Early NRL Fantasy price traps to avoid

As coaches begin to build their Fantasy teams for the 2025 season all of the talk is about the must-have cash cows or guns, but what about the best-to-avoids? 

While last season's form can be a reliable guide of what's to come for some players, for others it may have artificially inflated their price ahead of Round 1. 

Here we pick out some of the biggest potential price traps to avoid in your initial squad. 

Early NRL Fantasy price traps to avoid

Angus Crichton (EDG, $728k)

It's a huge call on a player who was the undisputed Fantasy story of year in 2024, thanks to his stunning return to the elite ranks via a 54.5 season average. He was brilliant, and may well end up being so again, it's just difficult to see it happening through the opening couple of months of the season. Crichton starts the year without his halfback Sam Walker (ACL) and with his trusted edge partner Joseph-Aukuso Sua'ali'i having departed the game, while there'll be another new player in the halves replacing Luke Keary too. It all suggests there may be a lack of quality ball going his way early on while connections build and a subsequent drop off in attacking stats. There's every chance he features as a top five EDG by the end the of the year, but coaches stand to save a heap of cash by holding off for a while.

Jacob Liddle (HOK, $708K)

Liddle starts this season as the third most expensive HOK in the game, but he'll probably be lucky to even feature in the top 10 scorers for his position come the end of the year, thanks to the arrival of Damien Cook at the Dragons. If Cook spends time as a roving middle forward in addition to hooker then there's hope for Liddle, but otherwise he looks destined to see under 40 minutes of game time most weeks. He was a volume scorer last season, with a large chunk of his points coming from tackles (of which averaged 43.5 per game), so it's hard to see him getting anywhere near the type of scores that would justify a $700k-plus tag. 

Tyran Wishart (HLF, $550k)

Unless the Storm suffer an early injury somewhere in their spine between now and Round 1, Fantasy coaches should look the other way and run from Wishart to start 2025. The versatility that makes him so valuable on the field makes him a trap in Fantasy and it's easy to see him being kept to a limited-minute role off the bench, which will probably include being Melbourne's injury cover at centre and wing. The fact that he doesn't even have dual position player status to start the season (although based on past years he will probably end up getting it) is another reason to leave him out. 

Zac Lomax (CTR/WFB, $668k)

Lomax might be relishing a likely move back to the centres with Parramatta this year, but his prospective Fantasy owners should be seeing the red flags associated with it. Yes, he averaged 50.6 points per game in what was a brilliant last-up campaign on the wing, but statistically 2024 was a bit of an anomaly for the 25-year-old, with his running metres up by an average of 30 per game when compared to his previous season best, and his 14 tries being at least double the amount he's scored in a season since 2020. At centre his workload probably drops off reasonably sharply, and the fact that he also tends to have plenty of errors in him (making an NRL-high 50 last season) means there's a risk his scores drop way back in some games. If Lomax ends up on the wing, or even replacing Clinton Gutherson at fullback, then it's potentially a very different story though. 

Lewis Dodd (HLF, $550k)

Dodd arrives at South Sydney with a hefty price tag for a player who is yet to touch a Steeden at NRL level. Yes, his 88 games across five years in the Super League (which yielded a pretty impressive 30 tries) gives some indication that he should hold his own, but for the same price you could buy a HLF like Luke Brooks who has been a reliable 40-point scorer for the past seven seasons. For even less money you could get a high upside option like Braydon Trindall ($510k) or Tanah Boyd ($497k) too. Unlike those aforementioned players, there's no guarantee Dodd starts the year in first grade either, with Wayne Bennett having a couple of options to choose from there including pairing the experienced Cody Walker and Jack Wighton in the halves.