AFL Supercoach 2026: Ruck Fixtures – The 60-Point Swing You’re Ignoring

Let’s not talk about my rank. Mid-price madness, benching quality rookies, picking bad premiums. It’s been a disaster.

Last week I had the chance to fix it. Here’s how it went:

• Trading Cameron out. Right call, he played, he was shocking
• Targeting Brodie Grundy all week for his West Coast matchup. Right call
• ROB came in and stole McAndrew’s minutes, so I benched him to be safe. Wrong call, he scored 123
• Decided to bring in White instead of Grundy to save cash and at least get McAndrew’s score off the bench. Wrong call, Grundy scores 184
• Then Tim English gets injured

Now I’m staring at the same ruck decision all over again, with too much money sitting in the bank. Clearly I need to take some learnings from Premier League, where fixture analysis is everything. So let’s do it properly this time.

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Why Ruck Fixtures Are the Most Predictable in SuperCoach

Ruck is the most predictable position in SuperCoach, and it’s not close. Every other position has multiple players competing for the same opportunities. Mids share the ball. Forwards share the goals. But ruck? It’s essentially a 1-on-1 contest all day. When you go up against a team with a weak ruck setup, you dominate hitouts, you dominate stoppages, and the points follow.

Hitouts aren’t the only indicator, transition scoring is massive for ruck SuperCoach points too, but hitout win rate against each team is a clean, easy metric to follow and the trends are hard to ignore.

The AFL average sits at 39.6%. Here’s how every team rates as a ruck opponent:

Rank	Team	Win %	Difficulty
1	Geelong	54.1%	🟢 Easy
2	West Coast	51.7%	🟢 Easy
3	Richmond	51.3%	🟢 Easy
4	Brisbane	44.6%	🟡 Slightly Easy
5	Carlton	43.9%	🟡 Slightly Easy
6	Greater Western Sydney	42.7%	🟡 Slightly Easy
7	Western Bulldogs	40.8%	🟡 Slightly Easy
8	North Melbourne	39.9%	🟡 Slightly Easy
9	Adelaide	38.4%	🟠 Slightly Hard
10	Collingwood	38.2%	🟠 Slightly Hard
11	Port Adelaide	36.9%	🟠 Slightly Hard
12	Essendon	36.8%	🟠 Slightly Hard
13	Sydney	35.3%	🟠 Slightly Hard
14	St Kilda	33.1%	🔴 Hard
15	Gold Coast	32.8%	🔴 Hard
16	Hawthorn	32.6%	🔴 Hard
17	Fremantle	31.7%	🔴 Hard
18	Melbourne	27.7%	🔴 Hard

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West Coast at 51.7% and Melbourne at 27.7%. That gap is enormous. That gap is enormous.

And it passes the eye test too. West Coast, Geelong and Richmond (with no Nankervis) aren’t exactly known for elite ruck stocks. At the other end, Melbourne have Gawn, while St Kilda, Hawthorn and Fremantle are all running dual ruck setups effectively. 

Here’s what the extremes look like in practice.

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The Case Study: West Coast vs Melbourne

The majority of rucks who faced West Coast this season went massive. The majority who faced Melbourne got smashed.

Rucks vs West Coast:

Round	Opponent	Ruck	SC Score	Season Average	Diff vs Average
R1	Gold Coast	Witts	137	85.5	+51.5
R2	North Melbourne	Xerri	199	131.7	+67.3
R3	Port Adelaide	Sweet	94	115.0	-21.0 ⚠️
R4	Sydney	Grundy	184	130.0	+54.0
Avg					+38.0

Worth noting on Sweet. His 115 average includes games against Essendon and Richmond, two easy ruck draws. That -21 undersells how good West Coast really is as a fixture.

Rucks vs Melbourne:

Round	Opponent	Ruck	SC Score	Season Average	Diff vs Average
R1	St Kilda	TDK	89	78.0	+11.0
R2	Fremantle	Jackson	113	122.0	-9.0
R3	Carlton	Pittonet	49	96.0	-47.0
R4	Gold Coast	Witts	43	86.0	-43.0
Avg					-22.0

+38 against West Coast. -22 against Melbourne. That’s a 60-point swing based purely on fixture. If you’re picking rucks without looking at this data, you’re leaving points on the table every single week.

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Rounds 5–9: Who to Target

Here’s how the three main ruck targets look across the next five rounds:

Round	Max Gawn ($700k)	Brodie Grundy ($661k)	Luke Jackson ($603k)
5	🟠 Essendon	🔴 Gold Coast	🟠 Collingwood
6	🟡 Brisbane	🟡 Greater Western Sydney	🟢 West Coast
7	🟢 Richmond	🟠 Western Bulldogs	🟡 Carlton
8	🟠 Sydney	🔴 Melbourne	🟠 Western Bulldogs
9	🟢 West Coast	🟡 North Melbourne	🔴 Hawthorn

Max Gawn ($700k) has the cleanest run, two greens and no reds. Legit captain option, and those Richmond and West Coast matchups in Rounds 7 and 9 will have Gawn owners rubbing their hands together.

The problem? My team is so washed up I can’t drop that sort of money without rocking rookies all season. If your team is set and you want a captain you can trust, Gawn is your guy. I’ll be hiding behind the couch watching those scores from afar.

Brodie Grundy ($661k), on paper, looks like a tough set of fixtures. Gold Coast in Round 5 and Melbourne in Round 8 are two red draws within the next four weeks.

The run isn’t as bad as it looks though. Gawn dominated Witts last week, and with English out, that Western Bulldogs draw in Round 7 could be softer than the matchup suggests. The Melbourne draw in Round 8 is still a trap. Well done to the smart coaches who got him last week. For everyone else, I’d rather pay up for Gawn’s captaincy or save money elsewhere.

Luke Jackson ($603k) gets West Coast in Round 6, massive green light. Very matchup proof given his current role, as shown by his 113 against Gawn.

That same role caps his ceiling though. His Round 3 score of 108 against Richmond tells you not to expect a 180 against West Coast, even with a green fixture. To the eye he hasn’t fully hit his straps yet, so there could be more upside in him than the numbers currently suggest. Cheapest of the three and the bar to clear is lowest. If you need to save cash, Jackson is the move.

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My Plan

Already own Jackson, so the ruck question is answered for now. Even with the money to upgrade to Gawn, I just don’t want to spend up. Grundy at that price worries me too. Not convinced he’s a locked-in top two ruck, and I’d rather find value elsewhere in the squad.

Without Gawn I have no real captain option, so I’m chasing a sugar hit with Holmes ($610k). Richmond fixture does the talking and I need someone who can pop off this week.

Two value names I’m looking at:

Steele ($540k) — faded him early thinking he was more of a fantasy player than SuperCoach. Regretting that. The tackling makes him a safe pick, but the question is whether he can hold that level all season.

Farrow ($163k) feels like a must. Essendon’s chip-chip gamestyle in the second half against the Bulldogs stopped them losing by 100 points, and Farrow was all over it. That role has SuperCoach written all over it.

Whitfield ($548k) or Callaghan ($576k) are live alternatives if you’re looking in the same price range.

The ruck decision can’t wait forever. Hopefully your squad is in better shape than mine and you can get big Max in sooner rather than later.