NRL Fantasy winners & losers: Round 18

The Roosters celebrate a James Tedesco try.

Author: Lone Scout NRL Fantasy guru
Timestamp: Mon 22 Jul 2019, 08:00 AM

There were some absolutely huge team scores in round 18 thanks to a whole stack of Fantasy guns getting above-average scores, including most of the likely captaincy options.

Winners

A post-Origin rest did the world of good for James Tedesco, who starred in the Roosters second-half thrashing of Newcastle with a try, nearly 300 metres and a 14 tackle busts in a round-high 93.

Cameron Murray returned to his pre-Origin workload with 59 minutes and played a blinder, scoring one try and assisting another to go with 51 tackles in his 82.

Fantasy's second-most popular player Briton Nikora made a welcome return to form, running a nice line for his first try since round eight to go with 41 tackles in his 75.

The Storm resting all their Origin players bar Dale Finucane was good news for anyone carrying Ryan Papenhuyzen, with the speedy fullback amassing right busts and try and close to 300 metres in 77. His captain Cameron Smith now has a three-game average of 75, scoring his first try of the season and booting a 40/20 before getting an early mark on 74.

Get Caught Up: Round 18

Payne Haas (70), Nathan Cleary (68), James Fisher-Harris (67), Damien Cook (66), Adam Reynolds (65), Roger Tuivasa-Sheck (65), Cameron McInnes (64) Tom Trbojevic (63) and Jason Taumalolo (62) also propped up some big team scores.

Losers

Top of this list is Sharks prop Andrew Fifita. Coaches who held him through a recent three-week suspension would have been hoping to see a reinvigorated Fifita tearing in and busting tackles.

Instead Fifita was brought back late for his second stint and got sin-binned for a shoulder charge three minutes after returning, finishing on just 11 with another 1-2 week suspension looming.

That was it for the disasters with coaches mostly enjoying headache-free weeks otherwise, although there were a few slightly below-par scores.

Anthony Milford went for an HIA and finished with 44 – less than half his monster effort from round 17 – while Manly middle pair Jake Trbojevic (46) and Marty Taupau (41) didn't have to roll their sleeves up too much once the win over the Eels opened up into a try-fest.

Knights playmakers Mitch Pearce (42) and Kalyn Ponga (38) arguably did well to score that much given the Roosters' dominance while for the Tricolours, Jake Friend (6) was hurt early and is likely to miss the rest of the regular season.