Final word: Round 2 trades, captains, POD plays

Like all, I was pumped to see the footy back in Round 1, with plenty of food for thought coming out of it for Supercoach. 

For the first year in a long time I went into Round 1 with very little confidence in my side and that probably showed up in my scoring. 

A score of 831 and sitting in 72,570^th place after Round 1 would normally be deflating for me, but I’m confident that I can work my way up the rankings with some solid strategy and aggressive early trading. 

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Strategy 

You’ll hear a lot of advice from Supercoach experts to stay patient and not “blow up” your team after Round 1. 

I agree that if you feel strongly about a player before Round 1 that didn’t subsequently come out and perform well you shouldn’t push the panic buttons. 

However if you were unsure of that player and then he came out and you saw something that gave you a fair indicator he wouldn’t score well Supercoach wise moving forward, by all means back that judgment and trade them out. 

I am doing just that this week because I always believe in trading aggressively early in the season if you’ve seen something in Round 1 that helps you predict how players will score. 

Personally I’m prepared to use up to 6-9 trades and 2-3 boosts in the first three weeks if I feel it’s necessary. 

No matter what your strategy, after what we saw in Round 1 this season of Supercoach it is going to keep us on our toes like no other I feel. 

If Supercoaches can successfully zig when the majority zags then it could be the defining moments of the season. 

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Trade Plans 

Lots of chat around the Supercoach traps that it would be crazy to trade Brendan Piakura and to a lesser extent Jason Taumalolo but I disagree. 

Sure if you felt strongly before Rd-1 that Piakura and Lolo were players that would go well and make money and you still believe that then by all means stay the course. 

In my situation Piakura was my last 2RF picked and I was a bit sketchy on him as an option. 

To be fair the HIA is not his fault but the reality is it will be tough for him to not have a high breakeven heading into price changes and my focus early on this year is making money. 

Also with the Arrow injury Tallis Duncan will get his crack at the Souths 2RF spot and is great value. For this reason I’m looking at trading Piakura to Duncan. 

I set my team with Flegler as my FRF but as it was such a tricky position I changed my mind and actually went to Lolo. 

Needless to say I wasn’t confident in that decision and it proved to be a bad mistake. 

Lolo is a red pen job. If a coach is resting a player 21 minutes into a season he either has fitness or injury issues and/or has lost faith in his ability to play decent minutes. I’ll be trading Taumalolo straight to Terrell May.  

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Best Value Propositions 

Ben Trbojevic – Where does Josh Schuster fit into this rejuvenated Manly side? Still an element of risk to Burbo but I think the way he played in the opening game if he can keep getting time he’s great value for money.  

Morgan Smithies – Again there are probably a few question marks around retaining his starting spot and minutes when Whitehead and Horsburgh return, but he’s going to be very hard not to have Smithies. 

PODs & Super PODS

Here’s the players I’ve identified as PODs (Point of Difference players – less than 10% owned) and Super PODS (less than 2% owned) that should be on your radar: 

PODs 

1.     Tallis Duncan – news coming out of the Rabbitohs is that Jai Arrow is out for a minimum 4 weeks and maximum the whole season. I’ll take 4 weeks of Duncan in the run-on side with 60-80mins. 

2.    Terrell May – the Supercoach Spy would be grinning with joy as he has been high on May all the way leading up to the first game. With Leniu out for 8 weeks I think you can feel confident May gets a minimum 40mins per game and with his PPM that’s probably all you need. He won’t be a POD for long of course, but hopefully he knocks out a strong score this week before the masses jump on.

3.    Luke Metcalf – owned by just 3.4%, Metcalf’s stock will rise considerably if he can post a 50+ Supercoach score v the Storm this weekend. Heavily attack reliant, but clearly with an increased role with SJ just steering the ship it can be done.

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Super PODs 

1.     Sam McIntyre – Many thought and hoped that Thomas Mikaele would slip into the number 17 jumper when Coen Hess had his season-ending injury in the trials. The man who has filled the void however is McIntyre and he’s a workhorse. 46 points in 47 minutes! Sure those minutes were inflated but in that rotation I think he probably gets a minimum of 25-30 minutes each week and with that he’s still going to make you money to eventually use on someone better.   

Close Watch 

1.     Tommy Talau – Saab is out for a reported 6 weeks and possibly more. Jaxson Paulo was very underwhelming in his debut game for the Sea Eagles. Talau could take this opportunity and never look back! Cheapie Alert!!

2.    Josh Kerr – Played 40mins exactly. Let’s take away the try and linebreak. Kerr still scored 49 in base and base attack (offloads & tackle breaks) – that’s elite in anyone’s language. Close watch. 

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ROUND MATCH-UPS 

Early in the season it’s hard to get bearings on where teams are at, but with the upsets from Rd 1 and the nature of the competition I do expect some bounceback games this week. 

I expect Warriors, Knights, Souths, Broncos and Panthers all to come out with an increased sense of purpose and energy. 

The two most underwhelming teams in Round 1 were the Titans who will be getting absolutely punished by Des Hasler and his staff in the Bye week and the Dolphins. 

I can’t remember the last time, if ever, I’ve seen a team drop their starting halfback and centre after one round of competition. 

That’s what has happened at the Dolphins to O’Sullivan and Tesi Niu. 

I can’t say I’m surprised because the defensive efforts and reads on that left edge for the Dolphins were nowhere near NRL standard. 

Alarm bells are ringing a bit though! If I’m the Dragons we are going right a heap on Sunday to test out the new combo of Aitken-Averillo-Katoa-Bostock. 

For that reason I like the Dragons right side players like Ben Hunt, Sua, Bird and Lomax to have a big game and score well. 

Also as I mentioned before Jaxson Paulo was ordinary for Manly in their Las Vegas game. I fully expect Joey Manu and Dom Young to test out Manly’s left edge defence. 

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CAPTAIN

Nicho Hynes – Gets the match-up against the Bulldogs who were brave but hardly inspiring. To be fair Hynes 1^st round performance didn’t exactly inspire much confidence either so fading him for captain may be a good option also. Vice-captain maybe just in case he goes beserk?

Kalyn Ponga – there is light showers forecast for Townsville on Saturday arvo, but if it can stay dry I quite like Ponga returning to his old club on a fast track against the Cowboys. The Cowboys defence in their big win against the Dolphins was a little loose.  

Turbo/Teddy – it’s a day game at 4 Pines Park so there’s sure to be some attacking footy if the weather holds up. Roosters have the defensive edge, but Manly’s attack was humming round 1 in Las Vegas so an intriguing match-up looms.

Zac Lomax – Matches up against the Dolphins and there should obviously be some bounceback factor there after a dismal Rd 1 effort vs the Cowboys, but something seems a bit off at the Dolphins and their roster despite getting stronger appears to have some serious holes in it all of a sudden. Lomax might have found his best position. 

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