Round 1 Dream Team
A new year and a new graphic format for the Dream Teams!
Welcome back to the readers from last year and a big welcome to the new comers to NRLCEO as well. We have had a big influx of new users in private leagues and our public leagues too. Welcome to the NRLCEO family and I hope you enjoy the content.
Round 1 Team of the Week
The Team of the Week is listed every week based on the standard NRLCEO scoring which is four points for a try, four points for a workhorse, eight for a double workhorse, two for try assists, one for line breaks and line break assists and two points for Metre Eaters and four points for Double Metre Eaters. So let’s move onto the players who made this week’s team.
Is Bryson Goodwin the most underrated player on NRLCEO? He’d have to come close! Often not even picked up in the draft he goes about his business on the wing or in the centre for the Rabbits and delivers NRLCEO points. Last year he scored 63 points in the first eleven rounds of the season before he got injured. Add to that his back up kicking duties and he is a handy squad player to have. He got our Round 1 MVP award which means he is now forever immortalised in a South Park caricature.
Joel Thompson burst out of the blocks with a career high 15 NRLCEO points. He finished Round 26 last year with a double so it looks like he is taking off from where he left off last year. His first career hat-trick and three line breaks netted him 15 points which could have been even better had he increased his 35 involvements by just a few more.
The Englishman from Illawarra also eluded draft lists until late in the rounds. Gareth Widdop was not a popular pick and it’s easy to see why. He’s a solid 70-80 point half but the Dragons lacked attacking fire last season and most opted for a kicker who would get more chances. He got more than that in Round 1! 14 points from two tries, two try assists and two line break assists is a great result for anyone, but throw in another seven goals and a 28 point haul would get you the win in most leagues!
I expected big things from Latrell Mitchell this year and unfortunately so too did my fellow CEOs in my competitions and I missed out on him in all three of my competitions. His 14 point hat-trick from the centres showed his class and if he stays in the centres as expected then he will get a dual position upgrade after Round 3 making him even more valuable.
The last top performance to mention is David Fusitua and it’s not even his biggest NRLCEO performance ever! He’s no stranger to scoring a bagful as shown by six efforts where he has scored two tries or more including four in one match last year against a struggling Knights. His strike rate now sits at 22 tries in 33 NRL appearances and his dual position value of centre/winger makes him one of my predictions for the Dream Team by the end of the year.
Lastly a shout out to Moses Suli who scored a quality 13 on debut. We’ll see plenty more of the million dollar man this year.
Overall Dream Team
For those new to this column, at the conclusion of each week we will tally up the total points scored over the whole year to give us a picture of the overall Dream Team. To give you context here is the Dream Team at the conclusion of last year (with total points in brackets):
- Ben Barba (149)
- Tom Trbojevic (138)
- Jarrod Croker (130)
- Joey Leilua (138)
- Jordan Rapana (149)
- Anthony Milford (153)
- Cooper Cronk (127)
- James Graham (176)
- Cameron Smith (141)
- Aiden Tolman (140)
- Sam Burgess (166)
- Ryan James (170)
- Trent Merrin (134)
Who will be in the Dream Team by the end of the year? That’s anyone’s guess. For the record I am predicting the Turbo brothers, James Graham, Sam Burgess and James Tedesco. My smokey is Mitch Barnett and on the wing I believe it will be Kyle Feldt and David Fusitua.
Who do you think? Let me know in the comments below.
JB
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