2019 NRL.com Fantasy thread part 2

I'm just a dumb fan but I still can't believe the Knights are moving Ponga to 6.

my tv broke wrote:I'm just a dumb fan but I still can't believe the Knights are moving Ponga to 6.

I get it. The amount that Connor Watson is better at fullback than 5/8th is greater than any amount they lose with Ponga in the halves because he'll be a superstar there as well. The same reason Slater was fullback for Qld and GI centres because GI was awesome in either position.

Hi guys, I've been lurking and been loving the discussion. Just to add to the Ponga change of position - After watching him be thrown into an unfamiliar position in Origin and still thrive I believe he's too talented not to be successful at half.

Could he be a better Fullback than 6? Sure but his playstyle is fantasy mf gold. It'll be like running without Tedesco, you're going to hope and then hurt.

Bagpipe wrote:Hi guys, I've been lurking and been loving the discussion. Just to add to the Ponga change of position - After watching him be thrown into an unfamiliar position in Origin and still thrive I believe he's too talented not to be successful at half.

Could he be a better Fullback than 6? Sure but his playstyle is fantasy mf gold. It'll be like running without Tedesco, you're going to hope and then hurt.

mate. And your right, it's really hard work death riding those guys when you don't have them! You'll be thinking awesome Teddy's on 25 with 5 minutes to go, and then BOOM - 25 point play. There's a lot of value at WFB though and I don't know if I will fit him in to start.

Gday guys, first login since last November. Great to see some familar faces still around. Might have been mentioned but anyone else annoyed at Drinkwater's price?

After watching him live last year, I had him down as my first cheapie must have for this season. But so sure after being priced at $580.

hymenbustas wrote:Gday guys, first login since last November. Great to see some familar faces still around. Might have been mentioned but anyone else annoyed at Drinkwater's price?

After watching him live last year, I had him down as my first cheapie must have for this season. But so sure after being priced at $580.

Annoying but consistent with previous years

The year Damien Cook made his debut, he only played 3 games, but was actually the highest average in the league that year (higher than Cam Smith) so was priced stupidly the next year

Bagpipe wrote:Hi guys, I've been lurking and been loving the discussion. Just to add to the Ponga change of position - After watching him be thrown into an unfamiliar position in Origin and still thrive I believe he's too talented not to be successful at half.

Could he be a better Fullback than 6? Sure but his playstyle is fantasy mf gold. It'll be like running without Tedesco, you're going to hope and then hurt.

Welcome mate! I'm inclined to Mulvy's argument in this - so many interesting cows at WFB (Lomax, Ravala,Hopoate, Abbey, Meaney, Oldfield) as well as good-value-good-uns (Hughes, Watson, Edwards, Brimson, Mansauce) that I just can't see me going for a premium WFB keeper for Round 1. Will Teddy outscore DedWards? Sure. But that 300k turns (e.g.) Napa into Offa, and that feels like a much better trade.

Milchy wrote:

Annoying but consistent with previous years

The year Damien Cook made his debut, he only played 3 games, but was actually the highest average in the league that year (higher than Cam Smith) so was priced stupidly the next year

Speaking of Cook, does anyone see him playing to the heights he did last year? He could be a couple of out of form burgii bros away from a less than steller season.

How are we gents,

Havent been on since last season.

Who are the cheapie front rows people are thinking of using this year?
Also whats everyone think of easy e?

Thanks for the warm welcome lads, back in Aus and looking for work so i thought I'd wander back in here in between Netflix and Dota. Might contribute something more than 1 or 2 Rapa pics i guess, so I'll start with Raiders. Firstly cause I'm one eyed and Secondly and more importantly, cause I think they'll be somewhat overlooked by most because they appear to have few changes on initial glance.

So on to the Breakdown.
Notable Losses (Italics are borderline): Austin, Paulo, Boyd, Gubb, Knight
Notable Gains: Pom Bateman , Sutton.

As i said, on first glance a lot of people will see Paulo and Boyd being replaced by two Poms and think nothing much of it.
However, what's missing there is that Bateman is better suited in the back row or lock i believe (happy to be corrected by the poms on this one). With Papa, Whitehead and Tarps all playing there, chances are one of these will be shifted to Prop, with my bet being Papa. Could be interesting, Papa can work hard when in the middle.
Secondly, both Paulo and Boyd were large less mobile bodies, which tended to have an impact on our defence, most notably out wide as the middle rarely pushed wide fast enough and left the outside men with overlaps and hard choices, rarely getting it right. The smaller more mobile blokes (and i believe Sutton tends to be quite good defensively according to his stats?) could potentially see a few less points lost defensively.

Next is Austin, i won't talk about him and his play or how the loss of him may effect the team (although for the record i think it will be a positive for both parties). But what I do want to go into is what this means for the halves, as something talked about all off season was Wighton training there. He's quite strong defensively (which is once again great for the outside backs) and you would assume would play the role of secondary playmaker, leaving the organisation up to Sezer. This could potentially see both get an increase of scoring. It also would open up the fullback slot...

This could then see Cotric shift back to FB, which is hard to gauge wrt to his scoring as he's done fantastically on the wing and been up and down in the few games at NRL FB. I'd be willing to back him as being a gun if he stayed there all season but it could be a rocky start scoring wise. Alternatively it may see Abbey or Oldfield slot in at FB. Not sure how i feel about that but fantasy wise I'm not thrilled.

Which leads on to Rapa being out for the first half of the year. Gutted. Heartbroken. I blame Welshy. It will be interesting to see what impact this has on BJ, could he go looking for even more work with his mate not there or will he too go missing? Could the Raiders attack shift to focusing more on Croker + Cotric (if he remains on the wing)?

Anyway, personally I'll be looking at quite a few of the Raiders players as potentials for my team (surprise surprise). If the poms get a discount I'll be hard pressed to overlook them and the same goes with Papa in the middle, although I'm a little unsure about the bench rotation and minutes. Wighton at 6 tempts me with extra defensive work and kick meters. Sezer would be on my watch list to see if he went back to scoring like the titans days. Cotric would be on the watch list at FB.

Hey fellas, back for another year. Have tried to catch up on the threads as best I can.

Looking closely at Capewell and perhaps Sorenson if he is the one to replace Graham while he's out with injury. The sharks rushed him back a few times last year which I doubt they will do again..

Also with Mannerings departure, Ipapalii could lock down that edge role for 80 (which he played for 10 games last year). A quick glance at his scores places his current value 9 points below his 80min avg from 2018.

Archer wrote:Thanks for the warm welcome lads, back in Aus and looking for work so i thought I'd wander back in here in between Netflix and Dota. Might contribute something more than 1 or 2 Rapa pics i guess, so I'll start with Raiders. Firstly cause I'm one eyed and Secondly and more importantly, cause I think they'll be somewhat overlooked by most because they appear to have few changes on initial glance.

Welcome back mate, but if I'm not mistaken, you owe me an avatar! Something about a first five rounds or something before you went missing haha! I'll see if I can find it. But I'm ducking out now. Later!

pm888 wrote:Hey fellas, back for another year. Have tried to catch up on the threads as best I can.

Looking closely at Capewell and perhaps Sorenson if he is the one to replace Graham while he's out with injury. The sharks rushed him back a few times last year which I doubt they will do again..

Also with Mannerings departure, Ipapalii could lock down that edge role for 80 (which he played for 10 games last year). A quick glance at his scores places his current value 9 points below his 80min avg from 2018.

Ive got Papalii penciled in. Plenty of talk on warriors forum the he might get a crack at lock with blair part of the front row rotation

SOURCE: THE MOLE HAHAHAHAHAHAHA so take this lightly

The Warriors are poised to take a massive gamble by replacing superstar Shaun Johnson with a youngster who has yet to play an NRL game in 2019.

Unknown Panthers recruit Adam Keighran, 21, is believed to have won the race to wear the number seven jumper for the start of the new season.

The Warriors were rocked by Johnson’s defection to Cronulla midway through the off season but decided against signing an established halfback to replace him.

That leaves the key halfback spot to a race between former Australian Schoolboy Keighran and another rookie, the club’s 2017 NYC player of the year Chanel Harris-Tavita.


(aap)
I’m hearing the Warriors have decided to go with Keighran, who like Johnson is also a handy goalkicker, scoring over 200 points for the Panthers in the ISP last year.

While Keighran has been thrown in at the deep end, he will have the help of one of the NRL’s most experienced playmakers in Blake Green to guide him through his baptism of fire.

The spot is his to lose in the Warriors’ opening two trials against the Storm (Geelong, February 22) and Tigers (Whangarei, March 2).

Mulvy wrote:

Welcome back mate, but if I'm not mistaken, you owe me an avatar! Something about a first five rounds or something before you went missing haha! I'll see if I can find it. But I'm ducking out now. Later!

Hmm. I don't recall much, only remember some bet about raiders finishing last and Stuart being the first coach sacked that I made, but if you can find it I'll cop it.

Is there any 2019 ladder predictor thread this year?

rhinoceroo wrote:

So... five rounds in and as it's turned out:

1. Townsend 2. Watson 3. JRey
1. Harris 2. Whitehead 3. Cordner
1. Edwards 2. RTS 3. Nofa

Zero points for correct place, one point for one away, two points for two away. Lowest score wins.

WELSHY

1.JRey 2.Townsend 3.Watson  = 2+1+1 =4
1.Whitehead 2.Harris 3.Cordner = 1+1+0 =2
1.Edwards 2.RTS 3.Nofo = 0+0+0 = 0

TOTAL = 6

ARCHER

1. Whitehead 2. Cordner 3. Harris = 1+1+2 =4
1. RTS 2. Nofo  3.Edwards = 1+1+2 =4
1. JRey 2. Watson 3. Townsend = 2+0+2= 4

TOTAL = 12

MULVY

1. Townsend 2. JRey 3. Watson = 0+1+1=2
1. Edwards 2. Nofo 3. RTS = 0+1+1=2
1. Harris 2. Whitehead 3. Cordner = 0+0+0=0

TOTAL = 4

RHINOCEROO

1. Townsend 2. JRey 3. Watson = 0+1+1=2
1. Cordner 2. Harris 3. Whitehead = 2+1+1=4
1. Edwards 2. RTS 3. Nofa = 0+0+0=0

TOTAL = 6

MULVY WINS

Archer loses, badly.

Punishment TBC. I suggest it's specified by Mulvy and forfeited by Archer.

Here 'tis

https://www.nrlfantasyfanatics.com/t615-forum-bet-avatars-names-etc-thread-aka-record-of-welshy-s-losses

Archer wrote:Thanks for the warm welcome lads, back in Aus and looking for work so i thought I'd wander back in here in between Netflix and Dota. Might contribute something more than 1 or 2 Rapa pics i guess, so I'll start with Raiders. Firstly cause I'm one eyed and Secondly and more importantly, cause I think they'll be somewhat overlooked by most because they appear to have few changes on initial glance.

So on to the Breakdown.
Notable Losses (Italics are borderline): Austin, Paulo, Boyd, Gubb, Knight
Notable Gains: Pom Bateman , Sutton.

As i said, on first glance a lot of people will see Paulo and Boyd being replaced by two Poms and think nothing much of it.
However, what's missing there is that Bateman is better suited in the back row or lock i believe (happy to be corrected by the poms on this one). With Papa, Whitehead and Tarps all playing there, chances are one of these will be shifted to Prop, with my bet being Papa. Could be interesting, Papa can work hard when in the middle.
Secondly, both Paulo and Boyd were large less mobile bodies, which tended to have an impact on our defence, most notably out wide as the middle rarely pushed wide fast enough and left the outside men with overlaps and hard choices, rarely getting it right. The smaller more mobile blokes (and i believe Sutton tends to be quite good defensively according to his stats?) could potentially see a few less points lost defensively.

Next is Austin, i won't talk about him and his play or how the loss of him may effect the team (although for the record i think it will be a positive for both parties). But what I do want to go into is what this means for the halves, as something talked about all off season was Wighton training there. He's quite strong defensively (which is once again great for the outside backs) and you would assume would play the role of secondary playmaker, leaving the organisation up to Sezer. This could potentially see both get an increase of scoring. It also would open up the fullback slot...

This could then see Cotric shift back to FB, which is hard to gauge wrt to his scoring as he's done fantastically on the wing and been up and down in the few games at NRL FB. I'd be willing to back him as being a gun if he stayed there all season but it could be a rocky start scoring wise. Alternatively it may see Abbey or Oldfield slot in at FB. Not sure how i feel about that but fantasy wise I'm not thrilled.

Which leads on to Rapa being out for the first half of the year. Gutted. Heartbroken. I blame Welshy. It will be interesting to see what impact this has on BJ, could he go looking for even more work with his mate not there or will he too go missing? Could the Raiders attack shift to focusing more on Croker + Cotric (if he remains on the wing)?

Anyway, personally I'll be looking at quite a few of the Raiders players as potentials for my team (surprise surprise). If the poms get a discount I'll be hard pressed to overlook them and the same goes with Papa in the middle, although I'm a little unsure about the bench rotation and minutes. Wighton at 6 tempts me with extra defensive work and kick meters. Sezer would be on my watch list to see if he went back to scoring like the titans days. Cotric would be on the watch list at FB.

Papa played middle last year at 13 when he came back from being dropped. Seems to be priced accordingly

How on earth do you blokes have a bet that not only had no set terms but goes back almost a year and still hasn't been paid out

Krump wrote:How on earth do you blokes have a bet that not only had no set terms but goes back almost a year and still hasn't been paid out

Well I did suggest an Avatar at the time, but Archer was MIA by that time. And I've got a long memory. I'd be happy with him wearing this for a couple of weeks - Ah, round 15, 2015, JT field goal crushes Raiders spirit, one of my favourite games of all time: