JT’s Weekend Roundup – R11

The silence from the anti-Teddy brigade after this week’s shock points downgrade for the ultimate unicorn has been ultimately deafening! After a couple of fortuitous scoring weeks for the 2020 MVP, it was a quiet showing against the Warriors that resulted in his worst score since Round 1 and a decent points downgrade to boot after scoring updates were in on Sunday. For the many of us who captained him, it stung, but at least we were all in it together.

Elsewhere, the only game that really lived up to blowout expectations was the Storm’s stroll in Lang Park on Friday night to roll over a Broncos side that looked like putting up a fight for 40 minutes. If you landed on a Storm player that game, you were cheering. But those that had backed the Roosters, Panthers and Knights to do a number on their opposition were left feeling pretty flat after each of their opponents really turned up to play. Cleary down. Ponga down. Teddy down. Not a great week for captains!

And how about the shockers this week? #BigManSeason!

This year’s weekly roundup will be the streamlined version we closed the year out with in 2019, focusing on the Top 5:

• Rockers– the ‘SuperCoach-relevant’ players who killed it
• Floppers – the ‘SuperCoach-relevant’ players who killed your week
• Shockers – the left-field players who will no doubt be high on the list of trade-ins the next round and prime candidates for SC players chasing last week’s points!

As a bonus addition this year, I’ll also include my Trade Fail of the Week. It’s a great feature to use with your SuperCoach Gold subscription – you can see who SuperCoach players are trading in and out and who they’re trading for. There’s always some absolute headscratchers and this week is no exception.

JT’S TRADE FAIL OF THE WEEK

Regan Campbell-Gillard has been quietly churning out some pretty handy numbers as we’ll note below, but one SuperCoach must have really liked the value being added by Albert Vete in his 13 minutes on field the week previously. Guy on the rise for an AE nightmare? That runaway try would have stung.

1. Zac Lomax – 123. Jeez didn’t this guy save my week after the Teddy captaining and Matto-owning. While this is his first ton for the year, his last 6 scores now read 86, 71, 76, 99, 62 and 123. While his only tryless game was the 62 against the Bulldogs, it was his early-season floor of 45+ that led to owners keeping the faith and they were richly rewarded here. A down game is probably just around the corner, but for now you don’t even need to think twice about locking him in which is so, so valuable in your CTW. Two tries including a very nifty bomb-catch-into-grubber-for-himself in the corner, followed by a try backing up from a Dufty offload after looking like he was reasonably injured only moments earlier. A real gift. Yeehaa.

2. Cameron Smith – 110. Ageless. Doubled Cook’s score this week with a game that had just about everything. Almost had a try for Smith in the second half but the old legs couldn’t get him there after Papenhuyzen broke the line. Yet another game where CS9 played out the full 80. Gold for owners but can it last? That 40/20 was all class as well. TPJ owners would be wishing he never nailed it since it ultimately led to TPJ’s binning…

3. Ryan Papenhuyzen – 122. Papi’s last 6 games now read: 25, 126, 37, 106, 34, 122. What a rollercoaster of emotions for owners. It works out to be a good average but just imagine the rage of owners who have flicked him after one of those poor scores (including this week, around 1.5k traded him!) only to see him tear up the following week. He really came to life as the Broncos slipped away in the second half and was part of some very crisp tries. I honestly don’t know what you’d do with him if you still held. He’s got the Bulldogs in two weeks. They were pretty staunch against Ponga, but this game would fit right into the recent pattern…

4. David Klemmer – 102. Was asked to play the full 80 after the injuries to McCullough and Watson in the first half and his stamina was more than up to the task. 100+ points in base and power (busts/offloads). Huge effort! Goes without saying that this will not happen every week, and you can generally shave about 30 minutes off that 80 for Klemmer’s average, but was great to see him muscling up in defence rather than being that 3rd man in tackler that doesn’t amount to SuperCoach points for tackles. 49 here without a miss and 3 offloads. Great stuff.

5. Isaah Yeo – 95. Got over for a rare try and didn’t the boys love it. As did SuperCoaches who were starting to get a little worried with his minutes given 3 sub-65 games leading up to this, but Yeo was fantastic on Sunday afternoon. To be fair, Yeo was never an issue given his very bankable 60+ points each week (he’s had only one score below that mark all year!) but it saves us from doing anything too rash with him heading into the back end of the year…

1. James Tedesco – 53. Downgrades and the flopper of the week? Say it isn’t so. The feeling of poor new Teddy owners over the last couple of weeks who haven’t got to experience his unicorn scoring abilities, but at least you’ve locked up the year’s best player for the run home. Credit to the Warriors defense, they held firm when given no chance. And Teddy had plenty of chances with 25 runs in total, but 13 of them being below 8m shows just how steely that defensive line was. An afternoon game against the Titans this week will have many people throwing him the armband yet again and SURELY he’s due!

2. Nathan Cleary – 51. Might have spent a touch too long in the leadup to this game crowing his defensive prowess at training, and the ‘Hitman’ didn’t really deliver on the day here. Very uninvolved in the first half before saving his score with a cutout ball try assist in the second half as the Panthers snuck home. An afternoon game (dry for the most part) against the Titans had Cleary ton written all over it, but instead we got -10 in errors, -4 in penalties conceded and just the 6 runs. Annoying.

3. Daly Cherry-Evans – 41. Despite scoring a try, DCE was surprisingly uninvolved. Still ran the ball a bit, busting 3 tackles and throwing an offload, but for those that POD’ded up by going DCE would have targeted this game as one where DCE would have gone large. Not to be – Cade Cust stole the show with 104! Not a single try assist or contribution for Cherry-Evans.

4. Damien Cook – 52. Well zagging with Cook when you should have zigged with Smith didn’t quite turn out a good call this week, but I guess you’ve got to look long-term. Cook has a very handy run coming up, with the Dragons, Broncos, Cowboys and Manly in his sights and Smith hasn’t had a rest yet. 50 tackles is great, but we want to see you run, Cookie! Just 3 here.

5. Ryan Matterson – 8. Oof.

1. Aiden Tolman – 117. What better sight is there in rugby league than a prop forward backing up in broken play and crossing? Especially for their first try since 2017 and first linebreak since 2015. Not much, except for Tolman’s post-try celebration video on the Bulldogs’ twitter account. Look it up. It’s glorious.

2. Regan Campbell-Gillard – 106. Probably unfair to put him in this list after knocking up some pretty handy scores over the last month. 91, 64, 77 and 82 heading into this one. But few would have seen a breakaway try to RCG in the making here. Scenes! Form prop of the competition, but is it too late to be jumping on?

3. Tino Fa’asuamaleaui – 110. Speaking of tries…two of them to big Tino! Not ideal to see a triple-digit score sitting in your NPRs but this slow-burning cow just keeps burning hotter. His minutes have really come along in a big way so far this season. Got an 80-minute game playing at second row a couple of weeks back but has been above 40 minutes (50 in this case) for his last six games. The TItans have a good one here.

4. Francis Molo – 96. Genuinely unsung hero of the Cowboys’ forward pack and can never be accused of not having a go. Rewarded with a bargeover try in the second half. Scenes, again.

5. Aaron Woods – 88. Rounding out the #BigManSzn scores this week is Aaron Woods who managed to crash over as well. This is his highest score since 2017. Wow.

Injuries

• Andrew McCullough – hamstring – season
• Connor Watson – achilles tendon – season
• Sione Mata’utia – knee – TBC
• Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad – dislocated finger – 2 weeks
• Jesse Ramien – hamstring – 2-4 weeks
• Chad Townsend – calf – TBC
• Joel Thompson – ankle – 0 weeks
• Anthony Milford – thigh – TBC
• Kikau/Cordner/McLean – midweek scratchings

A fair few on the comeback trail this week. Alex Twal, Luke Garner and Robert Jennings should be back. Hopefully Talau keeps getting a run over Rennings but we’ll see what they do there. David Fifita could be back as early as this week. Josh Dugan’s precautionary resting for hamstring tightness should also see him back on deck – hopefully it’s straight into the centres for the injured Ramien and cheapie Will Kennedy can churn another game out while Matty Moylan warms the sidelines.

HIAs and did not return:

Adam Clune, Trent Merrin (Dragons), Ryan Matterson (Eels), Michael Chee-Kam, Adam Doueihi (Tigers), Cameron Munster (Storm), Alex Johnstone (Rabbitohs), Sione Katoa (Sharks).

Suspensions

• Josh McGuire – Crusher – 1 week. Will fight the charge at the judiciary. Will only miss the one game if found guilty.
• Russell Packer – Crusher – 1 week.