McInerney's Averaging 137. He Just Scored 41 in a 2-Point Thriller. The Registry Says Sell.

"Averaging 137 covers a lot of sins — until the breakeven catches up with you in a game your team actually needs you for."

Justin McInerney is still showing a 137 season average, which on a $441.8k-ish price tag reads like one of the better value mids going around. Round 13 told a different story: 41 points, 29 below his 70 breakeven, in a St Kilda clash Sydney scraped home 104-102 at the SCG. No 114-point demolition to point at this time — the Swans needed every contested ball going, and McInerney's stat line dried up at exactly the wrong moment. The registry's verdict has flipped to sell, and once you look past the headline average, it's not hard to see why.

The 137 Is Doing A Lot Of Heavy Lifting

That season average is propped up by two genuinely elite games — 110 against Melbourne in R8, and a monster 137 in R10 where he racked up 31 disposals and a goal in a tight 6-point arm-wrestle win over Collingwood at the SCG. Those are the games that get screenshotted as proof he's a lock-and-forget premo.

The other recent rounds tell a different story. R12 was a 58 — in fairness, that one came in a 114-point demolition of Richmond where every other Sydney player was feasting too, so there's at least an excuse. R9 was a 64, three points under BE in a tight away win. And now R13's 41. A season average of 137 built on a run that includes a 64, a 58 and a 41 in four of the last five outings is more top-heavy than the headline number suggests.

Three Of The Last Five Below BE

Strip it back to breakevens — the number that actually decides whether McInerney makes or costs you cash from here:

• R9: 64 vs a 67 BE — three short
• R12: 58 vs a 65 BE — seven short
• R13: 41 vs a 70 BE — twenty-nine short

Three of his last five rounds have finished under breakeven, and R13 isn't a near-miss — it's the kind of gap that drags a price down fast if it happens even once more.

Round 13 Wasn't Garbage Time — That's The Problem

The usual defence for McInerney's quiet weeks has been context: blowout wins where the result's decided early, midfield rotations easing off, nothing on the line. R13 doesn't get that out. Sydney needed a 104-102 win over St Kilda — a genuine two-point arm-wrestle — and McInerney finished with 14 disposals (his second-lowest game of the season) and 3 clangers, working out to 2.93 SuperCoach points per disposal. Compare that to R12's 58 from just 11 touches — low volume, but at least efficient at 5.27 points per disposal. R13 was low volume and inefficient, in a game where Sydney's midfield had to win the contest rather than coast through one.

The Cash Gen Pattern Nobody's Talking About

Here's the part that should worry owners more than any single score: R13 is the fourth time this season McInerney's cash generation has gone negative. R7 (-$118/wk), R9 (-$883/wk), R10 (-$220/wk), and now R13 (-$71/wk). Four negative cash gen weeks in a 13-round season for a "premium lock" isn't a one-off — it's a cycle that keeps recurring, and every time it does, the big scores in between have to work harder just to claw the price back.

The Call From Here

Holding McInerney at $441.8k-ish off the back of that 137 average doesn't make him a bad player — he's clearly not. But the price has been built on two outlier weeks, the breakeven keeps creeping back above what he's actually producing, and the fourth negative cash gen week of the season just landed in a game with nowhere to hide. Could he drop a 100 next week and make this look premature? Sure, he's done it before — I'd expect something more like 90-100 from him on a good week, not the low-40s he just posted. But wait and see for me before you back him in again; I wouldn't be putting fresh cash into a $441.8k mid carrying a 70 BE off a 41, not while the registry's flashing sell.

Updated: June 2026. Data sourced from RookieBible intel registry.

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