Lone Scout's NRL Fantasy Q&A: Round 4
Which bargain half is the best buy, what are Sam Walker's prospects, is it worth holding Luke Brooks, Jacob Liddle and Tino Fa'asuamaleaui, is David Fifita a must-have players and more big questions for your Fantasy team this week.
This week's big questions
Best replacement for Keary?
From Peter Ellmers
It's a good week to be on the hunt for a new half, with bargain-base young gun Sam Walker making his debut while Josh Schuster ($363k) and Sean O'Sullivan ($344k) both set for big price rises next week. Schuster scored 63 last week and is a great buy if you haven't got him yet, with Walker probably just ahead of O'Sullivan considering he's more than $100k cheaper.
If you can free up $1.02 million somehow it's always a good time to snap up Nathan Cleary, while Daly Cherry-Evans ($814k) and Mitch Moses ($746k and falling) are the other established Fantasy superstar halves.
Will Sam Walker be the dominant half in the new look halves pairing at the Roosters, and is he renowned for kicking?
From Mark Konkers
Having never played an NRL game it's hard to be certain, but his stats in the Canterbury Cup this year are promising. He's done the majority of the kicking in all three games for the Bears, as well as contributing five try assists and six tackle breaks.
He also kicks goals – though is probably unlikely take the main kicking duties off Siosiua Taukeaiho immediately – and has a pretty decent defensive record despite his slight frame with 41 tackles for just four missed tackles across three matches.
It all adds up to a 50-point average, and while he's unlikely to match that at NRL level he only needs to score around 30 points a game to make plenty of cash (assuming he keeps a spot for half a dozen games or more). The fact he's playing alongside Drew Hutchison and not Keary improve his Fantasy prospects.
Tino and Lam (and a little spare cash) for Schuster and Brailey?
From Wayne Landford
Good trades.
Keeper centres? Just tank centres and spend money elsewhere? Where does Crichton fit?
From Ben Sheat
As I've said before, centres are always a nightmare in Fantasy unless you've got decent back-rowers available at centre (rare this year) or a super-consistent scorer like Zac Lomax was last season. The upside is that a 40-point average is fine for a keeper centre, and it's possible for cheaper players to make that in any given season.
At this stage Paul Momirovski looks like the best buy of the year in the centres, with a keeper-level average of 44 and an affordable price (although he's jumped by $79k so far).
In terms of centres who will be keepers, Tyrone Peachey, Bradman Best and Nick Cotric are probably my best bets at this stage, but none of that trio is particularly cheap and their prices aren't rising too fast yet so you can afford to pick them up later.
In the meantime I'm happy to run with the likes of Tesi Niu and James Roberts with the hope they make some decent price rises and can be upgraded to keepers later on.
Match Highlights: Cowboys v Titans
Is the Peach a must have for centre now?
From Jason Frazer
He's not must-have (and he's not cheap) but he's a very good chance of being Fantasy's highest-scoring "centre" this season.
Is David Fifita a must?
From Judah Grubi
Yeah I think he's very close to must-have. An edge keeper who still looks a little underpriced.
Fifita continues his try-scoring form in 2021
Haas or Fifita?
From Zac Merriman
Fifita now, Haas later.
How long do I hang on to Jacob Liddle for, he's no Brailey that's for sure!
From Stu Blok
At least another week I reckon. Liddle's scoring has actually been a victim of Daine Laurie's success, with Moses Mbye pushed out of the starting side and into a bench hooker role which has been digging into Liddle's game time.
His 32 points in 60 minutes against Newcastle is probably the kind of score we can expect from him going forward (after his round 1 and 2 scores were boosted by tries), but he's still got a low break even so is projected to get another $25k price rise if he can score in the mid-30s against Parramatta.
Brimson... does your crystal ball say he will start getting 50 regularly?
From Gads TJ
My guess is no. Brimson's 2020 regular season performances were probably underrated, in that he was absolutely unstoppable when returning from injury in the second half of that season.
Eight tries and 13 line breaks in 10 games is unsustainable for anyone, but the bigger problem for him this year is that his tackle breaks have dropped from 3.2 per game down to one. He also has made 2.3 errors a game this year after averaging just one error every two games last year.
Despite that error count he's actually been playing quite well so far in 2021, with three try assists (more than he produced across 2020). He also scored two tries against the Cowboys last week but still only scored 47 points.
When a player is playing well in real life but still struggling for Fantasy points it should ring alarm bells for Fantasy coaches, and unless Brimson starts racking up huge numbers of tackle breaks I'd be surprised if he returns to keeper-level scores this year.
The return of the set-piece scrum play
I've already used four trades but can do Tino & Davey > Fifita & S Walker? Worth it?
From Matty Tabet
Good trades.
Is Brooks a sell with Doueihi taking kick meters off him?
From BJ Stuart
The rationale for buying Brooks in the first place was that he was a player priced at 41 capable of scoring in the 50s, if he matched his 2019 scores when he was the Tigers' undisputed chief playmaker. It looked a great buy after round one when he scored 64 but since then he's scored 42 and 45 – not bad scores by any means but also not what you want at his price.
He does still average 50 points across the season so far so is probably worth holding, despite splitting the kick metres with Douihi. Brooks is running the ball quite a bit and getting a few attacking stats each week so can still maintain a 50 average, but he'll probably need the occasional big game to do it.
I'd give him another week at least, after which you can decide whether you want to jump on board one of the bargain halves instead.
Thoughts on Tino?
From Anthony Makiha
As I said last week, Tino Fa'asuamaleaui relies on tries to get big Fantasy scores, and even the most dangerous middle forwards don't tend to score tries too often. It's the reason I didn't start the season with him and at this stage if I had him I'd probably jump ship to one of the guaranteed moneymakers.
In saying that, he could produce a big try-scoring effort on any given week, including against Canberra this round.
18th man given go ahead
Thoughts on Pearce?
From Jack Thompson
Pearce was a good scorer last year, scoring 53 in non-injury-affected games, but he's reeled off scores of 70, 59 and 59 to start the new season with significant increases to his run metres and kick metres.
Still, I expect him to regress to his usual scoring in the long run – he wouldn't have scored 50 if he didn't score a try last week – so probably isn't worth picking up yet with great value half options elsewhere.
Get rid of Fusitua or keep?
From Te Aparua Tata
Sell. He's never been a relevant Fantasy scorer unfortunately.
