Reed Mahoney (HOK): CANTERBURY BULLDOGS

We have a pretty strong sample size for Mahoney, with 97 appearances in the last 5 years at hooker. Looking closer, this is a breakdown of his averages by year under our current scoring courtesy of Rugby League Fantasy Pro.

	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
MINS	68.5	72.6	72.1	73.4	77
POINTS	39.3	47.5	48.6	59.1	45.6
PPM	0.57	0.66	0.68	0.8	0.6

As you can see, Mahoney had a 6 game season in 2018 where he was learning the ropes, before becoming a full time NRL player in 2019 and being fairly consistent across his NRL career, outside of PVLBALL where he just exploded. Interestingly, his base stats have been fairly consistent (45-49 per game), with the peak actually occurring in 2019. The main difference in 2021 was that (shocker) his attacking stats went from 5-6 per game to 14 per game. He did preserve some of this, and returned down to about 10 attacking points per game in 2022, but that was through an unsustainable 29.6% try scoring rate.

If we look wholistically at the 2019, 2020 and 2022 seasons, which represent the most likely outcome for Mahoney in 2023, we get the following:

Average: 47.6
Minutes: 74.6
PPM: 0.64

Last year, the Bulldogs hooker Jeremy Marshall-King averaged 70.5 minutes per game, and we would expect more than likely this is reflective of the role for Mahoney. We actually have quite a decent sample from the 2019, 2020 and 2022 season for 65-75 minute games for Mahoney, 18 games in total. The stats are similar reading…

Average: 44.5
Minutes: 70.2
PPM: 0.63

Even if you assume Mahoney is a walk up 75+ minutes per game (likely 80 a week), his stats in 75+ minute games in our 3 year sample…

Average: 49.6
Minutes: 80.1
PPM: 0.62

Absolute best case scenario for Mahoney in the current rules…

Take the 2022 season of 45.6 in 77 minutes, add 3-4 points in base (to bring it in line with 2019/20) and remove 3 demerits (in line with 2020/21), while preserving a 30% try scoring rate. This would push you up to an average of 52 roughly, but it is a HUGE swing and would rely on everything going right for Mahoney at the same time. Mahoney played in a great side last year that made a final, so there isn’t even really room for upside there. There MIGHT be an extra point in general play kicking, but that still only comes to 53.

Starting at a price of $659K (BE of 45), there is a very real possibility that Mahoney completes the season cheaper than he is starting, but more than likely he is stagnant at around his starting price all year. He is currently in almost 10% of teams, but have no confusion, this is a big error. You CANNOT ignore 3 years of data with very similar outcomes (0.6PPM-0.68PPM) in favour of one year of inflated attacking stats.

AMATEUR MARK