Fantasy rugby league fans are finally getting a taste for the 2015 season.
It has now become traditional for AFL Fantasy fans to get a trickle of player prices and positions, starting very early in the new year. Today marks the first such article from NRL.com, detailed prices of Brisbane Bronco players:
Andrew McCullough, $523,000
Ben Hunt, $512,000
Corey Parker, $484,000
Josh McGuire, $445,000
Matt Gillett, $415,000
Anthony Milford, $385,000
Alex Glenn, $338,000
Darius Boyd, $299,000
Adam Blair, $298,800
Daniel Vidot, $267,000
Justin Hodges, $234,000
Dale Copley, $227,000
Mitchell Garbutt, $217,000
Jack Reed, $215,000
Greg Eden, $195,000
David Stagg, $176,000
Jordan Kahu, $165,000
Corey Oates, $164,000
Lachlan Maranta, $158,000
Jarrod Wallace, $137,000
James Gavet, $135,000
Ajuma Adams, $128,000
Ashley Taylor, $128,000
Francis Molo, $128,000
Joe Ofahengaue, $128,000
Kodi Nikorima, $128,000
Marmin Barba, $128,000
Mitchell Dodds, $128,000
The FanLeague Fanplanner has been updated with all of these prices, and non-Broncos have been adjusted to fit. You can now use more accurate prices to choose your 2015 NRL Fantasy team prior to the launch, which is likely to be close to the end of January – though given the shenanigans at the start of last fantasy season, it would not be surprising to see official comp operators Fanhub take a little more time to make sure things go smoothly this season.
This list denotes that the “magic number” is 8848, up from 7379 this time last year. The MN is the number by which the previous year’s average is multiplied to produce the new player price (with some exceptions). This is about a 20% markup from last year, suggesting that NRL Fantasy is going to be a lot more difficult – albeit that we haven’t heard what the new salary cap will be yet. If it’s in line with the real 2015 NRL salary cap of $6.55 million, it is going to be harder to fit in a team of guns from the start. Then again, it would merely be aligning with NRL Supercoach and NRL Dream Team. … EDIT … turns out the 2015 salary cap for NRL Fantasy is $6.4 million, up from 6.2, as per Chris Kennedy from NRL Digital Media on Twitter.
The most interesting single value there is Eden, who is coming from Super League and thus whose price is not strictly based on last year’s statistical output. He is priced at about 22, which given he scored around 30 in ESL last year could be somewhat of a bargain.
Update! Raiders prices are now out.
Shaun Fensom, $519,000
Josh Papalii, $396,000
Paul Vaughan, $369,000
Jarrod Croker, $360,000
Josh Hodgson, $336,000
Glen Buttriss, $326,000
Jordan Rapana, $320,000
Blake Austin, $319,000
David Shillington, $317,000
Jack Wighton, $310,000
Dane Tilse, $290,000
Jarrad Kennedy, $290,000
Josh McCrone, $260,000
Sam Williams, $245,000
Sisa Waqa, $235,000
Joel Edwards, $233,000
Frank-Paul Nuuausala, $221,000
Brenko Lee, $205,000
Shannon Boyd, $205,000
Kyle O’Donnell, $193,000
Iosia Soliola, $186,000
Bill Tupou, $164,000
Mitchell Cornish, $164,000
Jeremy Hawkins, $154,000
Mark Nicholls, $146,000
Edrick Lee, $145,000
Kurt Baptiste, $137,000
Jack Ahearn, $128,000
Jeff Lynch, $128,000
Luke Page, $128,000
Mitchell Cronin, $128,000
Rhys Kennedy, $128,000
Cornish is probably the most appealing number there, as he is projected to have a good start to the year.
