SuperCoach 2026: What AFL fixture release means for fantasy players
More teams cop an early season bye, but it’s a dream run for some SuperCoach favourites. See the hot fantasy takes from the 2026 AFL fixture.
Buy Port Adelaide players, lock in one premium ruck now, avoid Marcus Bontempelli.
And we have a major headache at Gold Coast.
The 2026 fixture is out and there are some big takeaways already for fantasy coaches starting to think about next season.
The expansion of Opening Round to five matches means 10 teams will have byes in the first four rounds.
Opening Round games will not count for SuperCoach and Best 18 scoring will apply for all nine bye rounds across the season, but coaches will think twice about starting multiple top-priced players with an extra week off. Rounds 2 and 3 are especially brutal – Nick Daicos, Bailey Smith, Max Holmes and Hugh McCluggage are among the stars who will feature only once in SuperCoach before a week off in round 2.
The next week Marcus Bontempelli, Sam Darcy, Errol Gulden and Brodie Grundy will be on a bye, plus Gold Coast’s midfield guns Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson.
That pair will be especially tempting as the Suns face West Coast and Richmond in the first two rounds. Rowell scored 137 and 134 in his most recent matches against those two sides; for Anderson it was 147 and 136.
Players with a bye in round 2 or 3 won’t have their first price rise until at least round 4, a week after the rest of the competition.
Two popular SuperCoach stars with a much friendlier early fixture (on paper, at least) and no early bye to worry about are Tristan Xerri and Zak Butters.
North Melbourne’s first eight matches feature the best ruck match-ups in the league: Port Adelaide, West Coast, Essendon (minus Sam Draper and a delisted Todd Goldstein), Carlton, Brisbane Lions, Richmond, GWS Giants and Geelong.
As a reminder, Xerri posted 158 points against the Power in 2025, 153 against the Eagles and finished the season with scores of 187 and 186. He’ll be expensive, but my advice is: pay up.
The Power, meanwhile, open their 2026 campaign against last year’s bottom four teams: North Melbourne, Essendon, West Coast and Richmond. Butters strangely didn’t face the Bombers or Tigers last year, but he scored 162 against the Kangaroos and put 154 on the Eagles on his away to a 121 season average.
The early part of the fixture isn’t as friendly for some clubs, however.
The Western Bulldogs have copped a horror start that includes games against 2025 finalists GWS, Adelaide (away) and Hawthorn in the first five rounds, plus a bye in round 3. Then in round 6 they travel down the highway for an away game against Geelong and Oisin Mullin, who became the No.1 nemesis for SuperCoach midfielders by the end of last season.
With Marcus Bontempelli set to start with a price tag north of $700,000, it could be worth leaving the No.1 player in SuperCoach out of your team to start the year. But make a plan to get him in.
We’re a long way out, but we might want a plan to aquire Geelong players for the run home – the Cats finish the regular season with games against Essendon (GMHBA Stadium), North Melbourne (Marvel Stadium) and Richmond (GMHBA Stadium).
The Tigers are one of only two teams on the bye in round 13 – their only week off for the year (the other team with a round 13 bye is GWS, which also misses round 4). Start the search for Richmond premiums.
Originally published as SuperCoach 2026: What AFL fixture release means for fantasy players
