Quantium data analysis: Rd 2, vital numbers to beat the best

• SPY TALK: Tackling the week’s big questions
• CAPTAIN’S CHALLENGE: Skippers to target and avoid

We are back! How good is it to have the NRL and NRL Supercoach back?!

For those new to this column, each week (work commitments permitting!) I will dive into the ownership stats around the top leading teams to help Supercoaches get a better feel for the true ownership of different players. 

Unfortunately, the player ownership stats on the Supercoach website aren’t particularly useful – but I guess that means that hopefully these stats can give you an edge on other players by truly understanding whether a certain player is a POD or not.

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For regular readers, I’ve expanded the analysis this year to include the top 100,000 teams – so we’ve got even more data to play with.

A word of caution…naturally the ownership stats after round 1 are going to be strongly correlated with round one performance. 

As an example, the highest ranked teams after round one are unlikely to have spent their money on a guy like Kotoni Staggs who bombed out relative to his cost…versus a guy like Jack Bird who outperformed. 

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That doesn’t mean it’s time to switch Staggs to Bird – by all means go for it, but one round is one round and it always takes a few weeks to settle the noise from the reality. 

Personally, I focus my early trades on ensuring I have secured the right cash cows as opposed to using sidewards trades on proven guns due to one or two low scores. Save trades while you can!

Without further ado, let’s get into it.

Fullback

The table below sets out the proportion of teams in the top 1,000, top 5,000, top 10,000, top 20,000 and top 100,000 that own each fullback. 

Not surprisingly, fullback overall is dominated by Teddy and Pappy amongst the top 100,000 teams.  

The top 1,000 teams are skewed away from Teddy – but clearly the guy is a gun and I think that just provides the opportunity to overtake those teams.

With Turbo’s starting price so high, we have a lot more variation at fullback to start the season so that creates some more interest and POD options at least.

CTW

As always, CTW is a position where lots of teams have looked to save some bucks and pick up a couple of cash cows. 

The result is that more than 50% of teams own each of Izack Tago (67%), Will Penisini (64%), Talatau Amone (52%) and Viliami Vailea (51%). Plenty more own James Schiller, Tolutau Koula and Sean Russell.

Personally I don’t think it’s worth over analysing the ownership stats of others yet. 

Five-eighth

There wasn’t a lot of high scoring at five-eighth in round one. In fact, a number of those who did score well either suffered injuries or have been dropped back to the bench this week (i.e. SJ, Billy Walters, Will Smith).

Not an easy position this year at this point in my opinion.

Halfback

The stand out performer at halfback in round one (and arguably in the whole competition) was Jahrome Hughes. 

Hughes is owned by 15% of the top 100,000 teams but by 50% of the top 1,000 teams. 

What a great player. For those who can afford upgrading an injured SJ to Hughes, lucky you!

2RF

Beyond a small number of potential cash cows, there is plenty of variability at 2RF to start the year. 

Apart from Ryan Matterson and Brandon Smith going down injured, no one jumped out as a must trade in or out to me. There was some promise from the Cowboys second-rowers, but we have an opportunity to take another look at both of them this week.

I started with Jason Taumalolo (along with 31% of the top 100,000) and I wasn’t super excited by what I saw, but I’ll be holding any trades for now.

FRF

Payne Haas was one of the more dominant displays of round one which bears out in the leading teams being more likely to have him than other teams.

I’ve got Haas – but it’s worth bearing in mind that the Supercoach title over the past two years has not been won at FRF. The margin between Haas and others isn’t so big that you have to fork out the big dollars. It’s much more important to buy the right attacking players at the right price.

Max King is the third most popular FRF but is still only owned by 39% of the top 100,000. He looked good on debut for the Dogs.

HOK

Not surprisingly, the vast majority of teams own Chris Randall. He looks a solid cash cow, so all good there.

Round one saw Api Koroisau do really well, but the big talking point was Brandon Smith’s injury: (a) because it hurt his 27% of owners, but also (b) because it makes Harry Grant even more attractive now. 

Grant is owned by less than 10% of teams, but could well be the standout hooker this season.

Round 1 Captaincy Choices

Not surprisingly, choice of captain had a huge bearing on ranking this week. 

There was actually a huge amount of variation in captaincy selections this week. The teams near the lead captained guys like Jahrome Hughes, Ryan Papenhuyzen and Payne Haas whilst those who captained Teddy (including me) got smashed.

As regular readers of this article will know by now, the captaincy percentages on the Supercoach site are about as reliable as a Nigerian bank transfer email.  Trust them at your peril. 

Good luck again to everyone in Round 2 – and most importantly, give my mighty Bulldogs strength against the Broncos this week!