Quantium data analysis: True player ownership stats, Round 1

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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.

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

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

That doesn’t mean it’s time to switch Burto to Doueihi – 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 of 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.  Note that I’ve highlighted players in red who are on the bye this weekend.  On average the top 1,000 teams have approximately 3 players unavailable due to the bye. 

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Fullback

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

Not surprisingly, Tom Trbojevic dominates ownership amongst the leading teams.

CTW

Five-Eighth

Whilst Matt Burton and Adam Doueihi have very similar ownership overall, their round one performances mean that those who went for Burto over Doueihi are well down the rankings in comparison.  That could easily change in the space of one week of course.

Kalyn Ponga’s owners would be pleased with his round one performance.

40% of the top 1,000 teams own Josh Schuster.  

Half Back

DCE was the highest scoring player in round one and as a result those teams that own him are heavily skewed towards the overall lead.  With a round two bye, that will quickly change of course. 

2RF

Not surprisingly, J’maine Hopgood is owned by almost all of the top 20,000 teams.  Those that don’t will presumably bring him straight in this week.

Is Tohu Harris the most under rated player in Supercoach over the past few years?  Every year he’s a POD and every year he is consistently one of the highest scoring 2RFs in the game.

Owners of proven guns like Isaiah Papali’i, Tino and Tapine need not panic.  Ditto owners of Egan Butcher whose score was badly impacted by his sin binning and errors.  It’s well worth watching the minutes of guys like Luke Garner, Jackson Ford and Bryce Cartwright this week.  If we see a repeat of round one, I’ll personally be downgrading Garner to a guy like Ford if he punches out 80 minutes again.

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FRF

Franklin Pele was huge disappointment for the 40% of teams in the top 10,000 who owned him – playing just 9 minutes despite the Bulldogs missing Luke Thompson, TPJ and Chris Patolo.  He looks a sell if you can find someone to sell him to!

HOK

Harry Grant’s try in golden point was a big relief for owners.  Several other hookers had great starts to 2023 including Reed Mahoney, JMK and Reece Robson.  Soni Luke looked great but was limited to just 26 minutes against the Broncos – a major concern for owners.  If he played more like 60 minutes, he’d be straight into my side.

Round 1 Captain Selection

Not surprisingly, the leading teams after round one tended to captain players that scored high in round one – i.e. Turbo, Reuben Garrick and DCE.  

Nice work by teams brave enough to (a) own DCE and (b) captain him in round one – hats off.

Good luck to everyone in Round 2.  I’m off to Melbourne hoping the Bulldogs can bounce back against the Storm.