Teams 2026 Rate My Pre-Season Team

[Foxman98]

10 min attempt not looking at any teams.

Coupla of mates turned up for a visit, I see rarely.

Coopers Extra Stout inspired, here it is folks.....

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King already injured and Rankine suspended R1

 

[Obese Arachnid]

King already injured and Rankine suspended R1

Already a well oiled machine.

 

[Cactus_]

10 min attempt not looking at any teams.

Coupla of mates turned up for a visit, I see rarely.

Coopers Extra Stout inspired, here it is folks.....

View attachment 2497885

I’ll be very surprised if we see Smille right at the start of the season — had surgery 2-3 weeks ago

On the bright side it sounds like the surgery went ok so might be a downgrade option at the perfect time

 

[Kadog]

Merry Xmas Kents.

CarnThePies v1.0

 

[Lindsay_Gilbee]

A lot of fairly obvious picks this year I reckon.

 

[Deliverance]

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A lot of fairly obvious picks this year I reckon.

That's how all my teams start out, then I'm bored with it two days out and bring in 2 or 3 ultra pods

 

[Andrewy]

I'll have an early go .

Season's greetings to you all

 

[Eagling]

First 'settled' lineup for 2026.

Defence reasonably settled; rookies are placeholders; R2 is whoever from Visentini/Blakiston rucks for Essendon. Will consider Conway with #1 role.

CDT is a maybe, but new ruck rules might help him.

 

[blueiris]

 

[Cactus_]

Sorry

Can’t do my team until Jayden Stephenson is added to the picker

 

[Significant]

Don't have picker, but looking at teams, I think my structure will be as follows:

D: Nas, Rozee, Clark, Coleman, Uwland, Farrow (Serong, Gibcus)
M: Bont, Butters, Brayshaw, Gulden, Young, Sharp, Smith, Brodie (Carmichael, Carroll, Macrae)
R: Xerri, Grundy (Reidy)
F: Sheezel, Draper, Flanders, Treloar, Phillipou, Marshall (Robertson, Draper)

Any angels out there who can load this bad boy up and let me know how much (if any!) I have to spend on flex?

Pretty please

 

[Eagling]

Don't have picker, but looking at teams, I think my structure will be as follows:

D: Nas, Rozee, Clark, Coleman, Uwland, Farrow (Serong, Gibcus)
M: Bont, Butters, Brayshaw, Gulden, Young, Sharp, Smith, Brodie (Carmichael, Carroll, Macrae)
R: Xerri, Grundy (Reidy)
F: Sheezel, Draper, Flanders, Treloar, Phillipou, Marshall (Robertson, Draper)

Any angels out there who can load this bad boy up and let me know how much (if any!) I have to spend on flex?

Pretty please

 

[Significant]

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Well shite... might have to downgrade Clark to McKercher. Thanks for that, I appreciate the assistance.

 

[Foxman98]

Leaning more towards a Dawson/Serong combo now then Richards/Gulden with them both and Bont having the same bye

Think 2 is pushing it for cover 3 not at all

NAS and Bont the only 2 Premos playing R0 for me now however will look at picking off a Richards/McCluggage/Gulden off their bye or earlier days

 

[cybajedi]

1 premo in each of first 3 byes shouldn’t be too hard to cover. $127k in the kitty.

 

[Nelso]

Sorry

Can’t do my team until Jayden Stephenson is added to the picker

Absolute lock to play.

Port don't have many small forwards.

It has finally sunk with Stephenson that he was wasting his talent. Has been training his arse off during preseason, doing extra sessions, always one of the first to arrive and one of the last to leave.

 

[Bob Butter]

Not mad at my first draft. A few questionable picks but my logic is as so;

Ridley - proven premo, only question is whether he can stay on the park. Ball should be in Essendons defence a fair bit and hopefully they have had a good look into their fitness dept and he can have a good run at it.

Newman - not quite on Ridleys level but again should score well. Back to back 100pt average seasons before his injury and a lot of talk out of the blues last year about how much he was missed as a distributer out of defence.

Gulden - proven premo, expect him to be back at his best after an uninterrupted pre season.

Walsh - another proven premo, only question is if his body holds up. With a good pre season and in important year for both himself and the club I can see him averaging 110+.

TDK - burnt me last season but can see him being a massive benefactor of the new ruck rules. Will wait to see how he works with Marshall in the pre season. Potential option to downgrade and free up some cash.

Pickett - surely gets more mid time with Oliver and Petracca leaving. We know he has all the talent in the world but can he translate that into becoming a gun midfielder.

Passing on Petracca and Treloar. Petracca butchered it last season and I can see him playing more of that Sam Flanders role this season.Trusting Treloar’s body to hold up is where I draw the line, also going to be hard to get meaningful midfield time.

 

[Foxman98]

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Not mad at my first draft. A few questionable picks but my logic is as so;

Ridley - proven premo, only question is whether he can stay on the park. Ball should be in Essendons defence a fair bit and hopefully they have had a good look into their fitness dept and he can have a good run at it.

Newman - not quite on Ridleys level but again should score well. Back to back 100pt average seasons before his injury and a lot of talk out of the blues last year about how much he was missed as a distributer out of defence.

Gulden - proven premo, expect him to be back at his best after an uninterrupted pre season.

Walsh - another proven premo, only question is if his body holds up. With a good pre season and in important year for both himself and the club I can see him averaging 110+.

TDK - burnt me last season but can see him being a massive benefactor of the new ruck rules. Will wait to see how he works with Marshall in the pre season. Potential option to downgrade and free up some cash.

Pickett - surely gets more mid time with Oliver and Petracca leaving. We know he has all the talent in the world but can he translate that into becoming a gun midfielder.

Passing on Petracca and Treloar. Petracca butchered it last season and I can see him playing more of that Sam Flanders role this season.Trusting Treloar’s body to hold up is where I draw the line, also going to be hard to get meaningful midfield time.

Treloar is far more of a proven premo and has played 85 games in the 5 years he has had at the dogs which is 7 more then Ridleys 78 in the same period

Treloar is also 311k with fairly average forward options averaged 116 2 years ago Ridley is 418k and pushed 100 average once (in 10+ games)

 

[kyri]

merry fudging christmas... were back kenties!!

2026. let's go. v1.2.1

 

[Bob Butter]

Treloar is far more of a proven premo and has played 85 games in the 5 years he has had at the dogs which is 7 more then Ridleys 78 in the same period

Treloar is also 311k with fairly average forward options averaged 116 2 years ago Ridley is 418k and pushed 100 average once (in 10+ games)

Treloar will also be 33 at the beginning of next season, which means even if he wasn’t injury prone his best is well and truly behind him. Not to mention Bont, Libba and Richards are all clearly ahead of him in the midfield mix, but now add Freijah who should get even more mid time next season, Sanders who’s in a bit of a make or break year and Kennedy, now his midfield minutes are fairly uncertain.

Ridley is 27 and has a role that you can almost be certain he’ll average 105+ if he can stay on the park. Far less variables. Ridley is also easier to sideways trade or upgrade if something goes wrong.

The better comp would be Newman and Treloar as Newman has a lower ceiling that Ridley, however it seems like there’s going to be better cheap options in the fwd line than defence.

 

[Maybe Tomorrow]

merry fudging christmas... were back kenties!!

2026. let's go. v1.2.1

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Brah, Nico Marto is gonzo this year. Like, fully cooked brah.

I'm expecting 50+ teams in this thread from you.

 

[kyri]

I'm expecting 50+ teams in this thread from you.

MT, I can rack that up in a week.. set a target worth reaching.

v1.2.4

 

[Rob R]

Will probably delete and restart a few times. expecting new rule to have a big impact.

 

[Petrify]

Variant 2. Heavy on the 300ker value guys but all the important premos

 

[Cactus_]

Absolute lock to play.

Port don't have many small forwards.

It has finally sunk with Stephenson that he was wasting his talent. Has been training his arse off during preseason, doing extra sessions, always one of the first to arrive and one of the last to leave.

That’s great to hear — I love a redemption story

My team so far:

Backs: Balta — Elijah Hollands

Mids: Bailey Smith — Clarry

Rucks: ?

Forwards: Izak Rankin — Toby Greene— De Goey — Ugle-Hagen — Stephenson