2025 Upside NRL Fantasy Guns

1 - Jayden Camplbell – Projections Rank 6

Pre-season talk from Des Hasler announced the move of Kieran Foran to a ball playing impact lock role off the bench. Then Foran tore a bicep in the trials. Hasler’s giving the keys to the car to Jayden Campbell and the "Shotgun" front passenger seat to AJ Brimson! Campbell moved straight into 2022 Nicho Hynes territory with this news. On his 16 Half Starts to date, taking his points scored, stripping away the goal kicking points and stripping away the kicking meter points, were left with a PPM of 0.563. At 80 minutes that comes back to 45 Points a Game. Add in around 6 Pts a game in GK and we have 51. Brimson’s average Kicking Meter Share when playing in the halves to date has been 20%. Jayden Campbell has also never been the main guy kicking. He had close to a 35/65 split with Foran in 2024. Campbell looks the likely of the two to take a more dominant role. We currently have the projected Kicking Meters split to be 60/40 Campbells way. This gives him another 11 points a game on average, taking his projection from around 51 to around 62. Should the kicking meters split flow more in his favour this could easily see him nudging 65 Pts a game. Campbell came into Rd 1 priced at a little under 54 Points a game. He has been massively missed with just 5% of Fantasy Teams starting with him. Campbell is every chance of equalling or bettering the averages of Haas and Yeo over the first 12 Rd’s whilst costing $103K-$140K less respectively.

2 – Terrell May – Projections Rank 3

May comes in at number 2 due to his 40%+ Rd 1 Ownership – He was the obvious no-brainer that only total new-comers could have missed. We need not write him up.

**3 – Kalyn Ponga – Projections Rank 5 **

Ponga came into Rd 1 with a healthier starting ownership around the 35% mark. His ownership in the Top 5000 Teams for Rd 1 was north of 73%. The knights didn’t really click in 2024 the way they had in the back half of 2023. Ponga had issues with a hip pointer injury in Rd 6 and then suffered a Lisfranc (mid-foot) injury in Rd 7 which required Surgery. His average fell from almost 63 in his part 2023 season to 54 in 2024. Ponga came into the 2025 season on a full pre-season and without any injury concerns of note. The move of Fletcher Sharpe to 5/8 also cements a slightly larger kicking role for Ponga in 2025, with upside for even more. Our Projected Kicking Meters were 70% Cogger, 30% Ponga with negligible contributions from other players. In Rd 1 this projection was spot on with Ponga 29% and Cogger 70%. Did you avoid Knights because they have an early bye? They also have an ultra-friendly first half of the season. We have them as having the 3rd softest draw over the first 8 Rd’s. We’ll leave it to you to pull up the NRL Site and take a look at the Knights opening Draw. Our Projections for Ponga came out at a 12 Rd Projection of 61.5 with $67K Value as a cut price keeper. Ponga started the season at $730K, $95K cheaper than Haas who we project to average 63.6.

4 – Cameron Munster – Projections Rank 11

Cameron was impeded by osteitis pubis (groin) issues throughout 2024. Through 2021-2023 he has season fantasy averages of 55, 62 and 55. He had Hip surgery in the offseason to alleviate the issues and while this hampered his off-season, he was training at about 90% by late February according to our sources. He made the field for Storm’s dress rehearsal 2nd Trial Game and was running freely. He looked very much back to his old self. Munster came into the season priced at just $589K (46 Pts). Storm also look set for a massive season. Munster came into the season at just over 13% ownership.

5 – Dylan Lucas – Projections CTR Rank 3

On the surface the value in Lucas looks scant. It wasn’t until Kalyn Ponga revealed in an interview, that Tyson Frizell was moving to the middles in 2025 to accommodate Lucas and Pearce-Paul being the Knights starting edges, that we started warming to him. In 16 games where Lucas held an edge throughout the game in 2024, he averaged 51 points from 76 minutes scoring 3 Tries. Our Projections which are based on those numbers have him at much the same number. However, Knights have a very friendly draw up to Origin and were quite poor in 2024. We expect Newcastle to be a much improved outfit in 2025 and Dylan Lucas is the type of player that could easily break out if that eventuates. The upside is definitely there. The other factor to weigh is the strategic value of Lucas. Actual Centre is the lowest scoring position in Fantasy. The opportunity to largely eliminate one of your CTR slots with a 50+ Averaging Edge Forward is too great to pass up for experienced Fantasy Players. Just under 20% of Fantasy Teams started with Lucas in Rd 1. If Lucas does breakout and average 57+ then he will have been a missed Must Have player for the 80% who left him out.

6 – Corey Horsburgh – Projections MID Rank 7

Big Red had an awful 2024 following a massive falling out with Ricky Stuart. His days at Canberra looked to be over. The two managed to repair the rift by the back end of the season. Horsburgh is a massive part of the Raiders Forward pack in 2025 with an aging Josh Papali’i expected to come off the bench and start declining in minutes. Corey has a massive motor. In 12 non-edge games where he played above 50 minutes in 2023, he averaged 68.5 minutes for 62 points with 0 Tries. He started the season priced at just 43 points. We have him projected at an average 55 minutes a game for about 52 points. At that projection he started the season as a cut price keeper with over $100K value in him. There’s definitely a few points of potential upside above that 52 point projection. Less than 20% of Fantasy Teams started with Big Red Rd 1.

7 – John Bateman – Projections EDG Rank 5

Bateman just didn’t fit in at the Tigers. He dropped from averaging 77 minutes for 54 points in 2023, to 71.5 minutes and under 45 points a game in 2024. He came into the season priced at around 46 points. We project him being back in a regular 80 minute role at the Cowboys and have a projection of 78 minutes for 55 points. This comes in at around $100K Value.

Other strong potential cut price keeper edge options we identified*

Jabob Preston who we expect to be in a regular 80 minute role projects as being the #2 Edge in the game in 2025 at a projection of over 58 Pts a game.

We also see big break out potential in Shawn Blore in his 2nd year at Storm. Blore averaged 73 minutes for 44 points with just 2 Tries in 2024. Blore played the full 80 minutes 3 games running in Rd 27, Storms Qualifying Final and Preliminary Final. He played 73 minutes of the Grand Final being subbed off for Tyran Wishart in the last 7 minutes with Storm down by 8 Points. Blore’s PPM in 2024 was a little down. We project him becoming a regular 80 minute player and averaging 78 minutes for 52 Points. He also lines up outside Cameron Munster on Storms Left Edge. With our expectation of Munster being back to his best and Storm being strong Minor Premiership favourites, there’s every chance we see a breakout season from Blore. We opted for the Munster/Blore double over taking John Bateman.

8 – Reuban Garrick – Projections CTR Rank 4

Just 2.6 Points separate our 1st and 4th ranked Centre projections for 2025, although we do expect a breakout for our #3 Dylan Lucas. Garrick could easily be the #2 by year end. Garrick had some bad luck on the HIA front being ruled out early in 3 games. As a result, he averaged just 71 minutes in 2024. We project him averaging 50 Points a game playing 80 minutes and having over $60K value in him. Strategically, as with Lucas, it’s an opportunity to eliminate one of the weaker Fantasy positions with a cut price keeper from the start. We don’t love Garricks HIA potential, but also strategically, he could become a nice stepping stone to Beau Fermor.

Other Fullback Notables

Just 4 points separate our #4 WFB from our #11

Our Projections coming into Rd 1 had Greg Marzhew with a big bounce-back to a 50 Pt average at a discount of almost $150K. Marzhew started the season with just 6% ownership.

AJ Brimson sits at #11 in our WFB Projections with an expected average of almost 48 Points a game at a $120K discount. This projection assumes a 40% share of the Kicking Meters in his 5/8 role. We have Titans as having the 2nd softest Rolling 8 Rd Draw coming into Rd 2. Brimson’s Rd 1 ownership was also under the radar at 7.7%.

Published on 15-Mar-2025