NRL Fantasy winners & losers: Round 23

Author: Lone Scout NRL Fantasy guru
Timestamp: Tue 21 Aug 2018, 10:36 AM

The Sea Eagles may have lost but Manly's favourite sons both dominated in a crucial round for the NRL Fantasy season as we head into this week's head-to-head grand final qualifiers.

Winners

With a hat-trick, four line breaks, two try assists, a whopping 13 tackle breaks and 207 run metres, Tom Tbrojevic produced the highest individual Fantasy score of the season with a massive 115 against the Titans. His brother Jake didn't go too badly either with a try-scoring double plus 41 tackles for 78 Fantasy points.

Remarkably it wasn't enough to get Manly a win, as the Gold Coast stormed back with standout performances from rookie fullback AJ Brimson (69) and Ryan James (64).

Elsewhere Luciano Leilua had his best game in first grade with a try, a line-break assist, seven busts and 40 tackles for 83 points in the Dragons' win over the Wests Tigers. He looks like a Fantasy gun of the future if he can get big minutes on a regular basis – something that's easier said than done when the Dragons pack is at full strength (he played 77 minutes on Saturday with Tyson Frizell covering for the injured Paul Vaughan in the front row).

Popular halves Shaun Johnson and Nathan Cleary both bagged 77 points – again in losing teams – while Cameron McInnes was the best of the hookers with 75, Brisbane duo Corey Oates and Anthony Milford both scored 72, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck continued his excellent recent form with 71 and Lachlan Lewis kicked the match-winning field goal against the Warriors on Sunday to finish with 64.

Losers

The big captaincy battle between Damien Cook and Cameron Smith took a few turns across the weekend. Fantasy coaches who picked Smith as skipper would have been cheering when Cook scored "only" 48 on Thursday night, only for Smith to leave the field injured 34 minutes into Melbourne's win over Parramatta on 27 points.

A suspension for the most-owned player in Fantasy, Jason Taumalolo, stretched the depth of about 45,000 Fantasy squads, although most of his likely replacements (Jake Trbojevic, Nathan Brown, Andrew Fifita) scored well.

It was a quiet week for Latrell Mitchell (30), Rhyse Martin (36), Sam Burgess (37) and Jai Arrow (38), while Kalyn Ponga didn't get his usual run metres tally at five-eighth and scored 38.

NRL Fantasy Team of the Week
1. Tom Tbrojevic (115)
2. Corey Oates (72)
3. Dane Gagai (68)
4. Josh Dugan (49)
5. Roger Tuivasa-Sheck (71)
6. Shaun Johnson (77)
7. Nathan Cleary (77)
8. Ryan James (64)
9. Cameron McInnes (75)
10. Jordan McLean (64)
11. Luciano Leilua (83)
12. Aiden Guerra (69)
13. Jake Trbojevic (78)
14. Anthony Milford (72)
15. AJ Brimson (69)
16. James Segeyaro (65)
17. Lachlan Lewis (64)