Round 5 trade targets: Ranking the best buy options

After a month of footy we’ve likely seen enough to make a few determinations and move forward with our supercoaching accordingly.

First and foremost, Nicho Hynes. I wrote last week in no uncertain words that he wouldn’t score over 160 and punish people who wanted a look at him first, and a look we most certainly got.. so much so that I eventually had to look away.

Moral of the story: you can’t get everything right over the course of a 27 round season, you must accept the fact that sometimes your decisions will be dead wrong.  Perseverance and keeping faith in your decision making processes on average is the key.

As of right now 25,000 players have traded in Nicho Hynes.

Now, it would be naïve of me to say that he won’t come out and score another massive ton but I’m going to say it anyway. Its highly unlikely that the Warriors fold up like the Dragons did. So far they have conceded the least amount of points of any of the teams that have played all four games.

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I understand that he’s the best player in supercoach, but there’s no need for these sort of panic levels.

I’m seeing people trade out keeper after keeper to bring in Hynes and Garrick this week (looking at you SC Spy) and it makes me excited to hold onto guys like Murray, Doueihi and Holmes who are all becoming less owned by the minute.

The way I see it, there’s ample amounts of money-making prospects this season across nearly all the positions, so I’m going to sit back and let them go to work.

The trades I can save over the next 2-3 weeks in not pulling my team apart to rush in Hynes will be crucial come years end, as they always are.

Furthermore, everyone will have Hynes in two more weeks anyway, he won’t be the player who wins or loses you supercoach, in fact he will be largely irrelevant from after this round onwards – so 25,000 of you had better hope he continues the hot streak.

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Now that that’s out of the way, what have we seen over the opening 4 weeks that we can work with moving forward?

Well for a start we have seen cash cows like Hopgood, Katoa and Wilton fall into the realm of keeper territory instantaneously, the last time I remember this happening in the forwards was when Payne Haas hit the scene.

Now obviously having these guys around has been an absolute blessing for most supercoaches right?

Well on the surface the obvious answer is yes, however what I believe it’s actually doing is causing a massive false sense of security around the depth of teams.

Supercoaches have been much less reluctant to trade out the proven guns than we’ve seen in previous years.

The likes of David Fifita and Cameron Murray are being shown utter disrespect by thousands of supercoaches just because they aren’t in scintillating form right off the bat.

Remember, NRL is a marathon so be prepared for these keeperish looking cows to suddenly be walked to the slaughterhouse and turned into prime rib.

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My dilemma is clear, do I want to move my mid rangers on before they peak based on what I’m seeing on the field.  

A perfect example is Bryce Cartwright who has been scoring very well to start the season and definitely has another 100-150k to make over the next month, however just looks a little sluggish out there compared to a player like Jackson Ford who has a similar price and breakeven but looks much more destructive carrying the ball and threatening to making multiple linebreaks a game.

Is a cow-to-cow trade worth it at this stage of the game? Or should we be milking every penny from our cows to minimise required trades to reach your eventual desired final 17?

This sort of question is what is weighing on my mind much more than whether to bring in Nicho Hynes which I’m sure many of you will find silly but look at the top 4 teams on the ladder and then tell me what you really think is silly.

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Now onto the players I have my eyes on over the coming few weeks for trade ins.  

Zac Hosking and Greg Marzhew are at the top of the list after two massive scores from both players in their first games of the season.

Sure, it may feel like point chasing, but visually these guys look like out and out supercoach guns and could very well be final 17 players this season in my opinion.

Job security is a concern for both players, however I think the coaches will find it tough to drop either guy after stellar debuts for their new clubs.

Regardless, I’ll likely be waiting a week on both guys and trying to squeeze a few more dollars out of guys like Preston and Alamoti who have served their purpose well to start the year.

Trades: None

VC: Cleary

C: Turbo

Good luck Supercoaches.