Chris88 has sent through a quick discussion piece on rookies. Have a read, a get in your input- at an interesting topic early days.

A key aspect to a successful Supercoach team is the ability to nab the right rookie priced players in order to fund premium player acquisitions throughout the season.

Like the stockmarket, the "buy low, sell high" mantra is the one Supercoach players always have to follow. After all, Supercoach is merely a glorified trading game where the aim is to increase the value of your team and, in turn, its scoring power.

And over the past couple of years or so we have definitely been spoiled for choice when it comes to rookies.

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Weve had some great rookie cash cows in recent years - Barlow and Broughton out west, Bradd Dalziell (theres a name), Daniel Rich, Trengove and Scully, Martin, Heppell, the Gold Coast crew from 2011 ... and many many more. In addition there has always seemed to be some good older players at rookie prices to consider - Beau Waters and Matt Maguire spring to mind in recent years.

But this year, despite the presence of another club full of rookies (GWS), there seems to be a lot fewer standout rookie-priced selections to choose from.

With a few notable exceptions, the rookie crop over pre-season and into Round 1 looks distinctly underwhelming.

A number of GWS players have shown plenty of potential, but outside of that there are precious few rookies that stand out immediately as viable cash cows. Also, there are virtually no rookie-priced older players this year to supplement the ranks.

And a few of the "rookie" options arent exactly cheap - Wingard, Coniglio, Guthrie, etc.

Worse still, there doesnt seem to be a whole heap of potential rookie downgrade options presenting themselves either - a role a player like Mzungu filled beautifully last year, or Liam Anthony in years past.

And we all know what can happen if you trade your happily mooing cash cow rookie down to someone whose scoring, job security or overall outlook isnt as reliable - a diet of doughnuts (or flashbacks to the Beau Muston debacle of 2009) can very easily ensue.

If these early indications are accurate, and that there is a lack of reliable rookie (or rookie-priced) cash cows, I wonder how this is going to affect teams in the coming weeks when the first set of downgrade-upgrade moves would usually happen.

Will teams have to delay their upgrades? Will midprice "gambles" play out the season in a number of sides as there are no great downgrade options? Will players be tempted to hoard a stash of cash in case they cant fully fund upgrades from cash cow trade-ins alone?

Im interested to get the opinions of the TS community on these questions - are you worried about a lighter than usual crop of rookies this year, and if so, are you already thinking about measures you can take to address the situation?