NRL Supercoach Round 23 Wrap: 9 Things We Learnt

Teddy came, he conquered and left with a bag full of H2H wins!

Week one of H2H finals were on, and it all came down to Tedesco, who decided this weekend was the one to explode, and left all those non-owners in his wake.

Not sure if there are too many non-owners at this time of year, but he certainly made or broke your weekend.

Hell, he could have even laced up the runner son Sunday and run a sub 1 hour 18 min City to Surf run on Sunday, and that wouldn’t have surprised anyone. 

There weren’t too many big scores across the weekend – only eight 100+ scores, and of those eight, five were between 100 and 107

So, trying to go big to win your final wasn’t the weekend it was going to happen.

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The Reapers were tracking along ok until Sunday rolled around.

A poor sit v start decision (Guymer over Savala. Someone give me a lobotomy) and a poor C choice in Lomax ended with 1299 points and a H2H final loss.

This dropped me only 292 spots into 14473 overall.

Two trades left –  wonder which one will get Maxy all riled up about!  

Anyway, here is what we learned in Round 23 of NRL Supercoach.

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1. Teddy the weekend killer

The King takes back his rightful crown!

What a performance from the game’s number 1 player!

I might have said last week the number one player was Cleary, but that was last week…

That was before a beautiful 189 points on Saturday afternoon!

I’m not going back to check, but the highest score of the year, and just in time for H2H finals.

If you managed to be smarter than the average bear, and found Teddy as your Captain or VC, not even an appearance of Tui Simpkins would have worried you as you were looking at a massive 378 points, surely winning you your H2H final.

He just has these performances year in year out, and you just need to catch lightning when he does.

There was nothing in the previous month to suggest this was on the horizon.

Coming into the match, he had a 3RA of under 50. 

I wasn’t all that surprised when the points kept adding up, although I remembered the Dolphins as a team that could tackle. 

Didn’t realise it was Herbie making all these tackles!

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2. Captains and VCs ruin (my) weekend

If we weren’t lucky enough to put the armband (or vice armband?) on Tedesco, there wasn’t much to ride home about!

Plenty of questions were asked about whether to take Cleary’s VC score, which was updated to 104 on Sunday afternoon.

The answer to that was probably yes, despite who your AE would have been, as we saw that the longer the weekend went on, the worse the captain’s scores got.

Plenty were riding JC at a sunny Gold Coast, and there were plenty of cheers when he waltzed over in the opening 15 minutes.. only for Latrell to dive out and knock the ball loose.

How many H2H finals matches that one play costs we will never know!!

Thankfully, he was given the line break and shook it off to manage a tidy 78.

Brimson was one for the exotics, and he downgraded horribly to 50.

Didn’t register an attacking stat, and get used to that new owners!

I’ve been a big AJ guy since Round 1 and am used to getting big scores when you least expect it and some dross when you need it.

But as Sunday rolled on, it only got worse.

Those, including me, who waited so patiently for Zac Lomax to take pity on a sorry Cowboys defence were left hoping for the updates of all updates to roll in

Nope. Just Zac doing his thing and not getting any clean ball or chances to attack, leaving him well below what was expected of him. 

Pretty much ended everyone’s H2H if you went him as your captaincy choice. Like this guy writing the article.

Few more weeks like that and it will be enough to send you to the Hairport in Turkey.

Roll on to next week!

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3. Gagai fails under the weight of Supercoaches

Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

Dane Gagai was the most popular trade-in this week, with Herbie going down.

Everything made sense.

Good matchup, Indigenous Round, so he was surely set to go large, goal kicking and has a Penrith side who can leak points.

Unfortunately for so many of you new owners, he couldn’t carry that burden, and hit the skids after a huge 3 weeks.

The wet weather didn’t help, nor did Newcastle’s inept footballing ability, but Gagai just couldn’t get involved.

Finished with 40, which included a try contribution and 2 goals. 

And here I was getting bagged by Maxy for bringing in Munster instead of Gagai.

Gets a dream redemption matchup this coming week against the Cowboys, who could fall in a heap after the Eels’ loss.

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4. Strange happenings in Canberra town

Cherry-Evans was a clean, clean man on Friday night.. 

That was after Ethan Strange gave him a bath, carving up the right edge of Manly to post a massive 127 points!

Huge rewards for those chasing a POD 5/8 as he scored a hat-trick and all but ended Manly’s hopes of a finals push.

I was at the game and didn’t get much joy out of watching Manly.

Thankfully, though, it was about -8, so I was using all my energy into making sure I didn’t get hypothermia and didn’t seem to care all that much.

Trading him in now isn’t advised as his bye comes at a very bad time for those who are looking at a POD.

Will be sub $600k in two weeks and a player who could take you to H2H glory with a match up against the Panthers in what would be a Preliminary Final in Mudgee, then Tigers. 

Takes ownership of his edge, and the Raiders will be pushing for top spot.

Old moves win you trophies! 

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6. Nikora taking owners for a ride

I must admit I was a whisker away from being one of these owners.

Couple weeks ago, he seemed the ideal player, great run, coming into a bit of form, knows how to score a try.

His back-to-back weeks of 108 and 103 in Rounds 15 and 16 were shaping up as must-haves for the run home. 

Had a good 2 weeks post that, then copped a HIA in Round 20 for a score of 4, missed Round 21, came back last weekend to rain-soaked Cowboys for 44, then finishes with 38 against the Dragons.

And now, he gets suspended for 3 weeks!

Let’s unpack that…

If you bought him in Round 20, you have 86 points in 4 rounds.

If you don’t trade him out, that’s 86 points in 7 Weeks.

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7. Haas returns but can he play halfback?

He was a sight for sore eyes and patient owners.

Payne Haas returns for Brisbane and gets through unscathed!

That can’t be said for some of his teammates, but for Its been a very patient wait for those who held through and post Origin, with Haas lacing up for only his fifth game in the last 9 outings.

And didn’t miss a beat, thankfully, scoring 83 without a single attacking stat!

Will now see out the regular season without his 6 and 7, as both Reynolds and Mam both went down in the same play, clutching at the same hamstring!

Don’t think this will affect Haas’ output, but they might lack some try-scoring prowess and will look to him and Carrigan for some spark. 

Offloads for days!!

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8. Time to go Drinky?

Desperate times call for desperate measures..

Is it time to ditch the drink and go dry for the run home? 

Couple awful puns for you there, but Drinky has turned in scores of 49, 87, 91, 34 and 37 in his last 5 outings for a 5RA of sub 60.

Nowhere near as good enough for his price tag and what we know he can deliver.

If his run wasn’t Knights and Tigers, where there could very easily be a 100+ score, he would certainly be on the chopping block.

Lost the goalkicking, which is a huge concern because he has the base of wet crepe paper

It might actually be the spark you need for a H2H elimination final win.

And there is a bloke who’s regained the number 1 jersey for his side, and who plays the Tigers, Dolphins, Dragons and finishes with the Warriors

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9. Minute Watch

Storm v Broncos
Grant 80, EKat 80, Haas 68, Carrigan 80, 

Knights v Panthers
KPP 80, McEwen 80, Smith 47, IPap 47, Sorensen 27

Raiders v Sea Eagles
Starling 68, Taps 50, Young 80, Hosking 65, Horse 48, Tevaga 42, 

Dragons v Sharks
JDB 57, Liddle 49, AFB 58, Brailey 80, Nikora 77, Wilton 80

Dolphins v Roosters
JMK 70, Lemuelu 49, Watson 55, Crichton 80, Whyte 53

Bulldogs v Warriors
Kiks 77, Preston 80, Ford, 59, Clark 61, Halasima 43

Titans v Rabbitohs
Crandell 80, Fermor 80, Simpkins 19, Duncan 80, Hubner 39

Eels v Cowboys
Guymer 47, Smith 68, Williams 80, Hopgood 65, Hess 60, Bateman 80