NRL Fantasy Trade Review - Part 1

 From the newest member of the TCA team - Camo. Strap yourselves in for some serious NRL Fantasy!

It’s times like these when you’re clutching to your last trade like Golem screeching ‘My Precious’ where it’s time to take a deep dive into what went wrong and what went right for the season and to see what can be learnt for next season.

Firstly, it is important to distinguish between process and outcome for trades, as outcome bias can definitely cloud the hindsight judgment of particularly unsuccessful trades. You can easily end up having a good decision dictate making a trade and ending up with an unlucky outcome (as I can attest to on multiple occasions), while a bad process might just end up in a bad outcome.

Data retrieved from yafss.com for ease and more detail, can easily be retrieved from NRL Fantasy trade page and trades rated on an A+ to F scale.

Starting Squad:

• BSmith
• Haas, Tapine, Murray
• Katoa, Loiero
• Cleary, Doueihi
• IThompson, Alamoti
• Miller, Nicoll-Klokstad, Warbrick
• Bench: EButcher, Boyd, Hopgood, Trindall, Doorey, Sloan, Smith-Shields, IKatoa

A few errors in hindsight here that probably contributed to my demise around the Origin period:

• Starting with Doorey who was said to be “working towards 80 mins”. A known low PPM player over his career, against a high upside Cartwright who had a previous high 40s average starting EDG.
• IThompson an older rookie who only had a 2 game sample size with tries in both was bound to regress.
• Smith-Shields had only a clear 8-week path at the time with Savage injured and was therefore limited to cash-making within this timeframe. ○ IKatoa a lesser error, but a rookie with a dominant half partner had limited opportunity for cash gen prior to O’Sullivan’s injury.

Round 2 (2 trades)
EButcher (11k loss) to Cartwright (A+)
BSmith (10k loss) to Robson (C+)

• What looks like it could have been a great trade to a keeper after R1, in hindsight was a quite poor decision, given the necessity to generate cash in the early rounds. I was quite high on Robson pre-season with no byes until mid-season, but withdrew on TLT R1.
• Cartwright proved an outstanding cow making 262k

Round 3 (2 trades)
Nicoll-Klokstad (31k profit) to Bird (C+)
Boyd (7k loss) to Preston (B-)

• Again, I overlooked the importance of cash gen in the early rounds, trading in another keeper.
• Preston was another amazing cash cow turned keeper (making 405k), but trading Boyd after a poor R2 was a major overreaction to a clear underpriced asset, who became a mid-season keeper. Round 4 (1 trade) Doueihi (22k loss) to Johnson (A+)
• In a league of its own for my trade of the season, Doueihi was shifted to fullback and tanking cash, while SJ was again proving the power of a dominant half for fantasy, going on to average 65+

Round 5 (1 trade)
Doorey (80k profit) to Ford (B+)

● Doorey was benched by this point but was a little late to Ford (after switching to Trindall pre-R1) after a poor R4 squad setup where he would have been locked into my EMG. Ford another solid cow (154k profit) that was unfortunately cut short just prior to the byes.

Round 6 (2 trades)
Trindall (142k profit) to Nikorima (A)
Tapine (31k loss) to Frizell (B)

• Likewise, Trindall had been replaced by Hynes, and dropped down to Nikorima who was another gem (273k profit)
• Tapine was out for 2 of the next 3 at this point after withdrawing due to birth of a baby, and went for an underpriced Frizell, having missed the initial Hosking hype. The preference at the time was a WFB as I was starting both Warbrick and Sloan, and was wrongly startled by a high BE for Latrell who had only underperformed due to a lack of attacking stats against tough opposition.

Round 7 (3 trades)
Smith-Shields (23k profit) to Tedesco (B)
Sloan (154k profit) to Walsh (C+)
Hopgood (264k profit) to BSmith (B)

• Big upgrade to WFB, getting 2 guns in, however buying an erratic WFB at close to peak price was a poor decision (which will be repeated in future weeks).
• Hopgood had been benched, and took the cash, with BSmith scoring as was expected in pre-season before an injury

Round 8 (2 trades)
Cartwright (262k profit) to Manu (B+)
Warbrick (160k profit) to Host (D)

• I was just short of Manu playing out-of-position at five-eighth, and had multiple Storm players with a bye in the following round.
• Once again, a clear history of a poor fantasy option, Host was a bad option to buy. There were a few bye-friendly options, like Bula in his debut or Feldt (who was clearly underpriced and bound to regress to his career try scoring average) who would have made the 2nd trade worthwhile.

Round 9 brings us to Part 2 - coming soon!

What was your best/worst trade of the year?