In 2025 David Fifita didn’t just burn coach Des Hasler and the Gold Coast Titans — he eviscerated anyone who owned the backrower in NRL SuperCoach.
Since starting in the NRL, Fifita has never had a worse statistical season, and that translated straight across to SuperCoach with a pedestrian 50-point average for 2025 across only eight games — none of which he started.
It was a massive fall from grace after a career season of 85 points per game in 2021 and an elite SuperCoach average of just under 78 points per game across the four years leading into 2025.
All of this, however, isn’t a negative — it is some of the best news in SuperCoach when a proven top-tier gun comes into a season at an extreme discount, but some are still sceptical of owning Fifita after such a poor 2025 and a perceived lack of work ethic.
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These are the type of decisions that can make or break the start to a SuperCoach season, and sometimes they are the ones where coaches overthink the glaringly obvious or try to be too smart for their own good.
Much has changed from 2025 and there is a strong case to argue it should be thrown out the window and forgotten about faster than wingers not being able to touch a corner post when scoring.
David Fifita is in a new team, under a new coach, and has a guaranteed starting role right now, very likely at 80 minutes — all for the paltry SuperCoach price of $485,300 for your Round 1 team.
That is not just the lowest price you can start with David Fifita at but a price many bench forwards are priced higher than.
When Fifita has been in this situation before, aside from the new team factor, he has been an elite SuperCoach option averaging close to 80 points per game as a starter and has been one of the top few players in the entire game for some of those seasons.
We will get to more numbers shortly, but the other subjective evaluation is he is now in a more talented team, on an edge that features Cody Walker inside him with Latrell Mitchell and Alex Johnston outside him — that screams points opportunity.
Many forget Fifita is a unicorn in fantasy sports — he is a forward who can get through enough work offloading and tackle busting while scoring tries like a centre and setting up outside backs with try assists like he’s Nathan Cleary in a Hulk-buster suit.
Just a couple short years ago Fifita led all forwards in try-scoring creation, as well as scoring nearly a try every other game across the four years on the Gold Coast prior to the 2025 season.
If you aren’t sold on the narratives and the feel-good story of another Wayne Bennett reclamation project proving successful, then it’s time to look at the cold hard numbers.
As much as all of SuperCoach wrote off Fifita in 2025, one number was still consistent throughout the season — his points per minute (PPM) — and that is a big deal.
In 2025 Fifita had a PPM of 1.04, with the three years prior averaging 1.02, meaning his output per minute actually held firm.
Had he played 80 minutes last season, he would have averaged more points than his prior three-year average and come in at around 83 SuperCoach points per game, good for his second-best career average.
This is important because the narrative developed around Fifita that his work ethic fell off, his attitude was poor and he was not as effective anymore as an attacking weapon, and the numbers say none of that was quite the case.
Now let’s get to why he is not just an option but a must-have, which is a big call because a “must-have” in SuperCoach is normally reserved for cheap cash cows, badly underpriced players in new guaranteed roles, or elite talents you simply can’t compete without.
While many will argue there is not enough guarantee Fifita falls into any of those categories, when evaluating if someone is a must-have the number one thing it almost always comes down to is value.
If David Fifita had his worst career PPM at the Rabbitohs and is in an 80-minute role, he would still project to score around 68 points per game — he is currently priced on a 50 average.
If David Fifita matches his career-best PPM in that same role, he is looking at more than 87 SuperCoach points per game.
The statistics say Fifita is anywhere between 18 to a whopping 37 points underpriced entering the 2026 NRL season, and that is value that simply cannot be ignored under any circumstances.
The other consideration with a must-have, aside from the floor and worst-case scenario, is the best-case scenario.
At worst Fifita is a gun at a discounted price, at best he is the number one 2RF positional option in the game and potentially a top-three overall option across all positions – in other words, you can not lose.
I still hear some sceptics — what if he only plays 60 minutes? If that is our worst-case scenario, you have just paid a 50-point price tag for a guy averaging around a projected 60 points per game, which is still a gun, still value, and still strong cash generation at a discount.
Right now he is in over 57 per cent of coaches’ sides — come kick-off that number should be 100 per cent.