NRL Supercoach | Clem’s Captains, Round 22 Skippers


<p>At approximately 4pm on Friday, I will be enjoying a succulent Chinese meal in the very heart of rugba leeg.</p>



<p>I can hardly contain my excitement.</p>



<p>You see, over the course of this season I&#8217;ve officially adopted the Dragons as my second team. Partly because of the relentless brainwashing from my workmate Nathan (self-proclaimed ‘biggest Dragons fan’ and future co-star of my Netflix documentary <em>Diaries of an Empath</em>); but mostly because of my deep affection for the Good Gerringong Boys and my boys (NOT Spy&#8217;s), the <strong>Couchman</strong> twins.</p>



<p>So, on Friday arvo, I&#8217;ll be making the very casual 2.5-hour ferry-train-train pilgrimage to Wollongong, proudly wearing my Steelers jersey, to watch my second team beat my VC.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s really that simple.</p>



<p>And I&#8217;ve been promised a succulent Chinese meal at Steelers Leagues Club before the victory for my efforts, and my mouth is watering already.</p>



<p>(Although, let&#8217;s be honest… a parmi and a pint will do just fine. This girl isn&#8217;t fussy.)</p>



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<p>And one final little tidbit for you all…</p>



<p>The last time I watched the Dragons live while wearing my Steelers jersey, they won.</p>



<p>Do with that information what you will.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Someone who isn&#8217;t winning at the moment, however, is the Friday Beers. We copped a stack of injuries in one nightmare Friday night (<strong>Manuleleua’s</strong> 111 points on the bench was the very definition of spite points) and then looped <strong>Cleary</strong>, meaning we slip-slided our way out of the top 100 and back to the very cusp we&#8217;ve spent six weeks trying to crack, sitting in 104th.</p>



<p>But onwards and upwards. No more downwards.</p>



<p>We&#8217;ll take the glass-half-full approach. It could have been much worse; it&#8217;s a new week, and most importantly&#8230;</p>



<p>We&#8217;re still beating Spy.</p>



<p>Life is great.</p>



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<p>And a huge congrats to the <strong>Nicho</strong> Captainers – your faith in our Wet Haired Prince is nothing short of exemplary – especially as it didn’t even rain.</p>



<p>Now friends, I am buried deep in the throes of annual report writing. Ten thousand words and counting, and my hands have completely lost feeling from all the typing. So, this will officially be my briefest Captaincy article of all time.</p>



<p>(Says the girl who has literally just typed a 400-word intro in about ten minutes&#8230; Timmy, I really do <em>try</em> not to go over the word count, I promise).</p>



<p>But really, who needs words when we&#8217;re probably going to be copy-pasting the same TWO captaincy choices for the rest of the season?</p>



<p>But the only people truly benefiting from the one-two punch of making them VC and Captain are the lucky souls who had the foresight to stick a halfback in their Flex.</p>



<p>The rest of us plebs, with our three fullbacks, are left anxiously trying to find a VC capable of matching a Cleary or Nicho score&#8230;</p>



<p>And we might just have one or two of those running around on Friday night&#8230;</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Herbie Farnworth</strong></h3>



<p>Now look. You have to balance out the facts as we know them.</p>



<ol>
<li>Herbie is running at the Dragons side that has bled about 10,000 tries this season.</li>



<li>I will be up on the hill at WIN Stadium in my Steelers jersey.</li>
</ol>



<p>So, if we take the laws of probability into account – this one could go either way. Stats vs superstition. I could teach a class on it. It’s basic math and also physics.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Now <strong>Herbie</strong> hasn’t exactly been lighting the VC world on fire of late with his 57-point 3-round average and his last ton being way back in Round 15.&nbsp;</p>



<p>But if we just look back to last week and the slaughtering of the Dragons by the Titans (which sounds like the plot for a Hollywood blockbuster), and we look at the side Herbie plays on which is up against the Dragons side that literally let through two of those tries untouched &#8211; we can understand why 40% of the top 5% of SuperCoachers have their VC on Herbie. (Okay… I know… it’s mainly because we don’t have a halfback in our Flex… etc etc).</p>



<p>Fresh off a bye and back to his tackle-busting best in round 20 vs the Cowboys – you’d like to think that Herbie could find an attacking stat or two vs the Dragons and put on a bit of a score…</p>



<p>A great option for your VC if you don’t have the halfback in Flex – but not a straight Captain… step away from the straight Captain for your own sake. </p>



<p>Especially as we don’t quite yet know how powerful this Steelers jersey from the 80s actually is. </p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Jamayne Isaako</strong></h3>



<p>Coming in hot at 12.3% VC’d in the top 5%, is one of our most consistent CTW kings in the form of <strong>Jamayne</strong> <strong>Isaako</strong>.&nbsp;</p>



<p>A couple of tries, a couple of line breaks, and 24 points in goals quickly added up to a score of 111 back in Round 20 vs the Cowboys.&nbsp;</p>



<p>An average of 82-points for the season screams consistency, but with only 3 tons under his belt, tread a little wary (kind of like Isaako up the sideline for those 2 tries in Round 20).</p>



<p>Now because of this consistency vs tons statistical stat, I feel like I need to make this super clear:</p>



<p>I like Isaako as a pod VC. I don’t like Isaako as a straight Captain for all you big balls risk takers out there or in lieu of doing the Cleary x Nicho if your team works that way.&nbsp;</p>



<p>In my opinion: VC = can take a little bit of a risky punt. Captain = too bad, too sad if your punt doesn’t pay off, your stuck with that 40-point Captain.</p>



<p>Now that we’ve covered our bases, if you decide to go Isaako as your VC, good luck and godspeed; you have my blessing. </p>



<p>I’ll be following the pack with the Herbie VC though, unless I can somehow get the cheat code to move Nicho into my Flex.</p>



<p>Obvs as your Playbook Support Group Coordinator, I will be sharing that cheat code in the Discord – I always have your back.</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Nathan Cleary</strong></h3>



<p>Ahhh <strong>Nathan Cleary</strong>.&nbsp;</p>



<p>What can we say that hasn’t already been said this season?</p>



<p>Back to his point-scoring best with 116-points vs the Eels last Thursday night, he proved you CAN actually VC on a Thursday night and it sometimes won’t hurt you.</p>



<p>(except when Nicho plays on a sunny Sunday arvo at Brookie – then it definitely will hurt you…)</p>



<p>A season average of 96, EIGHT tons in his 15 games so far this season – points come so easily for Cleary when he’s on, and that’s why we forgive little blips like the week before, and we will never speak about it again…</p>



<p>A bona-fide armband option every week.</p>



<p>And with 19% of the top 5% running the VC on him this Saturday vs the Raiders – you may consider an armband on him too.&nbsp;</p>



<p>But for the record – I cannot call the result of a Raiders game to save my life this season, so I’m going Nicho as my Captain. But if I could VC Cleary, I’d do it for the just in case…</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Nicho Hynes</strong></h3>



<p><strong>ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-FIVE POINTS</strong></p>



<p>That is literally all.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Verdict</strong></h3>



<p>Tigers vs Eels is going to produce some random ton, and we’re all going to go aha! Of course, we should have captained that person, and how did we not think of that when it was so obvious in a literal spoonbowl that so and so was going to score 150 points etc etc. </p>



<p>But apart from that, the options this week seem so much simpler than we’ve had in a while:</p>



<ul>
<li>You VC Herbie into Cleary or Nicho if you don’t have a halfback in your Flex.</li>



<li>You VC Cleary into Nicho if you have a halfback in your Flex.</li>
</ul>



<p>Or you go super random and poddy and chuck it on a random Daine Laurie and reap 125-points in 51 minutes…you choose.</p>



<p>And on that note… I must go. I need to perform the blessing ritual over the 80s Steelers jersey and confirm that I am indeed getting that succulent Chinese meal…</p>



<p>Until next week, I hope your Captain scores you a ton, and you soar up the rankings…</p>



<p>Clementine xxx</p>


NRL Supercoach | Clem’s Captains, Round 22 Skippers

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