2017 NRL.com Fantasy thread part 1

Warriors wrote:
Team at the moment is:

RTS, Hayne, Slater, Pythian, Dufty
Trobjevic, C Scott, R Jennings, B Kelly
DCE, Norman, Elgy, L Croker
C Hess, J Arrow, TPJ, Nat Butcher, J Stimpson, K Capewell
S Burgess, P Vaughan, Josh McGuire, George Burgess
C Smith, C McInnes

Even if you moved Surgess to 2rf for Capewell and grabbed a rookie FRF it is still too weak. You have Butcher, Stimpson, Capewell and TPJ all on the edge of first grade selection with only TPJ likely in the best 17 for their club. You will be playing catch up all year starting with that second row

@ Warriors - your first team was much much better bro.

multiple.scoregasms wrote:

Even if you moved Surgess to 2rf for Capewell and grabbed a rookie FRF it is still too weak. You have Butcher, Stimpson, Capewell and TPJ all on the edge of first grade selection with only TPJ likely in the best 17 for their club. You will be playing catch up all year starting with that second row

I understand that the balance is not great but with this years cap its going to be hard to not have weak positions in your squad. I'm trying to go guns/rookies but the cap limits the effectiveness of this strategy. Maybe this is the year where you need to pick a whole heap of $250K to $400K players like K Brom, M Prior, J Wallace, Gurgess, D Saifiti, Hurrell, M Moses, Vaughan, Hess, D Walker, RTS etc and get less guns/cows.

A 17 of

Smith, McInnes
Vaughan, McGuire, Gurgess
Surgess, Hess, Arrow, TPJ
DCE, Norman, Elgy
Trobjevic, Scott
RTS, Hayne, Slater

is as good as any I have seen here. My picks of Arrow (should play 40 mins), TPJ (should play 35 mins), Butcher (could play 30 mins while TKO is out) and Capewell (could start Centre or Wing) are also bye friendly, so if they don't get the early gametime and mature quickly then at least they should get gametime during origin.

Can someone explain to me the Sam Burgess as a must pick? Nearly everyone saying he is a must pick. How underpriced is he at the moment?

my tv broke wrote:

as others have said, it is unlikely he will be in the 17, and if he is, his mins will be low.

his chances have improved though as Dodds has re-injured his leg and wont start the season

the five that will definitely be there are blair mcguire gillett thaiday glenn, then the three other spots will go to eseese, TPJ and probably one of arrow/offa/sua

apparently ese ese is in great shape and impressing everyone at training. he may be the one to benefit with mins in the middle without parker/wallace, priced pretty cheaply. i have my eye on him, especially if mcguire takes the "#13"

tidbit of info but the starting pack at broncos opposed training today was

Ofahengaue
McCullough
Blair
Thaiday
Gillett
McGuire

Cheers mate. Interesting there's no Glenn there. So what's the word on McCullough. Is it going to be like last year with K-Nik stealing his minutes or will he stay on the field for longer as he's their best defender. It was very obvious in 2016 when Macca & Parker were off the field the Broncos lost control of the ruck.

White Lightning wrote:

Cheers mate. Interesting there's no Glenn there. So what's the word on McCullough. Is it going to be like last year with K-Nik stealing his minutes or will he stay on the field for longer as he's their best defender. It was very obvious in 2016 when Macca & Parker were off the field the Broncos lost control of the ruck.

not sure how knik will be used but i expect similar to the past.

have seen alot of chat about glenn but i expect him to come off the bench and play a similar role to what he did towards the end of 2016. thaiday and gillett will be the edge forwards and i reckon mcguire is almost definite to be the #13 and is high on my watch list if so.

Random wrote:Can someone explain to me the Sam Burgess as a must pick? Nearly everyone saying he is a must pick. How underpriced is he at the moment?

Gun keeper in a team that plays all three big byes, set and forget. Don't think he will get cheaper that's all so saves a trade. Priced at 55, ended the year hitting 60s I think after starting slowly.

White Lightning wrote:

Cheers mate. Interesting there's no Glenn there. So what's the word on McCullough. Is it going to be like last year with K-Nik stealing his minutes or will he stay on the field for longer as he's their best defender. It was very obvious in 2016 when Macca & Parker were off the field the Broncos lost control of the ruck.

Glenn is off contract end of this year, expecting him to be out of favour and sign elsewhere for 2018, possibly the warriors if Hoffman retires.

Random wrote:Can someone explain to me the Sam Burgess as a must pick? Nearly everyone saying he is a must pick. How underpriced is he at the moment?

To me he's are must have due to high ownership (everyone's probable 2nd pick if they go with Smith as 1st pick) so it's a tactical move. Also I'm assuming he'll play big minutes with a full off season under his belt. I read on some Souths forum that in pre season he's setting personal bests in testing & that was before Xmas. Plus Souths have an easy opening draw with wests (h), manly (a), knights (a) & with Surgess having better attacking stats he should score well in these opening 3 games. Also I forgot to mention Souths are the only team that play the 4 big bye rounds (12,15,18, 19). ok round 19 isn't a big bye round but 4 teams do have byes.

White Lightning wrote:@ Warriors - your first team was much much better bro.

Can't even find my first team. How different was it?

Warriors wrote:

Can't even find my first team. How different was it?

I sure I was reading your previously posted team the other day. I know you had Hoare in your frf. The 2fr had Surgess in it & it had better depth. Other than that I don't know.

White Lightning wrote:

Cheers mate. Interesting there's no Glenn there. So what's the word on McCullough. Is it going to be like last year with K-Nik stealing his minutes or will he stay on the field for longer as he's their best defender. It was very obvious in 2016 when Macca & Parker were off the field the Broncos lost control of the ruck.

Not that surprising to see Glenn missing.

By the end of last year Thaiday and Gillett were starting ahead of him. They are both still around, so unless one of them changes position (which of course is a real possibility) Glenn could stay on the bench.

Fantasy wise Ofahengaue starting I think is the best outcome - he has the most potential for making cash

If that is the starting line up the bench is probably
Kniko
Glenn
Arrow
TPJ/Dodds

multiple.scoregasms wrote:If that is the starting line up the bench is probably
Kniko
Glenn
Arrow
TPJ/Dodds

dodds is injured again, but Ese'Ese will almost certainly feature in the 17

my tv broke wrote:

dodds is injured again, but Ese'Ese will almost certainly feature in the 17

That means Arrow or TPJ will not be quite as good as cash cow as most seem to think

multiple.scoregasms wrote:

That means Arrow or TPJ will not be quite as good as cash cow as most seem to think

So Broncoes mins will all depend on whether Knik is on the bench. If he is I see which is 80% likely then

Ofa 35
McCullough 60
Blair 45
Thaiday 60
Gillette 80
McGuire 65

Knik 30
Glenn 35
1 of TPJ/Esese 30
Arrow 40

Thinking if there is an injury to a middle forward Arrow picks up minutes, edge forward Glenn picks up minutes. Can't see Macca playing 80.

multiple.scoregasms wrote:With how stacked centre is and how lacking 2rf is I wouldn't mind starting the year with Sione at 2rf then moving him as a centre keeper later. Just between 350k and 250k at centre you have Dylan Walker, Konrad Hurrell, Aaron Gray(if centre), Michael Jennings, Will Chambers and then the likes of Dean Whare and Jamaal Idris around 200k. Could take advantage of the early cash cows then cash out/move for a keeper in
2rf

I think Sione at 2RF has merit. At least at this point there seems to be little going on in 2rf at that price, and plenty of cheaper CTR options.
But how confident are you on some of those centres. Some are a little expensive to be risked as money makers

Aaron Gray finished the year in good form, but are you willing to bet on him continuing that (which saw him score 4 tries in the last 4 weeks)
His first 5 games after moving from wing to centre he averaged 30.6, slightly less than his priced average.

Will Chambers was nowhere near his best (fantasy or actual ability wise) after returning from injury. Maybe after a full off-season he may be able to get back on track, but not something I think I'd be comfortable risking.

Is there anything about Michael Jennings that makes you think his scores will improve? I think he is accurately priced. Not going to revisit his glory days again IMO

Dylan Walker is interesting. He is definitely a better fantasy option at centre than at five-eighth. But the Manly team looks to be in a bit of a rebuilding phase at the moment, and I don't trust their attacking output.

Whare and Idris are promising if they can show that they are over their injuries. I'm still annoyed about Whare getting a price bump though, was hoping to get him for minimum based on his 2016 output.

Hurrell almost had me sold until his latest injury. Once he got established at the Titans he was back to his best of averaging mid 40s.


Personally I like Idris and Hurrell. If I had to pick a team today and they were both fit I think they would both be there.

So which of the guns are people definitely avoiding.

Farah and A-Rey seem to be a common no-go zone, and I agree.
Farah has terrible byes if he plays origin, plus his role at souths is uncertain.
A-Rey is injury prone and will now be suffering from being halfback to Farah.


I'm also not touching DCE. For the first time in his career he'll be playing along side a halves partner that can also kick a ball. I also distrust Manly's ability to compete this year and am worried about his attacking output.

Farah is pretty tempting but as an unwritten rule I almost always stay away from him (probably just because i don't like him).

Milchcow wrote:
So which of the guns are people definitely avoiding.

Farah and A-Rey seem to be a common no-go zone, and I agree.
Farah has terrible byes if he plays origin, plus his role at souths is uncertain.
A-Rey is injury prone and will now be suffering from being halfback to Farah.


I'm also not touching DCE. For the first time in his career he'll be playing along side a halves partner that can also kick a ball. I also distrust Manly's ability to compete this year and am worried about his attacking output.

Agree on Farah and Adam Reynolds, Origin is the main reason and Farah kicks the ball so might take kick metres.

I have locked Norman in, Cleary I would have if he wasn't so expensive, so it was a toss up between SJ and DCE for me, and I've gone with DCE to start with an eye on Johnson after 5 or 6 rounds. Just wanted to see how Foran would impact him.

I have more faith in DCE than Ben Hunt, and can't be bothered with Mitchell Moses inconsistency for now. Whoever punts on Johnson and Moses could go well but could be left with egg on their face.