Captain’s Challenge: Who to skipper in Round 25?

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Well here we are, the final round of the NRL Supercoach season, and what a nasty looking round it’s shaping up to be.

I can’t sit here in good faith and tell you to captain anyone other than Tom Trbojevic, however, there are a few juicy looking vice-captaincy options that many Supercoaches will be looking to explore before the Manly game on Saturday afternoon.

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i) James Tedesco – Teddy had a terrible game last week against Souths with zero attacking ball.

He has a decent matchup against Canberra this week and could easily go 150+, however you would be foregoing the C on Turbo if you VC Teddy, so this is an extremely audacious (borderline reckless) play.

Though as they say – desperate times call for desperate measures, and we all know what Tedesco can do to a team once the Roosters gain momentum and field territory.

ii) Ryan Papenhuyzen – In the exact same boat as Teddy, where if you VC him you forego Tommy – so, again, it’s an extremely aggressive play.

Melbourne have a relatively easy matchup against Cronulla and despite a few restings they still line up very strong across the park.

If you have Papenhuyzen you simply must captain him if you’re chasing ranks or are behind in a H2H final on the off chance he scores 200 and kicks 10 goals.

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iii) Nathan Cleary – Breezed to 100 last week after seemingly taking a back seat to Luai on attacking sets.

A full-strength Penrith against a zero strength Parramatta is asking for trouble.

As a non-Cleary owner coming into this round I’m truly terrified of what this score line might end up, however, it also wouldn’t surprise me if Cleary gets an early shower midway through the second half, by which time he could already have 150 on the board.

$$$ Tom Trbojevic $$$

If you don’t have Cleary or Papenhuyzen then Turbo is such an easy captaincy choice this round.

It’s obvious what sort of form Turbo is in, and it’s obvious Des wants the ball in his hands as much as possible every single set.

We saw a few more inside balls to Turbo last week than normal, as Manly look to expand their attacking repertoire coming into finals footy.

Undoubtably, if Manly get up to a 30+ lead with 20 minutes left then Turbo will get a rest much the same as Cleary will.

Either way, he is probably going to score more than anyone else in 60 minutes, so take the C off him at your own peril.

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OTHERS TO CONSIDER

All that being said, it’s a week where very few Supercoaches are carrying 17+ men.

That means we nearly all get two cracks at getting it right.

Manly play in the Saturday, 5.30pm timeslot, and the three games after them don’t present too many enticing options.

One option is to VC Trbojevic, and in the unlikely event he goes low, you can’t lock in a later skipper and get a jump on rivals.

If you feel you have a decent option playing late in the round, perhaps someone like Reece Walsh, it could pay off to do so.

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Realistically Turbo scores 130+ and you use the loophole on him anyway.

However, most will pick a vice-captain before Trbojevic plays as the options are more appealing.

It’s going to take a massive score to loop with Turbo’s outstanding match up with the Cowboys, so chase someone with a huge ceiling.

As listed above, Nathan Cleary is the obvious pick there if you are among the 30% odd that own him.

However, other options with a fairly high ceiling include Matt Burton, Brian To’o, Harry Grant and Jahrome Hughes.