NRL Fantasy 2021 Part 3 - Closer

Is Cleary worth the 200k more than Moses? Last preseason they were pretty much on par when it came to choosing between the two.
Cleary obviously a captaincy option, and Moses probably not but Moses plays first bye.

What's the verdict on Tino?

Priced at 43, averages 54.3 in 50+ minute games, excluding finals & Origin.

There's definitely potential value there, but at the same time, he's gone above 50 points 6 time - 5 included at least 1 try, and the other was the only time he's played 80 minutes.

He's very capable of scoring tries obviously, but it's an awkward price to be betting on attacking stats for a forward.

How many minutes does he get with Ese'ese/Peachy also sniffing around for minutes at lock?

Honey Badger wrote:Is Cleary worth the 200k more than Moses? Last preseason they were pretty much on par when it came to choosing between the two.
Cleary obviously a captaincy option, and Moses probably not but Moses plays first bye.

Cleary is definitely better than Moses. The switch from Maloney to Luai as halves partner saw an increase in scoring that is probably sustainable to a reasonable degree.

Whether he is $200k better is questionable. But for captaincy, you probably want an over 70 scorer in your squad if you can get one.

Related question is whether Moses is worth $100k over Munster.

The Pascoe Fiasco wrote:
This makes Hoy very appealing, if true. He can can even then hang around until Rd 13 at worst.

I'm sure we'll know more closer to TLT.
But if Tex Hoy gets 5 weeks and averages 40 odd points he would be good to have in your team

Honey Badger wrote:Is Cleary worth the 200k more than Moses? Last preseason they were pretty much on par when it came to choosing between the two.
Cleary obviously a captaincy option, and Moses probably not but Moses plays first bye.

Just ran a few quick numbers and over the games played by each up to and including round 13 last year.
Cleary averages 73 vs. Moses at 53.
If you take out Moses' injury affected 13 that's still > 200 point differential over approx. ten games....so probably worth it, but does depend on whether you think that $200k saved is going to get you points and upgrade $ elsewhere which can help you upgrade to Cleary after SOO & byes.

Obviously Moses has more potential upside, plays the first bye round and is not in danger of playing SOO (unless there is an injury apocalypse)

Edit : Obviously that was last year and there is no guarantee this season plays out the same way

Milchcow wrote:

Cleary is definitely better than Moses. The switch from Maloney to Luai as halves partner saw an increase in scoring that is probably sustainable to a reasonable degree.

Whether he is $200k better is questionable. But for captaincy, you probably want an over 70 scorer in your squad if you can get one.

The case for Cleary has been mounting in the back of my mind. I had decided early on that DCE was my gun half to start the year, but Cleary, he's just so reliable. I don't see much changing this year with his scores. I dont really want to play captain roulette to start the year.

my tv broke wrote:

The case for Cleary has been mounting in the back of my mind. I had decided early on that DCE was my gun half to start the year, but Cleary, he's just so reliable. I don't see much changing this year with his scores. I dont really want to play captain roulette to start the year.

I haven't really played with building a squad in detail, but when I was playing earlier in the week, adding Cleary basically meant getting rid of Cook or Tedesco, or running really thin on depth. For origin reasons probably OK not to run with all those 3 anyway.

Also warming to the idea of Wayde Egan, even though I am not super confident.

I do think there's an argument for Egan, but it's very much down to his minutes.

Priced at 33. Career average of 46.6 over 60+ mins.

Break it down further and in 50-60 minutes he averages 29.1

60-70 minutes that jumps to 47.2, although it's small sample size of 5, and he scored a try in 3 of those which seems unsustainable

In six 80 minute games he averages 46.2, although that's boosted by a career-high score of 70, which included a try, 3 tackle busts (career-high), and 52 run metres (second-most in his career). Take that out and he averages 41.4 in his other five 80 min games.

The plus side is that in 60+ minute games he averages 45 in tackles + MG + KM.

There's value there if you think he's going to play 60+ minutes, definitely avoid if he plays ~55 and gets spelled by Tevaga/Siro/Nikorima.

I'd still have him behind Watson, Brailey, and Liddle, and if you want to start with a gun hooker I don't think you can carry those 3 + Egan without throwing the balance way off.

mrbrownstone wrote:What's the verdict on Tino?

Priced at 43, averages 54.3 in 50+ minute games, excluding finals & Origin.

There's definitely potential value there, but at the same time, he's gone above 50 points 6 time - 5 included at least 1 try, and the other was the only time he's played 80 minutes.

He's very capable of scoring tries obviously, but it's an awkward price to be betting on attacking stats for a forward.

How many minutes does he get with Ese'ese/Peachy also sniffing around for minutes at lock?

I would expect Herman to be in the prop rotation, not playing lock.

Hooker tackle counts pre/post rule changes.

I totalled the tackle counts for all starting hookers across 2019 and 2020 and then worked out the average per 80 mins

2019 - 46.94
2020 (excluding rounds 1 and 2) - 49.61


*interestingly enough missed tackles for hookers were slightly lower in 2020, but basically negligible (2.74 in 2019, to 2.48 in 2020)

Speaking of hookers, does anyone like Hodgson?

Priced at 37, and his long-term average at hooker is 47.8 in 70+ minutes. Averaged 50 in 2019 taking out an injury-affected 16.

That NRL.com article on the biggest beneficiaries of the new rules had this stat too:

Josh Hodgson +3.56 ppg (7 turnover tackles, 1 steal in 9 matches)

So an extra bit of value there.

I guess the risk is coming back from an ACL. I hadn't considered him much, but don't mind it actually.

mrbrownstone wrote:Speaking of hookers, does anyone like Hodgson?
I guess the risk is coming back from an ACL. I hadn't considered him much, but don't mind it actually.

I think part of the problem is how many players do you want to have that are coming back from serious injury?

- Tommy Trbo
- Connor Watson
- Jayden Brailey
- Matt Moylan
- Matt Lodge
- Anthony Milford? (not serious, but recent)

That's before you even get into list of possibles like;
- Josh Hodgson
- Jack Bird
- Michael Morgan
- Jamayne Isaako

mrbrownstone wrote:I guess the risk is coming back from an ACL. I hadn't considered him much, but don't mind it actually.

Does a return from ACL hamper a player who plays in the middle as much as an outside back, who can take a year or so to get back up to speed/confidence?

Trying to think of recent examples of forwards who have done ACLs and how they returned in the next season.

Curtis Sironen and Christian Welch are two I can think of, and both returned pretty strongly.

I'm a huge fan of getting in guns that considerably outscore the next best option in their positions. At this point I think Tedesco, Cook, and Lolo (66.1 average >50 min and McInnes hard to justify atm) fit into that category, and having one of DCE/Cleary (With Brown there I really think Moses is handicapped in terms of fantasy points, Brown is such a good player) are good players to start with on day dot.

I am hopeful that Manly go a bit better this year and DCE picks up kicking to boost him by a few points average, and Luai takes on a little more responsibility next year to bring Cleary down a peg, but it probably comes down to whether I can fit in the extra 100k for Cleary in my final draft.

In my current draft I can fit Cook, Lolo, Fifita, Cleary, and Teddy in my team. Cleary and D. Fifi can be subbed for Matterson and DCE.

mrbrownstone wrote:I do think there's an argument for Egan, but it's very much down to his minutes.


There's value there if you think he's going to play 60+ minutes, definitely avoid if he plays ~55 and gets spelled by Tevaga/Siro/Nikorima.
.

Problem with this sort of analysis, is that there is no way you can apply it to making a round 1 team selection. How will you know if someone is going to play 40 minutes, 60 minutes or 80 minutes. Jazz Tevaga is bound to be in the 17.

Also if you are relying on a player getting an extra 5 minutes to cross the border to usefulness, its a very fine margin of questionable benefit.

But 2 of Egan's low scores last year came in rounds 1+2 before the rule change, so ignore those and I think 10 points under valued is least you can expec if he is starting hooker, no matter what the bench makeup is

Main problem is that I don't think he's actual first choice hooker, just playing there due to injuries, so there is always the concern that he gets dropped.

I'm going to keep reminding myself that Egan 2021 hype looks the same as why I picked Levi in 2020.

Strong avoid. Take out the games he score's tries and his scores are shithouse. I don't think he keeps scoring tries. Sorry but he's a bad footy player.

my tv broke wrote:I'm going to keep reminding myself that Egan 2021 hype looks the same as why I picked Levi in 2020.

Strong avoid. Take out the games he score's tries and his scores are shithouse. I don't think he keeps scoring tries. Sorry but he's a bad footy player.

Nathan brown has said he’ll most likely play Egan 80 I think he’ll surprise a lot of people if he stays healthy can be a very crafty 9 and can definitely find the try line as well. Given it was u20s the first time I watched him he scored 4

my tv broke wrote:I'm going to keep reminding myself that Egan 2021 hype looks the same as why I picked Levi in 2020.

Strong avoid. Take out the games he score's tries and his scores are shithouse. I don't think he keeps scoring tries. Sorry but he's a bad footy player.

Levi was so FUCKED after 20 minutes it made me want to vomit

Milchcow wrote:

Problem with this sort of analysis, is that there is no way you can apply it to making a round 1 team selection. How will you know if someone is going to play 40 minutes, 60 minutes or 80 minutes. Jazz Tevaga is bound to be in the 17.

Also if you are relying on a player getting an extra 5 minutes to cross the border to usefulness, its a very fine margin of questionable benefit.

But 2 of Egan's low scores last year came in rounds 1+2 before the rule change, so ignore those and I think 10 points under valued is least you can expec if he is starting hooker, no matter what the bench makeup is

Main problem is that I don't think he's actual first choice hooker, just playing there due to injuries, so there is always the concern that he gets dropped.

Yes and for those reasons I'll be avoiding him, it's just that his average jumps so much from 50-60 minute games to 60+ minute games.

I guess to be accurate, his average in 50-60 min appearances is 54 mins, and in 60-70 min appearances it's 67 mins, so it's more like an extra 13 minutes to cross the border into usefulness. In that time he averages 10 more tackles too.

There are a few factors for that. He's scored 45+ 5 times when playing over 60 minutes, and 4 of those have been boosted by tries. I'm not sure that I want a hooker who needs a try to score 45.

On your other point, he averaged 44 at starting hooker post-rule change last year (down to 40.2 if you take out his outlier 70).

For me, Liddle, Watson, Brailey, Hodgson are all better options, but there probably is some value there if you're brave enough.

Looks goof for Watson's fantasy output

https://www.nrl.com/news/2021/02/05/new-rules-to-suit-watsons-dream-of-knights-no.13-jersey/