JT’s Weekend Roundup – Round 14

It feels like an age since the Origin debacle (if you wear Maroon) and the conclusion of the seemingly-inconsequential Bulldogs v Dragons matchup that (almost) relegated the Broncos to 16th place, but we’ve finally reached the end of what was one of the most challenging rounds of the season.

Across the board, there were late outs, Origin scratchings, a TON of flops, some scoring controversies and only a handful of players tonning up. So just your usual post-Origin round. Scoring flattened a little with all those outs and underperformers, so scores of 1150+ probably saw you claw up some ranking spots this week, but the gap between the pack and the top definitely won’t be as wide as it has been in this crazy scoring year.

With two more rounds to go before the final bye week in Round 17, we’ll have 9 more trades to get our sides firmed up before that big moving week. Some of the sides many have called out as having great runs either leading up to or from R17 did get wins so far this week but only just – the Roosters (1 point), the Sharks (1 point) and the Rabbitohs (a little more than a point) played somewhat erratically over the weekend but some of their attacking guns look to be firming right when we want them to. Shaun Johnson/Jesse Ramien, Alex Johnston/Cody Walker did relatively well and will have plenty of eyes on them. For the Roosters, they just need to get some bodies on deck consistently but guys like Joey Manu, Daniel Tupou and Sitili Tupouniua (who did flop this week with a 36 but has had his spot sewn up with the unfortunate retirement of Boyd Cordner) will definitely be on the trade ins over the next few rounds.

I still haven’t fully recovered from that Titans/Roosters game. What the hell was that. A similar (but more expletive-laden) phrase was also uttered regularly when I watched the Manly/Cowboys debacle. Sigh.

And for anyone who might have been looking at new fullback Bailey Simonsson as an option this week, Lakey summed it up best last week in advice we should have all just followed. Latrell Mitchell owners for this coming round, giddyup.

The Weekly 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!
  • Trade Fail of the Week – always good value!

TRADE FAIL OF THE WEEK

On Saturday night, I had found an early contender when it seemed someone decided to move on Alex Johnston despite his 0 breakeven, great matchup, great run ahead and bye round coverage for Mitch Kenny of deputy Penrith dummy half fame.

That was until SC Talk founder Weninrome sent through an absolute beauty of his own doing straight after that. All set at the start of the round to turf Adam Doueihi and Daine Laurie, who scored a grand total of about 30 points this week and were great tradeouts, for Cody Walker and Alex Johnston who scored a fair few more. Instead, he had a few too many on Saturday afternoon, missed the lockout for the Bunnies game and had to scramble from there. That made him move on Nathan Brown (77) and Daine Laurie for Corey Harawira-Naera (56 and taken off for an HIA) and Dallin Watene-Zelezniak (announced as being signed by the Warriors on Sunday morning and scratched from the Bulldogs’ game this week). I mean, that’s an all-time turnaround. Lesson learned, kids. Don’t drink Stone & Woods. If anyone can work out the points that has cost him, I would greatly appreciate it. His AE was Saab.

And yet, somehow…this:

WTF JT.

ROCKERS

1. Alex Johnston – 124. A hattrick plenty saw coming with the form that Latrell and Cody have been in and the Knights’ brittle right-edge defence. The shifts immediately paid dividends and if that’s the way the Rabbitohs shape their attack on their easy run coming up, you’ve absolutely missed the boat not getting him by now with his 0 breakeven leading into this one. Unlucky, Wenin. 7 busts for the night and 4 linebreaks. He really does deal in attacking stats – of his 14 runs, 9 were below 8m…But surely the attacking stats continue to flow for this side.

2. Matt Burton – 108. Owners were sweating bullets at halftime, with Burton on next to no points after a quiet first half where the Sharks quickly took control of the game. Thankfully (you bastards), he came good in the second and sliced through for a couple of solo tries, had the ball on a string for some forced dropouts and an assist of his own to register a huge score in the context of this week. Set to resume his centre role from next week, it’s still going to be a big call to make to drop him in the form he’s currently in despite the position.

3. Matt Ikuvalu – 107. Scored the match-leveller in the corner to double up (he tends to score in multiples doesn’t he) and proved he just may have some value in this side stepping in to fill the monster shoes of the retired BMoz. Still only owned by less than 2k SuperCoaches – but he won’t be under $500k for much longer. The Roosters have a soft run coming from Round 17-onwards, but that makes it a little awkward now with this big score running in his average until then. Leading into this game he had scores of 31 and 23 without tries, so we’ll have to hope he keeps that form up against the Panthers and Storm over the coming rounds to make him somewhat of a value play for then.

4. Clint Gutherson – 95. Scoring doubles, getting told to ‘f**k off’ by Mitch Moses, getting an early shower. It was a wild Sunday afternoon on his favourite Bankwest turf. Despite a couple of quiet games in R9 and R10, Gutho has proved a very handy alternative to the Turbo/Papy/Teddy combination so far this season. When do we jump off the train?

5. Nicho Hynes – 87. Captainers were a little perplexed at the 60-odd points to his name after the game had wrapped up on Sunday but the scoring was soon rectified (or ruined, depending on what side of the fence you sit on) with Hynes awarded another try assist for his cutout ball to JAC on the edge. Could have potentially had another linebreak assist to his name for the short ball to put Eisenhuth through that ultimately led to the first try but that probably rightfully went to Harry Grant. Scoring controversies aside, it was a handy game from a guy who can go a little quiet when all the cavalry if there. BSmith, Grant, Hughes and Munster were on the field together for large stretches of gametime but Hynes was still a focal point in attack. His goalkicking radar being mostly on point (26 points in total) definitely helps. With news Papenhuyzen is just starting to resume training, he could still be in this fullback spot for a little while longer. At what point do we cash in on his huge pricetag?

FLOPPERS

1. David Nofoaluma – 26. To be fair, he gets this again because I couldn’t be bothered changing the cover photo from last week. I’d remained optimistic about holding both him and Daine Laurie around for a little while longer but both loom as must trades in the coming weeks given a tough run and some of the form here. Nofo spent some time at fullback in the second half in Daine Laurie’s absence before shuffling off with a leg issue in the final 15 or so. Tough assignment but even then, Nofo’s 11 runs for a couple of busts and offloads are just not ideal stats from a guy that we know can get double that. Not even close to scoring the last couple of weeks. Shedding a heap of cash now too with a 102 breakeven before this game.

2. Cameron Munster – 30. It’s been a tough week for Munster on his return from an injury layoff, being largely unsighted for Origin in Townsville and then reduced to a link player in the Storm’s big win. Outside of this score, he hadn’t dropped below 50 all season in a very consistent showing that was only halted by the foot issue he picked up in Round 9. He’s clearly not 100% based on these two performances.

3. Jason Taumalolo – 42. Not really sure what’s doing here. An error-riddled 54 minutes was the result of a pretty stop-start season for the million dollar Cowboy. On this form he could dip below the $500k mark for the first time in surely a very long time in this caper. In any other year, everyone is lining up Taumalolo for their sides in the bye week. It’s when he flourishes and normally is when he’s leading this side from the front. Not so much in season 2021, whether it’s niggling injuries or coach’s instructions to not be as involved, The minutes aren’t horrendous, which makes these poor scores (1 score out of 6 games above 53 points) such a shock. In fairness, the Cows rarely had the ball in this game or controlled it, but we’ve also had plenty of games like this in the past where JT is the only one to stand up. Strange times. I think with a bit more time on the park he can start to get some semblance of fitness back, which would have him primed for a run in R17, but there’s got to be some signs of life soon.

4. Connor Watson – 34. Moved into the halves for this game with Phoenix Crossland a late out, some players probably backed him in off their NPRs when that news was announced. Unfortunately, Watson didn’t deliver on the night, which was a little surprising given he has a PPM of 1.1 so far this year despite almost all games being off the bench and scattered across the park wherever they plugged him. He gave himself a chance with 8 runs, but his only attacking stats were one offload and one early linebreak assist. Even his tackling was down with just 13. A rare miss for a pretty solid player so far this year.

5. Jason Saab (26), Charlie Staines (20). Round 13 has come and gone and so should these guys from your SuperCoach sides.

SHOCKERS

1. Daly Cherry-Evans – 148. Joins a fair few Maroons players over the weekend who somehow found some incredible form when they played away from Townsville. In DCE’s case, this belied some pretty woeful SuperCoach form so far this year from the usually-reliable half, with plenty of games under 50 but still a couple of tons before this one. Without Turbo he, and Manly, have struggled, but against a team that couldn’t be f*****d tackling, he went to absolute town. Not enough to register any interest, but hopefully the confidence boost he needs for the more important maroon jersey in a couple of weeks.

2. Reuben Garrick – 106. He is now almost $700k. This is a ridiculous year.

3. Jamal Fogarty – 150. The comeback was a shock. As was this score. What a mammoth effort from a guy who sparked a little bit of interest at the start of the season given his goalkicking and 2020 form, but it just hasn’t kicked on. This was his first ton of the year, set up mostly in a second half comeback absolutely no one saw coming.

4. Bailey Simonsson – 116. Maybe this shouldn’t be a shock, really. But given this guy’s previous history at fullback where he’s probably scored 16 points in total, and form from this year, I still reckon it is. What a great hold if you’ve managed to carry him through so far this season. With a price that is climbing, and a fullback role for a few months coming his way, it could mean good things. But, as Matt Dufty showed this week, maybe we just need to scrap these Fullback v Bronco games from the stats when we’re looking at player performances. Wait and see how he trundles out this week. That said, the way he fit in during the attacking plays on the Broncos line showed skill and confidence and maybe that’s all the young kid needs. 7 busts, a linebreak, 3 linebreak assists 2 try assists and a huge 20 runs. Great stuff.

5. Jake Averillo – 103. If the Bulldogs played the Dragons every week, they’d be premiers.

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS

Injuries

  • Chanel Harris-Tavita – Pec – Season
  • Bradman Best – Ankle – 3-8 weeks
  • Albert Kelly – Hamstring – 1-2 weeks
  • David Nofoaluma – Calf – 0-1 week
  • Xavier Coates – Hamstring – 0-1 week
  • Dane Gagai – Hand – 0-1 week
  • Sio Siua Taukeiaho – Unknown – TBA

HIA – Wayde Egan, Wade Graham, Toa Sipley, Adam Doueihi (all failed), Daine Laurie, David Fifita, Tino Fa’asuamaleuai (passed)

Suspensions

  • Ben Marschke (2 weeks) – accepted
  • Kevin Proctor (1 week) – accepted
  • Maika Sivo (1 week)

Justin

North Queenslander born and bred, Justin is also very much a Cowboys tragic. Rumours have it that his first born son will be named Thurston.

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ch00nz

AJ’s BE was 0 I believe

WeninRome

Agree.

AJW

And there we have it boys – every cloud has a silver lining! Turning a seeming loss into a mental win! The moral of the story is not the obvious, ‘Don’t drink and trade’, but rather, ‘Drink a lot more -then trade!’, as this would guarantee that you get to that optimal level of alcohol-fuelled insight and trading wisdom! The trades are not that bad, even on the surface, as they could be seen as long-term propositions, laying the foundations for a massive upcoming victory in round 17! Go hard or go home boys! Great work again this week fellas!… Read more »