The Thursday Scramble: Opening Round

How is it March and the start of the footy season already!  Seems like we just watched the Lions finish celebrating their premiership win. But here we are, ready to start yet another Fantasy season and we are all level and all have an equal chance of winning…. until the first ball is thrown up.  Time to Scramble!

Welcome Back

Firstly, welcome back everyone to the 2026 season as we head into tonights first game of the season, not the start of the fantasy season of course, that will be next week. This is the start of our Cheat Code round. So plenty of things to check out and take note of that will really help set up our teams heading into the season opener between Carlton and Richmond (I still refuse to accept opening round until everyone plays in it).

A moment of silence…

We have to pause here and bow our heads as we remember Real Dreamteam. This was where we all started on this app before it moved to the current AFL Fantasy platform. RDT as it was affectionately known, was still going in the back ground and had a small but cult like following (including me). Anyway, we have lost it for this season, who knows it may come back in a future year.

So what do we need to be on the look out for this week?

While we have access to this cheat code round we need to make the most of it.  Some of the key things that I will be looking for are

• Which rookies get named and what is their role? We need to make sure that the rookies we pick have some good job security.
• Are there teams that are using the 5th bench spot as a substitute? If this the case then we need to be very wary of the rookies on that team.
• Have the role changes that we have seen in the practice games been real? We have seen a lot of things in the practice games, but was that just the coach seeing what things are like or are they really going to play there.
• Keep a keen eye on injuries. Obviously injuries can be a big issue and any niggle may mean that we need to do a bit of a restructure.

One thing to be careful of is to make sure you don’t just pick a player because they had a big round 0 score. We have been caught out by this before. You need to look at who is playing and who is still missing as well as is there a reason for that score.  Is that score sustainable is the main question you need to ask yourself. Just make sure you don’t get caught out with one rookie score that we haven’t seen before.

Don’t be afraid of the early byes

With 10 of the 18 teams playing in opening round (let’s hope that next year it is 18 of 18), we simply can’t avoid having players that will have the early bye. We simply have to pick some. Remember it is best 18 so use the bye planner and make sure that you don’t have too many premiums on those byes. The best 18 means we can ‘hide’ some players but we should still be smart about it.

Given that most of the teams that were towards the top of the ladder last year except for Adelaide and Fremantle are playing the majority of the good players will be playing so they will be impossible to completely avoid.  Just be smart about who you have on the bye.

Leagues!

Hey team, well of course I had to create a few leagues for you all to join.  As always, just leave room for others and only jump in one per format.

AFL Fantasy

Thursday Scramblers – DT8J4PS0
Let’s Scramble – LDC314AR

Supercoach

DTTalk Scramblers – 678487
Time to Scramble – 253910

Final Thought

Make the most of this round, it is our last chance for some real research and be able to finalise our teams ready for round 1. There will be some conflicting views in all the footy content we have out there so stick with your gut and do what you think is right.

See you all next week when the real last minute panic takes place!

Dunny

A passionate Port Adelaide Fan who simply loves footy! That is how I would describe myself. Catch my weekly article "The Thursday Scramble" with all the last minute things to think about for the weekend Follow: @pkd73.