Will Dragons recruit Josh Drinkwater be the Dream Team rookie of the year in 2013?
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NRL DREAM TEAM: Will the new Dragons half become this year's Adam Reynolds?
Club: Dragons
Position: Half
Price: $101,600
Last year's average: -
Last year's high score: -
Positives: Rabbitohs halfback Adam Reynolds was the best Dream Team buy of 2012, starting at a bargain basement price and playing the entire season for the Bunnies. The NRL Rookie of the Year was both a big Dream Team moneymaker and a strong scorer in his own right. A year earlier, Daly Cherry-Evans did the same job for the Manly Sea Eagles, coming straight into the starting side and immediately impressing in the top grade.
Is Josh Drinkwater this year's Cherry-Evans?
It's a big call at this stage – there's not even any guarantee he'll be playing in round one – but Drinkwater is an early favourite to be the best rookie in NRL Dream Team in 2013.
The retirement of Dragons halfback and captain Ben Hornby leaves a big hole in the St George Illawarra line-up and coach Steve Price has two clear options to replace him. Price can go with experience in the form of the solid Kiwi international Nathan Fien, or he can take a gamble on the highly-rated youngster Drinkwater. The initial plan may have been to play young gun Kyle Stanley in the halves, but a season-ending injury has derailed those plans.
Drinkwater was purchased from Manly after leading the Toyota Cup for try assists last season. With the Dragons desperately needing a boost in attack after last year's underwhelming campaign, he could be the man for the job.
Negatives: Rookies are cheap in Dream Team for a reason: they're untried at the top level and are more likely to be miss than hit in their first season.
Even if Drinkwater does play, his halves partner Jamie Soward is still likely to do the bulk of the kicking in general play for the Dragons, and that's the bread and butter as far as Dream Team scoring goes for halves. That alone means Drinkwater is unlikely to match the big scoring of Cherry-Evans and Reynolds in the past couple of seasons.
Risk rating: Drinkwater's as cheap as they come and is guaranteed to go up in value if he becomes a half-decent Dream Team scorer and plays three or more matches. The only risk in buying him is that he doesn't get a game and simply uses up a spot in your 25-man squad.
We say get him in your team – he's almost certain to see some action during the season and could be a bargain if he clicks into gear. On our risk scale he rates just one out of five Matt Orfords.
BigPond Sport's patented risk scale ranks players out of five Matt Orfords, with five Orfords representing maximum risk and one Orford being a low-risk player.
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