With almost every team owning Teddy and Ponga and injuries and suspensions elsewhere, it was not a week to make a move at FLB. Whilst Teddy has disappointed for five weeks now, I don’t expect that to change this week! Let’s move on…

CTW and dual FLB/CTW

David Nofoaluma just continues to defy the (increasingly small number of) critics. Just when I thought my anti-POD strategy was finally going to be rewarded, he scores 40 odd points in the last minute to punch out a very respectable 68. Dammit.

No doubt his 88% of owners amongst the top 1,000 teams had the opposite reaction to me!

Three CTWs are now owned by over 88% of the top 1,000 teams – Nofo, Lomax and Yeo. 

Personally, I think that makes things a bit boring – not that I can blame teams for owning those three guns – they continue to justify their high levels of ownership.

Brett Morris is the guy that I can see some leading teams taking a punt on this week. B Moz has smashed out four tons in his last eight matches – and who better to take on in that form than the Broncos? 

Note that he also has three scores under 30 this year so he could score anywhere from 30 to 150 this week. 

I’ve got other priorities but good luck to those who roll the dice – you may as well throw the captaincy or VC on him for good measure and go for it.

Last week saw a reduction in ownership amongst the top 20,000 teams for Tommy Talau (34% to 16%), Bradman Best (13% to 5%), Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow (45% to 36%), Mitch Aubusson (8% to 4%), Tevita Funa (11% to 8%) and Jake Averillo (11% to 8%).

So, who did these teams bring in?

The biggest change in ownership was once again for the two nuffs – Jarred Anderson and Ben Trbojevic. Between them they are now owned by 81% of the top 100 teams – up from 63% last week. 

Beyond the nuffs, the other key players to attract interest were Starford To’a (1% to 16%) and Siosifa Talaki (12% to 24%). 

Both disappointed their new owners with scores of 7 and 42 respectively. The news got worse for Talakai’s new owners (including me) on TLT when he was relegated to the bench for this week’s dream matchup against the Cowboys. That sums up my past six weeks of trades!

Looking at this week, I’d expect Brett Morris to be the main player of interest at the expense of the same guys that were traded down last week. Otherwise I suspect teams will be turning those blokes into nuffs and spending cash elsewhere.

Halves

Like CTW, the top three performing halves remain the top three owned halves.

Most of the action in the halves last week was from the teams near the top of the rankings.

Shaun Johnson’s late withdrawal clearly caused some chaos for those holding onto Cam Munster as teams scrambled to find a player to replace one of them. 

The result across the top 100 teams was a 9% reduction in ownership of SJ and a 6% reduction in ownership of Munster. Players recruited were a mixed bag of Alexander Brimson, Cody Walker, Ben Hunt and George Williams. 

Hats off to the team now leading overall though (GreenBrickWall). They held tight with SJ and Munster (and Cam Smith), and instead brought in Will Hopoate at CTW (for Tommy Talau) and Dave Klemmer at FRF for Payne Haas. 

Talk about nailing trades. With only 17 players playing last week, they ‘copped’ Hopoate’s 85 as an AE score for Johnson and Klemmer punched out a handy 81. And of course, they now welcome back each of SJ, Munster and Cam Smith this week with nice match ups.

That could just be the move that wins it for this team. Looking at the balance of this team, I think this guy is going to be VERY hard to beat from here. 

As a Dogs fan, I hope the Will Hopoate move wins it for this team (unless of course the Cooma Stallions can win it for Tim!). It was a HUGE move. To give you an idea, there are only 13 other teams in the top 5,000 teams who currently own Hopoate. 

2RF

Another week, another surge in ownership for John Bateman. Forget the official 12% ownership per the SuperCoach site. 

Bateman is now owned by 44% of the top 20,000 teams (up from 24% last week) and a massive 80% of the top 100 teams.

Last week also saw continued increases in ownership amongst the top 20,000 teams for David Fifita (13% to 20%), Jake Trbojevic (26% to 29%), Tohu Harris (23% to 26%) and Ryan Matterson (56% to 59%).

The POD move that caught my eye however was for that of Mitch Barnett. 7% of the top 100 teams now own Barnett compared with just 1% a week ago. 

I can understand it – Barnett is on fire and is rocking the second highest 5RA for 2RFs behind only Jurbo. That’s a very nice POD. I see he is a popular trade in option this week so you need to be quick with these PODs!

FRF

Payne Haas’ two week suspension saw plenty of movement at FRF last week. Ownership of Haas has fallen from 100% to 63% amongst the top 100 teams and from 98% to 69% amongst the top 20,000 teams.

The most popular trade in target was David Klemmer whose ownership amongst the top 20,000 teams increased from 41% to 60%…and Big Klem delivered for these teams beautifully.  

The other key players to increase in ownership were Josh Papalii (15% to 18%), Sio Siua Taukeiaho (10% to 12%) and Patrick Carrigan (75% to 79%).  

Meanwhile, poor old Aiden Tolman is almost friendless with just 37 of the top 20,000 teams owning him – despite continuing to have the fourth highest 5RA of any FRF. Who knew?

HOK

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

Just look at the top 100 teams – 33% have held onto Smith, 38% have Damien Cook, 27% have Api (who is out this week) and 7% still own Harry Grant who returns. 

That means that most of the top 100 teams are playing either Cam McInnes or Jazz Tevaga at HOK.

It’s fair to say that HOK is going to be important. One of Smith, Cook or Grant going on a tear over the remaining five weeks could prove all the difference.

The top 22 teams are a case in point (note I’ve gone to 22 since Timmy Williams’ Cooma Stallions are charging up there in 22^nd!). 

There is lots of variety in HOK ownership going on here. Note that every team has Cameron McInnes – the four in the table below without him just have him at 2RF. A number also have Jazz Tevaga at 2RF.

I would love to be the leader in this spot. Cameron Smith is the GOAT for a reason and the Storm have a dream draw. 

With Api and Brandon Smith out, that’s a lot of teams having to burn a trade just to square up with the leader. That’s a trade advantage that the leader can use down the track perhaps – especially if lots of players get rested over the concluding rounds.

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Round 15 Captaincy Choices

Round 15 was an interesting week in terms of captaincy choices. Kalyn Ponga was the most popular choice, followed by Teddy and Cleary. 

Ponga’s owners (including me) would have been relieved when he picked up a TA and LBA in the dying minutes. Too bad he couldn’t kick a stone let alone a goal last weekend. With Kalyn losing the goal-kicking now I would suggest his captaincy rate will plummet.

I imagine Teddy will be very popular this week against the Broncos. He is hard not to like. At the same time, however, with Keary out he is down on point scoring and Nathan Cleary has been a beast in terms of consistency. If you are in the top 100 and wanting to make a move, you need to do it now.

Good luck to everyone again in Round 16. For those who want to get these stats on Twitter, feel free to follow me here @adamdriussi