Nick Moon
Self-proclaimed funny guy
Weekly Wrap: Round 17 highs, lows and shocks
Check out our Round 17 NRL SuperCoach wrap, with week one of finals producing some monster scores.
Weekly Wrap
September 7, 2020
What a weekend of footy! Headlined by Tedesco, Ponga, Nofoaluma all going 120+ it was perfect timing for well set sides to go huge in the first week of head-to-head finals.
For those playing overall, if you were able to nail your captain choice you could be seeing green arrows.
For every weekend’s positive story though there are also going to be some horror stories from this weekend.
Those losing head-to-head battles by a point or benching the wrong player. I lost my local head-to-head finals match up to a bloke that started playing SuperCoach this year and traded in Brodie Croft mid-way through the year because ‘he’s playing alright footy’.
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Embed from Getty ImagesI also made some – in hindsight – bad trades that sent me spiralling out of contention in all head-to-head match ups which I will touch on.
SuperCoach 2020 was all about planning for the final four rounds due to no Origin and no byes, something that I didn’t do great.
So when I see posts about ‘who should be my last reserve, McInnes or Ponga,’ I near want to cry as I’m tossing up whether to play Josh Schuster or Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow as my final pick.
When’s the cricket start?!
Embed from Getty ImagesBroncos v Panthers
A very juicy matchup for SuperCoaches with some I’d say having up to 10 players in this match alone! It didn’t reach the scoring heights I think we all hoped for, but there were some good scores nonetheless.
Cleary was a popular captain choice but failed to explode scoring 73, but he did notch a field goal to ensure those 13+ multi punters got that leg home.
To’o crossed the line, as did Mansour to finish with 72 and 69 respectively, but the big disappointment was Crichton who didn’t get too much footy and lacked any attacking stats.
For the Broncos, Haas was big in his return scoring 89 and is a must-have for the final couple of matches and I’d be doing everything I could to get Kotoni Staggs into my side. He will score 120+ in the final three weeks at some point.
Knights v Sharks
Shock me. Shaun Johnson out again. I swear he went off the field about four weeks ago with what seemed like a rock in his boot and we haven’t seen him since! Very frustrating for owners who held onto him.
This match, rightly so, will be remembered for Chad Townsend absolutely launching himself at Kalyn Ponga!
It’s not great we are talking about that because he – Ponga not Townsend – was sensational.
It was one of his better games in a while, scoring three tries to finish with 158 – his third score over 150 this year!
When he goes big, he goes big. Unfortunately though he has become a bit of a target of late and, from reports coming out today, is set to be rested next weekend. Massive news if that’s true.
It’s a trade that little could afford with only three rounds to play.
Mann continues to score well despite the move to hooker, finishing the night with 89 including two try-assists.
Klemmer is a bit of a concern scoring only 59 to go with last week’s 58 in a FRF position that is desperately lacking consistent players apart from Haas and Carrigan. The Knights take on the Chooks next week so it doesn’t get easier there.
Embed from Getty ImagesRabbitohs v Storm
With the rain on Friday night and both sides pretty good defensively this game was always going to be a bit of a slog.
However it didn’t stop Papenhuyzen scoring 105 who now holds a three round average of over 100. The forgotten fullback in the Tedesco/Ponga/Brimson discussion.
Walker scored another try and set one up as he scored 81 to continue his red-hot run of form, although I have heard of a few people who have benched him over the last two weeks.
I won’t mention who, but I believe he is in the top 10 and likes to be called Overlord.
If you can I’d be getting rid of Murray. There are bigger holes to plug I know, but my god what a sad demise for an absolute gun last year.
Bulldogs v Titans
Fancy a 3pm Saturday afternoon game with the Bulldogs taking on the Titans being the match that could make-or-break my season.
No it wasn’t Brimson only scoring 60 that cost me the weekend… It was an ankle injury to Brian Kelly that torpedoed any chance of me winning.
He was my POD trade for this weekend and with a somewhat soft run for the final few weeks, I was quietly confident I had made the right call. Then I get a text off a mate asking what happened to Kelly because he was on 2 points at half time.
So I’ve marked down around 4pm when my SuperCoach season finished up for the year.
Good luck to the rest of you!!
Embed from Getty ImagesSea Eagles v Tigers
Purely SuperCoach wrap-up here. I’m not going to touch on the result, but I will say this – The Tigers really don’t want anyone else to finish 9th.
David Nofoaluma should be the first winger picked for NSW. He was exceptional on Saturday night notching up 120, his fourth score over 100 this year. I’d be very nervous if I had traded him out due to the Tigers poor run home.
Grant was solid in his second game back from injury scoring 74 which included a linebreak. I wouldn’t be all that concerned if you had to play him in your 17.
The calls for DCE to be a trade target were spot on as he scored 114 points. He played both sides of the field on Saturday, something I haven’t seen him do too much and with the added goal-kicking duties he would be someone I would seriously consider. Turbo could return next week so take that into consideration.
Embed from Getty ImagesRaiders v Roosters
James Tedesco. I mean what more can we say about him! 132 points, doubling the next best scoring Rooster in Taukeiaho.
It was the type of game where SuperCoach becomes irrelevant and you just enjoy two red-hot teams going at it.
It was fast, brutal and had a lot of semi final football about it. The difference was, one team had Tedesco, the other didn’t. Plain and simple.
The massive news out of this match though is the shoulder injury to Papalii. If you listen to the SC Playbook podcast it is apparently the same injury that the Spy did a few years back when he was playing and he was able to return in two weeks, albeit with some strapping.
So fingers crossed Papa is as tough as the Spy and returns sooner rather than later.
Although not SuperCoach noteworthy, it’s hard not to mention this game and not touch on SBW who played only 13 minutes but did as much as he could in that time.
Warriors v Eels
There’s a bit happening here SuperCoach wise but not many POD players I would say.
We all own Matterson who scored well for his 74, failing to notch a major attacking stat but he does enjoy an offload, unfortunately he had zero on the weekend which is a credit to the Warriors defence.
Moses found a bit of form, setting a couple tries up to finishing with 70, although with the form of Cleary and Munster, he isn’t really in the conversation of trade targets in the halves.
Maika Sivo scored 40, 27 of those came in one play with his try and linebreak. So that’s not a great output. The Spy said during the week that he and Maika wouldn’t be catching up for a feed and a laugh and let me tell you, Maika’s not missing out on much!!
The Warriors are very good at keeping sides honest through the middle now due to the presence of Tevaga. He was sin-binned for a very soft jumper punch. And I know soft punches. He finished with 58 points in his 58 minutes which, when I was at school, works out to be 1 point per minute.
There wouldn’t be many reading this that own RTS, but my goodness he is scoring well. I’m obviously a Sea Eagles tragic but he is as good as Turbo but doesn’t get the wraps for it playing in a beaten Warriors side.
Embed from Getty ImagesCowboys v Dragons
Sunday night at 6.30 was a good time for this match to be on as it was more of a ‘just check the scores’ type of game.
Cam McInnes continues his consistent scoring, and with the added five minutes of extra time he was able to boost his score to 91 made up of 48 tackles in 18 runs.
Lomax is the other player worth watching here. He did only finish with 67 points, but that did include a really classy offload to set a try up.
I know there are a few who are death riding him and it does seem to be working somewhat.
He hasn’t scored a try in a couple weeks with the Dragons seemingly favouring the left edge.
The goal-kicking will keep him scoring well but as an owner I would like a try or two to really hit those big scores.
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