Round 18 ShortCuts

We’ve nearly survived the SuperCoach bye-apocalypse - one more major bye round to go.

It’s the early days of the 'best 13 scores count' rule, and a few things are clear from the short sample:

• It’s tougher than ever to climb the ranks unless you’re a full-blown SuperCoach sicko (or read this religiously)

• Those who prepped hard are reaping the rewards.

• Everyone else? Just trying to scrape 13 warm bodies together.

If you haven’t planned ahead, now’s not the time to panic, but every trade counts more than ever.

🍔 What’s on the Menu?

🤕 Injury and Team News

📆 Fixtures

🏡 Run Home Halfbacks

🔝 What the top 1% are doing

👨🏼‍✈️ Captain Obvious

🤵🏻‍♂️ Commissioner’s Corner

🧠 What You Need to Know

🔎 Spotlight - Run Home Halfbacks

ShortCut: Doesn’t matter, take ya pick. For us, Clearly lock, Hynes just

Cleary, Hynes, or Hughes for the run home?

A question for everything, if not this week, then definitely next.

We think Cleary is the one lock to get for the run home.

Panthers are warming up, need to win, and he doesn’t have to do much to get decent scores.

Jahrome Hughes can be hot and cold, couple niggles, and the points tend to get spread around a lot at the Storm. He averages 69 but has the most games remaining.

We love watching him play, and it is certainly not a terrible option.

Only one day game to come though.

Yes, Nicho Hynes hasn’t been amazing, but he is still averaging 70, without doing much.

His run home is elite, and you’d like to think he can’t go much worse.

Plenty of his games at Shark Park, too, which they need to win.

We are gonna settle on Cleary and Hynes.

Murmurs around about playing all three, with the third in the flex.

We still like three Fullbacks, and with Edwards, Latrell, etc, heating up, we could take a look at them if one of Tedesco, Papenhuyzen, or Drinkwater goes down.

In sum, it is much of a muchness, depending on your team structure and how you like to play and/or watch.

Hynes - a bit boring, great run, can’t get much worse

Hughes - exciting but hot and cold, points shared around

Cleary - reliable and team heating up, injury niggle

📆 Fixtures

📊 Key Stats

Looks pretty quiet on the trade front this week.

Here is what the top 1% are doing.

👨🏼‍✈️ Captain Obvious

We would avoid Garrick.

Tedesco is the obvious pick against a growing Tigers, and 79% of the top 1% agree.

We would recommend following along.

For the naughties out there, a free shot at Tedesco VC into Koloamatangi could pique some interest.

🤵🏻‍♂️ Commissioner’s Corner

A kick in the teeth last week, with Commissioner captaining Koloamatangi for a putrid score.

Not happy.

However, it could be worse, as still sitting inside the top 5k, we move forward towards our top 1k target.

Jacob Kiraz is a swift in and out, as far as the green tick goes, having been called up to NSW. Ouch.

Not a lot is screaming out at the Commissioner in terms of trade-outs.

Temptations include:

Isaako is out, but Doplhims are flying.

Purdue out is the most likely, although value has been lost, but the Cowboys aren’t inspiring much confidence.

Getting a nuff in is another option, and Kane Bradley looks like the man here.

His job security looks good for the next few weeks with Coates away with origin, Warbrick still battling concussion symptoms, and Fa’alogo doing his hamstring.

Most likely trade as it stands:

Purdue ➡️ Bradley

VC: Papenhuyzen

C: Tedesco

👋 Till next time…

In summary, hold fire unless you have any glaringly obvious binnings.

Moves to come post-Origin.

Until then…

✂️ SCSC

Enjoying the ShortCut? Flick it to a mate who doesn’t know which HLF to target.