Squad breakdown: Sea Eagles 2025 NRL Supercoach analysis

The Manly Warringah Sea Eagles enter the 2025 season with a balanced roster and genuine opportunity to compete for the premiership.

As always, Tom Trbojevic holds the key to their prospects.

As it stands, the superstar fullback is fully fit heading into round 1 which is a frightening prospect for rivals.

With his attacking prowess, he also holds the key to unlocking their Supercoach potential.

Their draw to begin the season is outstanding, with four of their first five games at home at Brookvale Oval.

Let’s take a look at their Supercoach prospects to begin the NRL season.

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Manly Warringah Sea Eagles

1. Tom Trbojevic
2. Jason Saab
3. Reuben Garrick
4. Tolutau Koula
5. Lehi Hopoate
6. Luke Brooks
7. Daly Cherry-Evans
8. Taniela Paseka
9. Jake Simpkin
10. Josh Aloiai
11. Haumole Olakau’atu
12. Ben Trbojevic
13. Jake Trbojevic
14. Jazz Tevaga
15. Nathan Brown
16. Toa Sipley
17. Ethan Bullemor

Unavailable: Lachlan Croker (knee, round 4)

Analysis: It’s a fairly settled line-up at Manly to begin the season.

Lachlan Croker’s recent injury will see Jake Simpkin and Gordan Chan Kum Tong fight for the starting hooker role.

Recruit Jazz Tevaga is likely to nab a bench spot and provide cover at number nine if required.

The other big battle will be for the final backline spot, with Tommy Talau and Lehi Hopoate likely competing for a spot on the wing.

Trial form will dictate who gets the nod.

DRAW

Cowboys (H), Warriors (A), Raiders (H), Eels (H), Storm (H), Sharks (Perth), Dragons (H), Panthers (A)

First five rounds rating: 8/10

PREDICTED TEAMS: Every club’s round 1 starting 17

POSITIONAL WACHLIST: Five-eighth targets for 2025

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GUNS

Tom Trbojevic – FLB – $875,600

I believe that a fully fit Tom Trbojevic is the best player in NRL Supercoach.

Starting the season with four of his first five games at home is mouth-watering.

He started the 2024 season with a 77.4 Supercoach average across the first five games, the final of those games being a 111 against Penrith.

He finished the season with an average of 104 in his final eight games on return from injury.

The only concern when paying up big cash for an attack reliant player early is that NRL scoring and Supercoach point scoring is often restricted in the opening stages of the season.

Tommy is a different beast though so I wouldn’t be too concerned.

When I say attack reliant, Turbo has tremendous base and power stats so he’ll never score poorly, but when paying $875k you’ll need some major attacking stats to hit his value.

Fully fit, he looks very hard to ignore to begin the season.

Buy rating: 8/10

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Haumole Olakau’atu – 2RF – $665,700

Big Ola is always a genuine starting option with his upside, although he probably hasn’t evolved into the elite Supercoach prospect we’ve hoped for in recent years.

He’s had very healthy SC averages of 68 points and 69 points the past two seasons which is strong, but I feel he’s capable of elevating himself closer to the David Fifita-Angus Crichton level of scoring.

His base of 43 per game last season is okay at best, making him fairly reliant on attacking stats to hit his value.

What boosts his scoring though is that he averages four tacklebusts per game which are essentially a given each week.

I think there’s better value around, but I can’t knock anyone keen on Ola.

Buy rating: 6/10

Reuben Garrick – CTW – $680,300

If you think Manly start with a bang, you should seriously be considering Reuben Garrick.

The move to centre last season didn’t stifle his Supercoach scoring at all.

His season average of 70 is deceiving as he had three injury impacted games for a total of 55 minutes.

Remove those and he averages 79.16 for the season, while his base elevates from 32 to 35.

Disregarding those three injured games, he averaged 50 points per game in base and goalkicking alone.

Buy rating: 7/10

Daly Cherry-Evans – HFB – $646,500

Cherry-Evans is a solid option, but doesn’t have the upside of HFB rivals such as Nathan Cleary and Nicho Hynes.

He’ll be 36 years old by the time the season starts, and in my opinion needs the goal-kicking duties to be Supercoach relevant.

He tends to come into SC relevance later in the season once Manly’s attack is humming in stretches of games against weaker, injury depleted opposition.

He’ll do a job for you, but there’s better options.

Buy rating: 5/10

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MID-RANGERS

Taniela Paseka – FRF – $441,900

Probably not one to strongly consider, but if we get to round 1 and FRF options are hard to find you could look into Paseka.

He’s priced on a 45 point average last season, down from 54 in 2023, so there’s an argument to say he’s undervalued.

He had 30 tackle busts last season and a base of 41 per game.

I do think he’d be serviceable at around a 45-50 point average to begin the season, but he’s priced near enough at what he’ll deliver.

Buy rating: 3/10

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CHEAPIES

Jake Simpkin $318,100 and Gordon Chan Kum Tong $232,600

Lachlan Croker is out until approximately round 4, opening up cheapie hooker slots for Simpkin and Chan Kum Tong.

The issue is they’ll likely share minutes in the role, but there is merit in either if they were to get the sole hooking role in the team.

The issue remains though that Jazz Tevaga could spend time at hooker from the bench, and Croker could also return early.

Three big minute games for Simpkin last year were:

•  64 points in 68 minutes including 43 in base and one try-assist
• 45 points in 80 minutes with 45 in base
• 46 points in 67 minutes with 50 in base

Essentially, either would have to be starting without any sign of the other, and we’d need confirmation of Croker missing at least the first month.

Buy rating: 3/10