The History
A perennial reserve and impact sub at the Tigers and then the Rabbitohs, Brown earned a move to the Eels in 2017, and it is here he forged himself into a top level first grader. In his first season in the blue and gold, Brown started the first six rounds of the season on the bench, However, from rounds 4-6, Brown averaged 76 PPG, which prompted Brad Arthur to promote Brown to the starting side. Despite playing most of his career as a prop, Brown slotted into the Eels #13 jersey, and didn’t look back. In his 30 matches as a starting lock since joining the Eels, Brown has averaged 67.2 PPG, doing so in an average of 72 minutes per game. Brown is such a good SuperCoach asset for two reasons. Firstly, he has a huge base. Over the past two seasons, Brown has scored 57.9 base PPG. In 2017, Brown scored 959 base points in 16 starts, averaging 59.9 per game, and then went on to score 781 base points in 14 starts at an average of 55.8 per game in 2018. You can put this down to Brown’s huge work ethic, getting through on average 17 hit ups and 36 tackles per game over the past two seasons. The second reason Nathan Brown is a top SuperCoach asset is because of the minutes he plays. As previously mentioned, he has averaged 72 minutes per start over the last to seasons. In 2017, Arthur played Brown for 74 minutes per game, and seven 80 minute matches. In 2018, his numbers dropped slightly due to persistent injuries, but Brown still played 69 minutes per game, with four 80 minutes efforts. Moreover, Brown’s evasive stats have been a bit inconsistent in the past two seasons. In 2017, he averaged 10 evasive PPG, with this dropping to 8 evasive PPG in 2018. However, from rounds 18-23 last season, Brown’s evasive skills pretty much disappeared, only averaging 3 evasive PPG. Due to the Eels’ struggles, it appeared that Brown ditched his offloading towards the backend of last season in order to play it safe, and this impacted his SuperCoach points slightly. In fact, from 2017 to the end of the 2018 season, he dropped from averaging two offloads per game, to not even averaging one offload per game.
The Comparison
If you’re looking for a 2RF who is a base stat beast and highly consistent, there are four players in particular who are way above the rest. They are Nathan Brown, Jake Trbojevic, Jason Taumalolo and Jai Arrow. In terms of pure base stats, Nathan Brown (57.9 PPG) ranks 3rd out of the above four players. Indeed, over the past two seasons, Brown has ranked 2nd and 3rd for average hit ups per game, behind only Taumalolo in 2018, and both Taumalolo and Gallen in 2017. Furthermore, Brown has been in the top seven for tackles per game among 2RFS for two seasons in a row. Surprisingly, Jake Trbojevic (58.5 PPG) is ranked 2nd with Jason Taumalolo (55.5 PPG) in 4th. That means that the ultimate SuperCoach base stat beast is Jai Arrow, who, when playing 55+ minutes last season, averaged 62.0 PPG in base stats alone. So, for around 80k more than Brown, Trbojevic and Taumalolo score quite similarly to Brown in base stats. Comparing the average minutes per game of these four players, Brown betters both Taumalolo and Arrow, averaging 72 minutes per game over the last two seasons. Taumalolo has averaged 63.5 minutes per game over the last two seasons, whilst Arrow was playing 55-65 minutes per game before his injury last season. It is worth noting however that with a PPM of 0.91 last season, Brown needed the extra minutes to even his scores out with the PPM superior Taumalolo (1.1) and Arrow (1.17). Although Jake Trbojevic has the same PPM as Brown, he beats all three of the above players in minutes, being almost exclusively an 80 minute lock. Finally, despite playing more minutes than both Taumalolo and Arrow, Brown and Trbojevic are comprehensively beaten in the category of evasive PPG. Whilst Brown and Trbojevic average 9 and 8 evasive PPG respectively over the past two seasons, Taumalolo averages 16 evasive points per game, whilst Arrows score a huge 17.8 PPG in evasion.
The Fixtures
For a workhorse like Brown, fixtures aren’t too important, as whoever he plays, he will score well given that he plays big minutes. Still, there are a few points to note. In the first eight rounds, the Eels have just one five day turn around, and no trips outside of NSW or the ACT. This bodes well for Brown’s SuperCoach prospects, as he will have plenty of time to recover between games. Moreover, Parramatta play the round 12 bye (vs South Sydney), and Brown will be a valuable number in that round, especially given that he averages 56 PPG against the Rabbitohs.
The Prospects
Nathan Brown’s prospects are looking quite good heading into the 2019 season. With his huge base and work rate, Brown is a safe pick and reliable SuperCoach option. Coming in at a large discount compared to Taumalolo and Jake Trbojevic, Brown may not have as high an upside, but he matches them for base. Guaranteed big minutes again this season, all Brown needs to do to push his average up is rediscover his offload and break a few more tackles – something very achievable. Covering the round 12 bye and available much cheaper than other 2RFs, you can’t really go wrong getting Brown in your side.
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