After a nice upset to start Round 9 on Thursday night, we have a couple more intriguing matchups for our Friday pleasure. To start the Canberra Raiders welcome the Canterbury Bulldogs to GIO stadium, with the Canberra chill well and truly starting to set in. Then the Penrith Panthers and Parramatta Eels face off at BlueBet Stadium in a genuine heavyweight battle. Two very different standards of football, but both games should be very competitive.

Draftstars has a $5000 contest with $679 to first place. The single game contests are set at $10,000 and $15,000 respectively. There are also several other contests including the Mini, Micro, and the High Roller. 
 


 

Team News

The Raiders have made several changes on the back of another bad loss last week. Jack Wighton is suspended, and Semi Valemei, Xavier Savage and Harry Ruston are all replaced. Matt Frawley will come into the halves, Jarrod Croker finally gets a game this season at centre, Elliot Whitehead returns in the second row, and Sebastian Kris is the new bench utility. Without Wighton I expect Brad Scneider to take on some extra kicking responsibility, and all of the forwards are looking at a slight minutes boost with Kris unlikely to see much action off the bench.

After a much needed win, the Bulldogs only have two minor changes. Brent Naden returns on the wing, forcing out Jayden Okunbor. Josh Jackson is back at lock, meaning Max King returns to the bench and Billy Tsikrikas is forced out of the team. The pieces are very slowly starting to fit together for the Dogs, and their backline players in particular are slowly starting to score a little better.

Two changes for the Panthers, which is uncharacteristically high! Moses Leota is fit to return after a long layoff, coming in at prop with Matt Eisenhuth dropping out of the team. On the bench Mitch Kenny returns to his utiltiy/middle forward role in place of pure utility Soni Luke, which should be good news for the minutes of Api Koroisau. Brian To’o is in the reserves and the rumour is that he will come in for Charlie Staines.

Just one change for the Eels. Tom Opacic comes in at centre, which sees Dylan Brown move back to his normal five-eight position, and Jake Arthur forced out of the team. It’s a strong looking team, but last weeks big loss to the Cowboys was another question mark for a forward pack in particular that might have a few too many players out of form. That makes it hard work for a backline that is missing some good players.


Odds

Raiders $1.90 v Bulldogs $1.90

Panthers $1.20 v Eels $4.50


Overview

I can’t really argue with the odds offered on the first game, with the Raiders in a huge mess and the Bulldogs slowly improving. It shouldn’t be a blowout in either direction so sprinkling a few value players from either team through your lineup seems prudent. Meanwhile the Eels are a concern, and the Panthers are borderline indestructible, so that one could get out of hand if the Eels don’t turn up ready to work a lot harder in the middle of the field. There’s a number of cheap Panthers backs who could have an absolute field day.

 

Love It - Izack Tago $11,700

The trend line has gone in the wrong direction for Tago all season, starting with a brilliant 69 in round 1 and slowly heading down to a string of 4 scores in the mid 30s. Still, with a worst score all season of 32 and priced very generously for someone averaging 46, I think this is a great value spot once again. He somewhat let us down last week, but eventually he’s getting over the line again and absolutely smashing this price tag. If the Eels struggle as much as I expect, then I think tonight will be the night. Stephen Crichton is even cheaper and very much in play also.

 

Love It -  Brad Schneider $13,810

Schneider has been rock solid in his rookie season, at least from a fantasy perspective. Despite no major attacking stats, he’s churned out an average of 40 on the back of solid defence and a handy kicking game (particularly goal kicking). I’ma assuming that he’ll retain the goal kicking despite Jarrod Croker coming into he team, and I fully expect a lot more kick metres than his usual 150 with Jack Wighton out of the team. At a minimum I’m calling it 5 extra points. With upside in the form of an easier matchup and the allure of some extra attacking points, I think Schneider could be a sneaky play despite the price not looking overly generous. For a little extra I also like Matt Burton as a somewhat similar play.

 

Love It - Liam Martin $12,730

Martin continues to jump out at me as talented backrower with a close to 80 minute role, in the best team in the competition. He’s churned out a 44 average this season, which admittedly has been built on the back of two big scores go 72 & 66. Still, his long term average in this role is indeed 44, and he’s nearly due for another big outing. There’s not many other FWDs in that price range who are capable of a 70+ score tonight.

 

Hate It - Joseph Tapine $21,190

Tapine is just one of several forwards who are way too expensive on this slate. A part of that is that we probably want to spend up for Nathan Cleary, and so finding the salary for another 20+K player is very hard. Even without that, Tapine is a pretty volatile scorer at the best of times. He’s getting big minutes at the moment, but his 3 week run of scores a rare try and I can’t see him repeating the ~75 score form that game. Even if he does, it might not be enough at this price. It’s a similar story for Paul Vaughan, Josh Jackson, and to a lesser extent Isaiah Papali’i.

 

Hate It - Mitch Moses $21,120

I’ll pick on another expensive guy, this time at the HH position. Again the reason is two fold. The obvious one is that the Penrith matchup is as brutal as it comes, and Moses would need to play a pretty special game to get anywhere near his ceiling. The position is also absolutely stacked tonight, so despite being one of the best fantasy players in the NRL, Moses just doesn’t look necessary regardless of the matchup. Going up to Cleary or down to any of Schneider, Burton, Koroisau, Elliot, Luai and even Frawley is a much better choice.

 

Who Knows - Brian To’o $14,700

For the Friday slate it might be impossible to play To’o, as we may not have any confirmation that he’s playing until the final teams at 7pm. But, for what it’s worth, I think that he will play, and as long as he’s close to 100% he could be an absolute bargain at the price. He came out firing off the back of layoffs a couple of times last year, and the Eels undersized wing combo of Simonsson and Perham doesn’t read like a defensive fortress (he’d likely play on the right side and run at Perham). If he plays he’s a great option for the single game slate, while it could be worth putting him in some Friday lineups with the option to last swap to Dylan Edwards or others.
 

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