Welcome to Wicky’s Punter’s Preview for the 2023 NRL Grand Final. We had our BEST round of the season in Round 27, nailing more than 6 plays between $34-67!
Our Discord, Punter’s Preview Article & Podcast & Odds Comparison Tool (OCT) are all free to check out through our Linktree.
If you’re seeing this in 2024 – we hit Cleary at 26/1 to finish the 2023 NRL season and Willison last try scorer @ 67/1 in the All Stars game to start 2024! You can join our Discord, follow us on socials or access all our tips and content for free here
Panthers v Broncos
Sun 1/10, 7.30pm
Try Scorer Value Tips
Nathan Cleary LTS @ $26 on Bet365 (This won – Cleary historically scored the match winner!)
Patrick Carrigan FTS & LTS @ $81 on Dabble
Payne Haas & Tom Flegler FTS & LTS @ $67+ widely available (incl SB, Dabble & Neds)**
Spencer Leniu FTS2H @ $41 on Sportsbet & Neds
Tyson Smoothy & Kobe Hetherington FTS2H @ $71 on Sportsbet**
Billy Walters 1st, 2nd or 3rd try scorer @ $15 on Neds**
We’ll add more picks closer to game time on our Free Discord channel!
Wicky Preview Sat 30/9 – The picks we’re most keen on are Cleary, Leniu & Walters. Cleary’s scored the last try one in every 10 NRL games. Leniu’s scored the first try in the 2nd half every 20 NRL games. We’re getting over $20 for Cleary LTS & over $40 for Leniu FTS 2nd half. And Walters is coming off scoring a double – we’re getting $16 now on Neds for him to score any of the first three tries. We love the value on these picks.
The Broncos forwards at $67+ are all good value but we’ll wait till game day and do an update on who is still a high price and at which bookie. Check out the odds comparison tool if you want to find the best price across 11 bookies for try scorer markets. We’ve made the Premium tool free for everyone for the NRL Grand Final – including a price comparison for the Clive Churchill Medal!
Want to know how to get the most out of our punter’s preview & odds comparison tool? Check out this article that breaks down some of the key words we use and how to make it work for you!
Clive Churchill Medal
Patrick Carrigan @ $17 on PlayUp
Liam Martin @ $26 on PlayUp
Billy Walters @ $71 on Sportsbet
Wicky Preview Thu 28/9 – First thing to note, Player of the Match awards are only given out a few times a year. As we’ve seen with both the AFL & NRL Player of the Season awards – the winner can surprise people. Our advice would be to have some fun with it! Back one of the favourites from the team you think or want to win. And back one of our value picks above!
Billy Walters scored two tries in their Prelim win over the Warriors last week. He’s surprised most pundits and been an impressive contributor to the Broncos in 2023. The Coach’s son, in good try scoring form recently, extremely well priced at $71 ($51 or less on most other bookies). We love this as a value play. We’d play it at $51 or above, but clearly the $71 is a standout price.
Patrick Carrigan won the Wally Lewis medal last year and no one would have been surprised if he’d won it again this year! His pedigree winning these awards so early in his career, having captained this team through tougher times and his ability to play big minutes and get through an immense amount of workload should have him closer to the top tier favourites in our opinion. We love the $17 and would play him at anything above $14.
Liam Martin was arguably the Blues’ best in another Origin series loss this year. Most ex-players in the media absolutely love him. He’s played a crucial role in the last 3 seasons – playing on both edges as well as some time in the middle. Had scored 3 games in a row before last week, where he ran over Cam Munster to set up a try for Nathan Cleary in the 2nd half. How the hell is he still paying $26?! We’d take him at anything above $20.
We won’t call this a tip, it’s not our style! But if you were to go for one of the favourites – we’d go with Cleary or Walsh, depending on who you think will win the game. Cleary’s paying $3.50 & Walsh $8 on Bet Right. As much as most NRL fans probably want a new team to win the premiership, the Panthers are deserved favourites and it’d be so predictable to see the Panthers win by say 6 points and Cleary to get the Clive Churchill Medal.
Want to know more about how we built our NRL try scorer models? Check out our explainer article here. Remember the model odds are only a guide to finding the best value first try scorer and anytime try scorer value plays!
NRL Draftstars
Draftstars have announced a $60,000 prize pool for the NRL Grand final in the main $15 entry contest. If you’re new to the concept – don’t worry we’ll be explaining what it’s all about and breaking down some of the best value picks and how to get started! If you need to make a Draftstars/PlayUp account – you can do it here. We’ll have a detailed breakdown of the game but in the meantime you can check out our projected scores for each player on our Stats Bible.
Value plays
Patrick Carrigan @ $18,140. Wally Lewis Medal winner last year. Close to going back to back in this year’s Origin series. Scored his highest DFS score (96) against the Panthers this year in 80 minutes with 67 tackles, 3 offloads and 3 tackle breaks. Nice price too!
Billy Walters @ $9,930. Coming off scoring a double in their Prelim win – we think he’s likely to play big minutes against the Panthers and he’s got the right pedigree and cheap price to be a great value option.
Fade options
Isaah Yeo @ $20,230. He’s scored a few tries & played 80 minutes a few times this year and we’ve seen his ceiling. It doesn’t match Carrigan or Haas. We prefer Cleary, Haas or Carrigan in the top tier.
Reece Walsh @ $17,100. 2023 could be remembered as the year of Reece Walsh. But we still think there are many different ways to use up your salary cap. It’s likely to be a tight Grand Final won on defence – even if he has a match defining touch or two, we don’t think he’ll be able to get close to his ceiling in a game like this.
Example team
Knights v Titans (NRLW GF)
Sun 1/10, 3.55pm
Try Scorer Value Tips
Shannon Mato FTS & LTS @ $51 on Bet365
Jessika Elliston ATS @ $7.50 on Neds
Tayla Predebon FTS @ $41 on Neds
Yasmin Clydsdale FTS @ $29 on Topsport
Wicky Preview Sat 30/9 – We’ve used a combination of comparing the odds across bookies and our team’s analysis watching NRLW games to come up with these try scorer and Player of the Match (POTM) picks. We’ve gone for value as usual – gamble responsibly and hopefully we can witness the first ever Premiership from any major sporting team from the Gold Coast in Australia!
Player of the Match (Karyn Murphy Medal)
Destiny Mino-Sinapati POTM @ $101-151 on Bet365 + most other bookies
Abigail Roache POTM @ $51 on most bookies
Rabbitohs v Tigers (NSW Cup v QCup Winners)
Sun 1/10, 1.20pm
Try Scorer Value Tips
Blake Taaffe FTS & LTS @ $19 on Unibet/Pointsbet + ATS @ $3 on Unibet
Ryley Jacks FTS & LTS @ $41 on Unibet
If you want to follow more of our NRL analysis throughout the season or any of our other work at Wicky, please reach out via email or on social media.
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