NRL 2022: NRL Fantasy, Lone Scout, Winners & Losers, Round 5

Author: Lone Scout NRL Fantasy guru
Timestamp: Mon 11 Apr 2022, 12:01 PM

Round five was a shocking week for most of the gun Fantasy fullbacks while Nathan Cleary is starting to build into the season.

Winners

Euan Aitken (80) was a surprise top-scorer for the round, crashing over for a try in an 84-minute effort against the Cowboys.

David Fifita (79) finally found the huge play his owners have been waiting for against the Eels while Kotoni Staggs (79) had easily his best game of the year with a try and 14 busts.

Jesse Ramien (75) had a monster game against Wests Tigers, Cam Munster (72) went big against the Raiders, Josh Curran's (70) huge start to the year continued, and Daly Cherry-Evans (69) and Damien Cook (68) are each in the top five scorers for the year-to-date. Payne Haas (71) was again the best of the likely captaincy options but if you slapped the armband on Nicho Hynes (67) you didn't do too badly either.

Harry Grant (68) had his best score of the year so far, Mitch Moses (65) backed up last week's boomer, Joey Manu (65) has four tries in the past fortnight, Cam Murray (63) and Isaiah Papali'i (61) remain super consistent and Nathan Cleary (58) is building steadily.

Taylan May's (51) rapid price rises continued while Lachlan Ilias (43) is finally making some after a slow start to the year and Erin Clark (55) gave his another kick-along.

Try of the Week: Round 5

Losers

Ryan Papenhuyzen (19) scored 83 fewer points than last week despite scoring a try. James Tedesco (23) came up with his lowest score of the season so far and Kalyn Ponga (also 23) wouldn't have done much better than last week's six-point return if not for his try.

Brandon Smith (14) looks like a sell and now is probably a good time to jump off Xavier Coates (16) as well.

Jeremiah Nanai (27) had another off game score-wise and Kobe Hetherington's (24) previously-impressive points-per-minute plunged in his first game of the year in the starting lock role.

At the Eels, Reed Mahoney (29) was probably a sell as soon as Mitch Rein's name appeared on the team sheet while Dylan Brown (31) now averages 31.5 against the Titans and 75.7 against everyone else.

Jake Clifford's (31) form has mirrored that of his club and his three-game average is now below 35 and Leo Thompson (26) is almost out of price rises after back-to-back mid-20s scores.

Panthers centre duo Izack Tago (31) and Stephen Crichton (17) each had their lowest scores of the year. And while it wasn't a bad score as such, Isaah Yeo's 22-minute rest and 47 points were below expectations.