NRL SuperCoach 2025: The Mastermind’s Watchlist, every round 4 buy rated

NRL SuperCoaches face a complicated month of trading as cheapies peak and fallen keepers bottom out. The Mastermind has you covered.

NRL SuperCoaches face one of the toughest trade rounds ever with some big calls to be made on the two most popular premium players in Kalyn Ponga and Nathan Cleary.

The injury carnage out of round three and Knights bye will test squad depth early.

If you have this very popular combination of players – Ponga, Cleary, Lachlan Hubner, Connor Watson, Greg Marzhew, Roger Tuivasa Sheck, Dylan Lucas – then you’re guaranteed to have at least $4m of your salary cap on the bench this week and 19 players to pick from. For some poor coaches it may be even worse.

I favour holding Cleary with him the pick of the captains for round 6 and 7 against the Cowboys and Dolphins.

Storm, Titans and Dragons players are a week behind in the price change cycle due to early byes so present the perfect opportunities to catch those big first price rises and put out a few of those fires.

Ryan Papenhuyzen (pending ankle injury), Cameron Munster, Jack Howarth and Eli Katoa are my pick of the Storm buys – it makes sense to load up on the title favourites with the bye and Panthers fixture behind them.

Clint Gutherson and Christian Tuipolotu have formed a nice combination on the left for the Dragons and should see some big price rises. The Storm is a tough match this week and could stall the cash flow, but injuries to Jahrome Hughes and Nick Meaney weaken the edge the Dragons duo will be attacking. Look beyond the Storm and the Dragons have the Eels and Titans.

Titans captain Tino Fa’asuamealaui is the buy of the round if you don’t have him yet while Beau Fermor is a like-for-like replacement for Dylan Lucas owners.

On the cheaper front, Raiders forward Matt Nicholson is the pick of the bunch.

SuperCoach Watchlist Explained

To help with your trade calls and to track players of note we’ve pulled together our SuperCoach watchlist with a quick form guide alongside their names so you can at a glance see what we like about each player.

The boxes players want to tick are...

Form: F (Strong recent performances)

Draw: D (Weak opposition to target in coming month)

Minutes: M (Consistent minutes and job security)

Base: B (Reliable scorer through workrate on tackles and hitups)

Value: $ (Value buy) $$$ (Buys of the week)

Originally published as NRL SuperCoach 2025: The Mastermind’s Watchlist, every round 4 buy rated