Fry’s Cash Cows – 2026 Cash Cow/Rookie Awards

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We made it. Barely! The season that tested the patience and resilience of every fantasy coach is finally finished, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s ready to shut my brain off from fantasy for a few months. There were success stories throughout the 2026 campaign, and of course, coaches who produced a season of note wouldn’t have achieved what they did without the help of our rookies. So without further ado, let’s hand out some hardware to a bunch of deserving cash cows.

Rookies/cash cows are typically defined as players priced at $400,000 or lower to commence the season

Cash Cow King

I remember this game vividly. Part of my midseason bye plan was to hold McAndrew and toggle between three ruckmen during the best-18 rounds, at worst giving me two playing RUC’s when one of them was resting. I considered cashing L-Mac in, but holding him meant that I was one of the coaches handsomely rewarded with his season-high against Geelong. Accumulating a whopping 51 hitouts against Mark Blicavs and Sam De Koning helped McAndrew post an epic 128 points – adding 16 disposals, four marks and seven tackles to his stat line for good measure. This game helped kickstart another phase of cash generation for McAndrew and nearly 34% of coaches were stoked to see him pump out a monster score when they needed it most.

Cash Cow Coach of the Year

Winner – Andrew McQualter, Eagles (61% of votes)

I may need to rename this award in the future, as Andrew McQualter didn’t technically do much to earn Cash Cow Coach honours. It was evident from the moment they graced an AFL field that Willem Duursma, Milan Murdock and Marcus Herbert belonged at AFL level, with all three making an immediate fantasy impact. Throw Josh Lindsay, Oliver Francou, and Deven Robertson into the mix, and it’s pretty clear the Eagles were the best in the league at providing us with money-making rookies. Virtually every coach owned at least one of these West Coast cash cows at some point during 2026, and a lot of us were fortunate enough to have multiple Eagles generating dough accounts throughout the season.

Defender of the Year

Winner – Jai Serong, Swans (56% of votes)

The closest award race still saw Jai Serong outpace Hugo Hall-Kahan (35%) and Jacob Farrow (9%) pretty convincingly. After crossing over from Hawthorn to the Swans in the offseason, Serong flourished in a wing role and fantasy coaches reaped the rewards from the first game of the season. His 72 points in Opening Round made Serong an easy pick at D6-D8 for the bulk of the community and he maintained that 72-point average across 22 appearances this year. Four times we saw the recycled Hawk top 100 points (with another score of 98), which gave us the confidence to feature him on field as he continued rising in cash right up until his bye round. Both Farrow and Hall-Kahan played that role for coaches in spurts, but the season-long consistency we saw from Serong helped him beat out the other two in this award race.

Midfielder of the Year

Winner – Jagga Smith, Blues (71% of votes)

Another landslide winner with Jagga cruising to victory and claiming the crown as the Midfielder of the Year. A score of 104 in the final game of the season was a great return for 38.9% of the competition – with those coaches likely holding onto Smith for the entire season. The Blues’ ball magnet finished with a healthy average of 82 points, good for a season rank of 58th in terms of total points. Of course, his popularity was boosted by Jagga adding FWD status halfway through the campaign and being able to play him at F6 for the post-bye era was a welcome sign for the fantasy community. A walk-up starter as a player who started the season at $230K, Smith increased his price to $834K at one point and became one of the most valuable cash cows of the season.

Ruckman of the Year

Winner – Lachlan McAndrew, Crows (99% of votes)

It’s all been said already, but McAndrew was untouchable in this category. He finished the year averaging 85+ and was a gift from the fantasy gods as a starting pick at R2. The longer the preseason went, the clearer it became that coaches needed McR2 in their sides if they wanted to be successful. Overtaking Reilly O’Brien on the depth chart during the summer saw McAndrew take the lion’s share of the ruck responsibilities at Adelaide and he more than held his own. Mitch Edwards’ average of 55.7 from 18 games would have been good enough to win this award in almost any other season, but unfortunately for him, McAndrew was operating on an entirely different level.

Forward of the Year

Winner – Brayden Cook, Crows (61% of votes)

A shining light in a tricky spot for coaches this season, Brayden Cook is a deserving victor. Other popular rookies such as Milan Murdock, Dyson Sharp and Jagga Smith became F5-F6 options as the season progressed, but the versatile Crow was available from day one as a forward and became the obvious standout as cash cows failed around him. Ten rounds into the season, he had almost doubled his price while recording a stellar 72.8 AVG – including a breathtaking performance in the Round 8 Showdown against Port Adelaide. Not only did the Cookie Monster kick the game-winning goal with just seconds left on the clock, but he produced a timely 92 points fuelled by 21 disposals and seven marks. His numbers dipped after the mid-season byes, but by that time Cook had already played an important role for the coaches who invested.

The Cash Cow Team of the Year

Choosing the best 15 cash cows from a single season is always a tough task, with a large group of rookies contributing to successful fantasy teams. Some may give more weight to a player who featured in 20+ games and dropped decent scores along the way, while others might view the rookies who showed a higher ceiling for a short period of time as the more worthy picks. After carefully deliberating over which rookies most deserve to be picked, here are my choices for the Cash Cow Team of the Year for 2026!

Honourable mentions: Sam Grlj, Sullivan Robey, Mitch Edwards, Tom Blamires

DEF: Jai Serong, Jacob Farrow, Hugo Hall-Kahan
MID: Willem Duursma, Jagga Smith, Patrick Retschko, Joel Fitzgerald
RUC: Lachlan McAndrew
FWD: Leo Lombard, Brayden Cook, Phoenix Gothard
BENCH: Dyson Sharp, Milan Murdock, Marcus Herbert, Josh Lindsay

Finals MVP

Winner – Dyson Sharp, Bombers

It will come as no huge shock to learn that Dyson Sharp was the highest scoring rookie during the fantasy finals. His 364 points across the final four matches narrowly beat out fellow award winners Jagga Smith (348), Lachlan McAndrew (340) and Jai Serong (321) while ascending talents Sam Swadling (316) and Joel Fitzgerald (333) also surpassed the 300-point plateau. Part of the reason Sharp was able to post such epic scores to close the season was due to his spike in midfield minutes. During the fantasy finals, Essendon’s bullocking MID featured in almost 65% of the CBA’s and a lot of coaches were able to loop his healthy scores onto their field to drive their late-season success.

Cash Cow MVP

Winner – Lachlan McAndrew, Crows (61% of votes)

It really came down to a two-horse race for MVP honours, with 92% of the total votes going to either Jagga Smith or Lachlan McAndrew. While I think the fantasy community got it right by choosing McAndrew as the 2026 MVP, I am somewhat surprised to see the margin of victory – with the Crows’ cash cow almost doubling Jagga’s 31% of the votes. However, when you unpack some of the major stats, you can see why McAndrew had a foolproof blueprint for success this year. No player in the entire AFL attended more ruck contests this season, and as a result, McAndrew finished 3rd for hitouts and 3rd for centre clearances amongst ruckmen. An opportunity to feature around the ball so frequently gave McAndrew access to fantasy points galore, and a season-low score of 65 reflects that.

Most seasons, this MVP award is won by a player who accumulates more than their fair share of disposals, with marks and tackles also handy for accruing the necessary 80+ average that helps you contend for this award. McAndrew’s disposal average of 11.7 hardly jumps off the page, but helping himself to 32.2 hitouts a game meant that the Adelaide tall didn’t need to fill out the rest of the box score. Finding a rookie ruck who can genuinely be trusted is rare enough, but finding one who can average 85+ and flirt with top-5 status at his position is almost unheard of. Lachlan McAndrew wasn’t just the rookie who made a bunch of money or scored a bunch of points – he changed the way fantasy coaches could build their teams.

Fry

Australian coffee/burrito enthusiast and the frustrated owner of 16 fantasy teams. Writer for SportsbyFry and DT Talk 🤙