The final round of the NRL Fantasy season included a near century from a veteran winger and a 35-point win for one newly cashed-up Fantasy coach.
Winners
First up, congratulations are in order for Costa Georgeson whose Fantasy team 'Brooks Was Here' triumphed in the overall points race after 26 rounds, finishing with 23,188 points overall – just 35 ahead of the runner-up.
Here's the Brooks Was Here 17 at the end of the season:
Cameron Smith, Andrew McCullough
Sam Burgess, James Graham, Andrew Fifita
Jack de Belin, Simon Mannering, Tohu Harris, Trent Merrin
Ben Hunt, Nathan Cleary, Bryce Cartwright
Joey Leilua, Jarrod Croker
Jarryd Hayne, Cameron Munster, Euan Aitken
The highlights from that team this week were the performances of Mannering (77), Cartwright (76), de Belin (67) and Smith (65) – who have all been outstanding all season.
The player of Round 26 was actually Dragons winger Jason Nightingale, who made a whopping five line breaks plus nine tackle breaks a try assist and two tries against the Knights for 98 points.
Forwards Jake Trbojevic (78), Gavin Cooper (77), Joel Thompson (74), Martin Taupau (73), Ryan James, Sam Burgess (66), Jesse Bromwich (65), Elliott Whitehead (63) and Paul Gallen (63) all impressed this week, while backs Waqa Blake (66), Jordan Rapana (65) and Cheyse Blair (65) all got amongst the tries.
Losers
His team may have ended the season with a win but Dragons winger Kurt Mann didn't have a game to remember against Newcastle, with just one tackle and 18 run metres in an 80-minute performance cancelled out by two missed tackles and a penalty conceded – meaning he finished with a Fantasy score of -4.
A hamstring injury to Bodene Thompson 30 minutes into the Warriors' loss to Parramatta restricted the usually consistent back-rower to just 9 points in a major blow to those Fantasy coaches who were relying on another 50 from him this week, while teammate Shaun Johnson continued a poor end to the season with 18.
But wait, there's more
The NRL Fantasy season isn't over yet. Now's the time to start picking your six-man teams for the NRL Fantasy Finals Match Day competition – it works the same way as Origin or Thursday Match Day games, with one player to be selected for each position, including a captain and vice captain. In Match Day, your captain earns triple points and you vice captain earns double.
Like Classic NRL Fantasy you can start your own Fantasy Match Day league, and the overall winner across the four weeks of the finals will take out the $2000 prize.
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