Maxy’s Rules For NRL Supercoach 2026

After the dust settled on the 2025 season, the Jaromen Empire finished a respectable 1,644th overall.

It’s hard to be annoyed by the performance, but after rising to a high of 206th overall in Round 21, it was disappointing to move backwards.

Last year, I did a deep dive post-season, and it was an extremely worthwhile exercise.

Getting a diagnosis was valuable in identifying what went well, but more importantly, what went wrong.

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The specific rules I came up with are at the bottom of this article, but this article is about the new ones I picked up.

In all, reflecting on the season has helped reinforce a bunch of things, such as injuries and restings are a part of the game, and saving trades for the back end is important.

But I wanted to go a lot deeper than that to try and find usable principles that might help you make the top 1%.

So here we are – the new principles for 2026.

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The “Siua Wong” rule

Things change when there’s a change in the spine. So even if everything screams ‘buy’ a player, if there’s a spine change, best to cool your jets.

This is arguably the most consistent learning for me in 2025, and while Siua Wong was the first example of this, he certainly wasn’t the last.

Wong started the season with incredible base and power stats as an 80-minute edge at the Roosters.

In a four-game stretch, he had a B+P average of 68, which was basically Top 5 across any player.

But just when he looked like a slam dunk trade in, the Roosters dropped the half on his edge, Chad Townsend and his scoring fell off a cliff. 

From rounds 6 (when everyone bought) to round 13, he would not go above 60 points, and his base, which had been due to consistent short balls from his half, disappeared.

There are countless examples throughout the season of this too, which have been well discussed.

Guys like Scott Drinkwater, with or without Jake Clifford was huge, while there were also success stories about guys like Daniel Tupou with Sam Walker.

The lesson becomes very clear that attacking stats can change when there are changes in the spine.

And in 2026, this rule is already making me be discerning about which Roosters I pick, given the arrival of DCE and Reece Robson!

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The ‘Reece Walsh’ rule

Prioritise your final trades on guys you can captain

We know by now that SuperCoach really opens up in the final 5-6 weeks of the season.

This is where we see an increase in the 150+ scores and the huge swings in overall ladder position based on nailing your skippers.

When I used my final trade on Adam Doueihi, it was done so to build depth in my shallow position of CTW.

And while in theory that made sense, it wasn’t fixing a larger problem.

I identified a trend when doing H2H prep that captain options weren’t exactly clear-cut across Rounds 22 – 26.

Many of the most popular options throughout the season – Teddy, Drinkwater, Cleary, Edwards, Papenhuyzen – had some very tough matchups in the period.

And this isn’t unusual. We know now the way the season is scheduled, with most of the ‘headline’ matchups being held within the first and last six rounds of the season.

While this is great for TV, it makes SuperCoach difficult.

So when it became apparent that with a change of role and generally incredible form, Reece Walsh was the SuperCoach prospect we all needed to own, he should’ve been a bigger priority with my last remaining trade.

And when you add in the fact that Walsh had games against poor defensive sides in Souths (22), Dolphins (24), Newcastle (25) and the Cows (26) he was the clear best skipper choice across the league.

It’s blindingly evident to me now that having the guy you can skipper for a 150 is more important than depth. Depth is great, but it’s not as good as double points on a big boy hundred.

If I picked up Reece Walsh in Round 25 over Adam Doueihi, I still would’ve held onto a Top 400 finish on the year – it’s crazy how much of a swing he caused!

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The “IKat” rule

Young players will get better

This one is simple but often overlooked.

When we’re looking for “value” in our starting team, we are most often looking for guys with new roles, or players coming back from an injury-impacted year.

Some of the biggest improvers, however, are often just young players who have improved with experience.

Isaiya Katoa is the poster child of this one for me.

The Dolphins 3rd year half improved his average by 25 points this season.

While he had previously been pigeon-holed as “not supercoach relevant”, he was one of the best money makers and point scorers of this year.

An eye test is going to be a big trigger for this kind of improvement next year.

And there’s a ton of players I wouldn’t be shocked to see make a big jump this year based simply on having more experience and not necessarily a new role – Leka, Toia and Galvin are on the watch list!

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The “Payne Haas” Rule

No stat is as overweighted as power stats

For years, base stats (runs + tackles) have been used as a predictor of consistency and potential SuperCoach impact.

But great SuperCoaches know that base + power stats (tackle breaks + offloads) are even more important.

And in my eyes, it’s made looking at a player’s base stats alone almost redundant, as power stats have a far greater impact on overall scoring.

When you look at the base of a player and it’s primarily coming from tackles, the ceiling for potential growth on those numbers is minimal.

But when you find a player whose base includes a lot of runs, then giddy up, it’s time to get excited!

Aside from tries, no one act in the game is weighted more favourably in the game than power stats, with good footballers able to earn sometimes 10+ points per run.

When Payne Haas makes a tackle, it’s only ever going to be worth 1 point.

But when he’s running and getting over the eight-metre advantage line, breaking tackles and finding an effective offload, the points just flow!

Good offloads can also lead to line break assists (8 points) and try assists (12), which is simply awesome when it happens.

It only took one round of watching Payne Haas in 2025 to see that front row forward wasn’t going to be boring this year.

He’s increased offload numbers and the ‘license’ granted to him by the coaching staff to free the arm were a sign that his scoring was about to go to another level, which it did.

So the lesson here is to track power stats and compare them year on year – if you spot someone who has earned that ‘license’, jump on!

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The “Marky Mark” rule

If you want a mercurial CTW talent, you need depth so you can use your sit/starts properly

We all bought Mark, knowing he had a lower-than-ideal floor.

That’s ok because he’d also flashed a huge ceiling. But when you piece together that Sam Walker joined the side (if we’d applied the Siua Wong rule), and lesson 6 from last year, the risk should’ve been apparent with Mark.

The stats are now very clear on this, too.

Prior to Round 27, when these two started actually connecting, on the wing without Sam Walker, Mark averaged 96.

That average drops to just 48.5 in games with Sam Walker so far.

As an attack-reliant CTW, it’s great to have a guy with his ability, but you need to have team depth and be able to offset him in matchups that look less than favourable.

A big part of my rise post Origin 3 was the depth to be able to sit Mark when this trend became apparent.

But as the injuries stacked up in my CTW, I couldn’t afford to sit anymore and copped a few low ones.

In 2026, I think we will apply this rule to a guy like Alex Johnston.

If Souths attack like we think they will, he will have serious relevance for Supercoach, but being able to sit him in the tough games might make him even more valuable!

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Conclusion

Some of these rules might sound obvious, but for me, in only my sixth year of Supercoach, the education in this game never stops.

And for reference, here’s the 2024 lessons learnt.

• Lesson 1: Try get the starting team right. This is both obvious and difficult. It does significantly put you on the back foot if you’re chasing your tail with ‘corrective’ trades across the board. But in general, if you start well you’re in with a chance of a Top 1k finish.
• Lesson 2: Mid-rangers are risky, so leave some cash to move them upwards if your strategy is to start with them.
• Lesson 3: Cheapies are gold, but be discerning. You don’t need all of them, especially if they have poor job security are in a slow-burning position like most forwards.
• Lesson 4: If chasing a cheapie in a spine position, don’t spend all your downgrade cash in one move – instead, try limiting yourself to spending only the money they’re projected to make for you. This was the ‘Trai Fuller’ rule, which means in short, keep cash in the bank to ensure that when I eventually did sell him, he could go to a gun in one trade, not two.
• Lesson 5: DPP guys are invaluable. 
• Lesson 6: ‘Upside’ at CTW is hard to rely upon compared with ‘base + power’.

On reflection in 2025, I can say I got most of these things right.

Across my starting team, I nailed most of the relevant CTW cheapies and was quick to react to both the need to bring some guys in but also trade dudes out.

J’maine Hopgood comes to mind, who was a dud for most of the year.

The most pertinent one here for me was lesson 6, which became even more obvious this season – so much so I wrote about it in a Head to Head strategy piece right here.

In short, the CTW position has indefinitely changed off the back of the hugely successful strategy employed by the Penrith Panthers to ask for a work rate lift from their back five.

Not everyone can do it, but those CTW options who can score 45+ in base and power every week are absolutely golden.

Well done if you’ve read this far, and good luck in 2026!