The Final Word: Round 18 NRL Supercoach Strategy

NRL Supercoach Strategy

You can’t plan for this week without a serious consideration for what lies ahead of you for the rest of the season.

Round 18 marks two-thirds of the SuperCoach Classic season in the books, or three-quarters of the regular season if your focus is on head-to-head.

As trade numbers dwindle, the importance of each decision increases as the trades to correct mistakes or react to injuries become scarce.

And it’s not like Team List Tuesday hasn’t thrown us any spanners this week either.

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The Final Major and Mini Bye

When looking ahead the first factor is the upcoming byes.

Round 19 is looking to be the most difficult of the Major byes to have depth for.

The general feeling is that most good teams will have a squad of not much more than 13.

Unlike the earlier byes where we may have been inclined to chase players specifically for this period, with fewer trades and clearer ideas on who you want in your final team, is it worth chasing those one or two extra numbers for Round 19 if they’re not keepers?

More on that soon.

The Mini bye in round 20 is also looming as an absolute banana peel and potentially a season-defining round.

Not only will we have to contend with the unknown of which Origin players will back up, but we also have the Eels, Sharks and Dragons on the bye.

Popular options in Hynes, Nikora, Dylan Brown, Blaize Talagi, Mulitalo, Iro and Lomax won’t be available.

It’s worth looking at your numbers now to see how you’re shaping up as it could be a very tricky one.

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Getting guns back and making cash

As is always the case post the Major bye period, as soon as Round 20 is upon us Coaches will be scrambling to get the best players back into their sides as fast as possible.

We know popular gun players are dropped during the Origin period due to their availability – Angus Crichton being the poster boy this season – and the sooner they’re in your side the longer you get to benefit from their scoring.

And the kicker is it’s rarely a sideways move to get these guns.

So in order to make these moves, you will need to build bank to allow you to upgrade.

It’s for this reason, the heaven sent mid-rangers at CTW are calling to me as a genuine way to prepare for the home stretch of SuperCoach.

Between the likes of Greg Marzhew ($505k), Ronaldo ($469k), Koula ($434k) and, to a lesser extent, Will Pryce ($345k), options are emerging that can potentially do three jobs for you – a round 19 bye player, a season ‘keeper’ and a cash generator.

While all of these players do have question marks attached to them, their emergence at this time is a significant boon for those who want to build depth in their squads.

And rather than a nuff, a downgrade from a Manu, Valentine Holmes or even Zac Lomax could be a great way to bankroll the return of Angus, Nicho, Cleary, Latrell, Ponga or even a Haas in your side.

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Keepers playing the Round 19 Major Bye

The list is shorter than you may expect but the list of relevant players continues to decrease with each round of SuperCoach.

These are all players I’d happily own for 19 and for the run home.

• David Fifita; $832k – could get a Queensland call up but otherwise is a great addition to your team whenever you can afford.
• Nicho Hynes; $741,300 – there’s never been more options at HFB with six players putting their hand up for consideration. Hynes is the best one who plays the next bye and could be the best one in general with the Sharks lovely draw
• Greg Marzhew; $505k – coaches will flock to him and with good reason. He averages 75 with Ponga in the team and is cheap.
• Reuben Garrick; $686,400 – wait a week if you don’t own to see how they look and what side he plays. Right is ideal but he’s still a goal-kicking centre regardless.
• Jayden Campbell; $622k – five-eighth is not a position that you’ll have the reserve on each week when your final team is put together, but a goal-kicker in a high-scoring team is a fantastic option to play off match-ups.
• Cameron McInnes; $585,700 – one of the sneakiest 64 averages of the season. McInnes only needs minutes to go massive but is getting them this season.
• Briton Nikora; $638,100 – love him. Own him already. I’d almost put McInnes above him purely from an ownership perspective.
• Keaon Kolaomatangi; $678,100 – since moving to lock has been going enormous with a 5RA of 82. Yes, we know the risks of him moving to an edge. But the upside could be worth it.
• Max Plath; $589,700 – keeps getting it done, and could be your back-up five-eighth or depth option at 2RF for the run home.

Trade Plans

I’m in a position where my team value of $15.9m has afforded me serious depth.

I don’t have any urgent fires either, but am determined to continue to attack because my ability to get to my ‘end team’ by Round 21 could set me apart and allow me to push from my 3.6k rank into the top 1,000.

With only 10 players so far for Round 19, the temptation to trade is high but there’s very few people I’m willing to part with as it stands. So right now I will look at just one trade.

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Kai Pearce-Paul to Greg Marzhew via duals

I love Gregory Marzhew and I hate headaches.

As solid as KPP has been for me, this on-going backrow roulette between Dylan Lucas, Tyson Frizell and him are giving me greys.

I genuinely have no clue on how the final mix of minutes in Newcastle will shake out, but I do know Gregory plays 80 and has a negative breakeven.

His handy draw for H2H finals in Rounds 23-26 is also on my mind.

If I do pull the trigger on this move I will be left with 11 trades and still just 10 for the Major bye.

I’ll consider two more trades in round 19 – Papenhuyzen/Lomax to Garrick and Wishart to Campbell/Keaon for the run home. 

From there the moves I’ll consider:

• Blaize to Koula if at fullback still
• Burbo to nuff for cash
• Lomax/Papenhuyzen to Latrell/Ponga/Turbo

These are all aggressive moves and upgrades which will give me an incredibly deep squad.

I’ll probably need Timmy in my ear to remind me to calm down and save trades at some point but with the view of finishing strong, these are all feasible and on the cards.

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NRL SuperCoach PODs and SuperPODs

PODs at less than 10% ownership

• Latrell Mitchell; $870,200, 8% – crazy to think he could be the best fullback in the comp yet is still less than 10% owned. Well done to those that bought and held so far.
• Mitchell Barnett; $702,400, 8.1% – absolutely killing it and a fantastic POD option at FRF at his ownership.
• DCE; $580,600, 5.6% – averaging 67 on the year and with troops returning could be in for a huge finish to the season. Won’t play in Round 19 but a buy in round 23 for the run home could be a famous move.
• Keaon Koloamatangi; $678,100, 7% – gee he’s in good touch. He’s playing well enough to be considered as a potential Top 5 player at position which is remarkable from where he started the year. If he keeps the spot in the middle after Murray returns from Origin, jump on.

Super PODs at less than 5% ownership

• Connor Watson; $674,900, 4.4% – look up the term ‘goer’ in the dictionary and you’ll see a photo of this bloke. Looms as potentially the best hooker this season which, at his ownership, is remarkable.
• Jayden Campbell; $622,00, 4.7% – out this week and it remains to be seen how everything shakes out on the GC positionally but he looms as a fantastic POD at a difficult position.
• Kalyn Ponga; $877,600, 3.2% – surely only ghost teams own him, right? Wait a week but he could be a season defining trade in.
• Keano Kini; $685,300, 2.2% – if I had trades in hand I’d be very tempted to jump on Kini whose looked like one of the best attacking players in the competition. Worse case, with a -49 BE he still will make a stack of cash
• Bryce Cartwright; $599,500, 4% – playing with freedom after being hampered by a rib injury to start the year. Eels have a tough draw for the run home but this man can find attacking stats.

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NRL Supercoach Captain

Very hard to go past Tedesco and the Chooks.

While I look at a lot of data for how many points teams concede, you only need to see with your eyes how hard it was for the Tigers to stick with the Roosters last week to understand the gulf in class that the Top 3 sides – Chooks, Storm and Penrith – have over the field at the moment.

Teddy is almost at the point where he’s a ‘set and forget’ skipper choice.

For an exotic option, Latrell could have a field day against the Eels who don’t seem to be playing defense this season. 

There’s an awesome VC opportunity for Jahrome Hughes or Eli Katoa options on Saturday 5:30pm against the Tigers.

And those with Nicho can similarly have a swing at him against the Titans too.

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