G’day community, that felt like hard work this week…Rocky (KO), Lewis (gone), Hodge (going for longer), Sloane (calf), Pops Kelly (popped right marble) but with every dark cloud there is a silver lining.

Now is the time to prepare yourselves whilst the balmy autumn continues and before the ice cold winds take hold of your rivals.

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You may think that the title of this week’s musing is referring to the friendly smiling cow found on the purple packaging of the Swiss chocolate bar from the 1990’s. You would be wrong. It is a reference to my Italian grandfather who worked on a dairy farm and his “milka da cows” and it is applicable right here, right now, for us in the world of Supercoach. There is an all you can eat smorgasbord of fallen premiums ready for the snaffling over the next few weeks BUT to afford them, we need to start scrimping and saving, we need to build a warchest, we need to start milking those cows and I am here to say that it starts this week.

I can hear some of you say – “it’s too soon you bald mongrel”. I can also hear a few of you say “you are a bit late portly bald man”. You may be right, and I may be crazy, but I am culling one or two cows this week.

Why this week?

If your team is in good shape, you should be prudent and saves those trades but there are one or two rookies who you might decree their day be done and be ready for the chop. A number of coaches traded out Heeney last week – either for Krak or Tarrant (via a DPP into the midfield). I had Krak, so traded out Silence of the Lamb for The Price is Right Tarrant (a pure cash grab that smiling Larry Emdur would be proud of). So this week, I have a couple of players who I am looking at as an avenue to build my warchest. So which players look ready to serve up?

Below is a table of popular rookies who are starting to mature. As most coaches know, you only want to start culling your cash cows once their breakeven closes in on their average points per game. As you can see from the table, Van Berlo, Salem and, possibly Heeney, are the only players who are in, or approaching, this category and I would argue the upside for them doesn’t look as good from this point on. The others have a little more cash to squeeze out. I haven’t had Van Berlo in my side, but if I did (and 30% of coaches do), he would be the first to go – has been ok and made coaches $68k but his price fell this week and with Scott Thompson back in the team, it has impacted his input. You could argue Sloane going out helps NVB – you could argue it, but I would disagree. Must go.

 [table id=17 /]

For me, due to the prospect of having Lewis and Sloane sitting on the pine for my team for a couple of weeks (maximum, I hope), my dilemma this week is whether I  “paint the fence” early with two trades (one down, one up), or take the hit to my overall ranking (by playing two of my bench rookies on field for two weeks) and only cull one cow to build up the bank balance to invest for the long term with a future upgrade.

So who is on the horizon for a future upgrade?

Every Friday, our good man Patch has a section in his magnificent Panic room article called Trading Places – it’s a MUST read for all coaches. Read it, savour it, digest it and use it to your advantage.

For me, my first upgrade will be a little price dependent as to who I can afford– I’m sure there are a lot of coaches in the same boat. But here are some names for your radar with their breakevens in brackets. Get ready for this!

• Rocky (290 – post bye target)

• GAJ (234)

• Sloane (215)

• Selwood (189)

• Brodie Smith (168 – our backlines have so many cracks that the rookies can stay!)

• Hodge (151)

• Lewis (150)

• Beams (145)

• The Walkers – Andrew Walker (134), Tex Walker (129)

• Buddy (126)

• Parker (113)

• Defenders – throw a blanket over the likes of Hooker, Duffield, Hibberd, Simpson, The Gift and Burgoyne (all with breakevens between 119-126)

The majority of these players are on my watch list – except Hooker and The Gift. However, of more immediate focus are players who have turned the corner and their breakevens have turned bottom out – for me they are BJ Goddard & JPK. These two are on my short term watch list – as in hoping to get one of them into my team next week. The other to watch for me is Tommy Mitchell-san. First week back and cracked the ton and is an affordable price – let’s see how he goes next week.

So what about you community, are you culling any players this week? If you are hitting the trade button who goes?

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Hit me with your thoughts community and please tweet me @chicko_lcs with any questions or dilemmas of your own.

Cheers,

Chicko