G’day legends! Welcome to the first edition of Cal’s Scale of Hardness for 2026!

What’s the Scale of Hardness?

Simply put, it’s an essential tool to be great at this game that helps you gauge the upcoming challenges for a team or player.

It has been used by 🥇 Darren Carr the 2023 winner… 🥇 Matt Mottram the 2022 winner and x3 hat champion – that’s name dropping at it’s best but if it’s good enough for them… it’s good enough for us. It works!

Whether the run ahead looks tough (red) or smooth sailing (green… easy), this scale is a valuable guide for decisions like trades, captains, and most importantly, setting up your team for 2026 to get off to a flying start and to keep you on track this season.

Can you give an example?

Absolutely! Last year, we targeted certain teams and also targeted them for captain options as well.

Richmond across all positions gave up 250pts per game more than GWS. That’s massive!

Let’s have a look at a few match-ups we targeted and how players went against them in the last few rounds of 2025.

DEFs v RICH = Stewart 105, Colby 91, Sinclair 146, Wilkie 136, Nasiah 118, Noble 103…
MIDs v WCE = Heeney 103, Bont 131, Richards 109, Dawson 147, Rankine 107
RUCKs v ADEL = Xerri 154, Cameron 125, Meek 107
*O’Brien is actually rated as reasonably tough to score against but let things go late.

As you can see, match-ups mean everything!

Does the scale change?

Yes, it sure does. What you see today – will change massively over the season and in the first few games.

The Scale is updated every week for our Patreon legends, taking into account how teams have performed throughout the season. Each update is accompanied by an article, a downloadable file (the full year Scale itself) all ready for you to dive into every week. Here on DT Talk there will be an update every 4/5 rounds. However….

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🏷️ Taggers… does the scale show taggers?

Yes, of course… in the downloadable full-season file you’ll see this easy to read spreadsheet (Example Hawks below).

You’ll also see notes (small example below) explaining who might be doing the ‘jobs’ on our star players each week . So far, the sheet has been updated based on last year’s findings… and as always… this is updated weekly.

So, let’s have a look at what the scale looks like across each position. Remember, the full scale can be downloaded right here. Obviously, you need to take the early bye into all this as well.

DEFENDERS

🔥 Port Adelaide, Kangaroos and GWS
❄️ Bulldogs, St Kilda and Essendon

➡️ The scale is ticking off all the popular picks to start the year from Rozee to Colby (watch that finger though). I’d even keep an eye on Whitfield as well. A huge score from him against Hawks in OR could start turning heads…despite the Hawks being semi-hard…. he had 121 and 120 against them last year and 137 and 123 before that.

➡️ It’s hard to tick off those looking at Bailey Dale. Huge pass if he’s on the radar for you.

MIDFIELDERS

🔥 Port Adelaide, Kangaroos, Gold Coast and Fremantle
❄️ Bulldogs, St Kilda and Adelaide

➡️ The Power run is a no brainer… as they play the top-4 easiest teams for MIDs in the first 5 weeks. Butters, Bergman (if he’s in the middle) and Rozee as well should feast nice and early.

➡️ Gold Coast also have a nice run but the early bye stops what would have been a great start. Anderson had 117, 123 and 110 against WCE and RICH last year.

➡️ Flanders has a tough run to begin with but this is a time when we ignore the scale. He might be down a little over rounds 2 and 3 against hard teams… but being priced at 68 means we soldier on and pick him regardless.

➡️ Also worth noting that Jordan Dawson doesn’t play and ‘easy’ team until round 6. I wouldn’t let that put you off though… just saying.

🏷️ Tag watch – Serong in round one is a concern against the Cats. He scored 85 against them last year and they have taggers to use and it’s at the Cattery. Sound the alarm!

RUCKS

🔥 Fremantle, Port Adelaide and Kangaroos
❄️ Brisbane, St Kilda and West Coast

➡️ My boy Sweety also has a nice run. Ahhh but maybe not.

➡️ The most popular ruckman selected is Xerri who has a nice draw to start with. He’ll battle… PTA, WCE and the ruckless Bombers (Blakiston). In fact, he has a nice run right up to when he meets Brodie Grundy in round 9.

FORWARDS

We don’t like to target pure/key forwards… the scale is below for your viewing pleasure but keep in mind we want FWDs (like Sheezel, Trac and Flanders) who want to play bulk midfield and therefore should be targeting them and looking at the MID scale.

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Calvin

Do you need a Captain? Then Calvin will help you out. Don't want a Captain? Calvin will tell you anyway. The man who digs deep into stats will help you pick a great captain and give you plenty of Fantasy advice. Follow him on Twitter: @CalvinDT