AFL Supercoach 2026: Strategy and team structure 101

You’ve done the team picker, now you’ve likely spent even more time on your side when the site launched, creating leagues with your mates, starting to talk trash, tinkering away.  

This time is vital, your starting side will direct how many trades you can save, and whether you’re ahead of the pack, with the pack, or behind the pack.  

The last thing you want is to be correcting poor decisions on mid-pricers and rookies come round two or three, you want to be slowly improving your team, week in week out, not crabbing sideways.  

Starting well might mean you can trust what you see in the early rounds i.e. Patrick Cripps’ Brownlow year in 2024 where he started red hot at a good price and went the season at a 110 average. 

Or switching to an Andy Brayshaw who looked way better than Caleb Serong early last season, giving you an edge on the competition.  

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Structure

What dictates structure above all else?  Rookies.  More accurately, fieldable rookies.  

This is why watching pre-season matches is so important.  It’s vital we find these cheap guys who look like they’ll get a run in the team and play a good role that will likely bring supercoach points.  

As it stands prior to any pre-season information, outside of everybody “training the house down” or “bulked up in the off-season”, there seems to be a good spread of rookie priced options. 

The likes of Kiddy Coleman, Zeke Uwland and Josh Lindsay look fieldable in defence, as does Willem Duursma, Daniel Annable, Dyson Sharp and Jagga Smith in the middle.  The forward line looks tasty too with potentially Jamarra Ugle-Hagan, Matteas Phillipou, Todd Marshall and Deven Robertson all looking like good options on paper.

A word of warning on mid pricers, they rarely work out so keep your gambles to a minimum and think about the overall risk profile of your starting side.  The more gambles, the more likely it will backfire.

For me, it’s predominantly a ‘Guns and Rookies’ approach with a sprinkle of mid-price.

As a result, I’m currently rocking a 3-5-2-3 premium and mid-price formation.  Yes, I’m including Colby McKercher, Hayden Young and Adam Treloar who I hope to become at least mid-term holds to the main byes.

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Planning

Get the spread sheet out, or a pen and paper if you’re old school like me, and plan your byes.  How many early bye premiums do you have? 

You don’t want too many as you’ll be behind the pack playing the catch-up game.  This is way more vital if you’re prioritising the $50k prize over leagues.

Plan to have as few round 12 and 13 bye premiums as possible, as these are guys we want to target as upgrades when our rookies are fat.

Also, round 15 looks particularly dire for relevant premiums so perhaps have a plan for prioritising the likes of Dunkley, Heeney, Gulden, Merrett, especially if they pop off early and look good.

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Luck

A big part of this game is luck, the 50-50 calls you make can define your season.  But it’s not all luck.  Stay informed and absorb information.   Read articles, listen to podcasts, and watch pre-season matches, but above all else always trust your eye, your gut and own the final decision you make.  

You press the buttons and coach this fantasy side, not anybody else.