Once registered you will need to select your Dream Team. Just like in the real-life season, the Toyota NRL Dream Team competition allows you to select your top 25 players, within their assigned positions.

You have a salary cap of $4.4 million and should spend time getting the perfect mix of expensive stars and cheaper players at the start of the season.

In Toyota NRL Dream Team, all players are available to all participants! If you have the salary cap and position space, you can draft whoever you want. Choose carefully as trading during the season is limited.

Once you have your squad of 25, select your starting 13 (including captain and vice captain) and your 4 reserves.

Your Captain is important as he scores double points. You should also select a Vice Captain as your Vice Captain will score double points if your Captain is a late withdrawal or doesn't play.

It's important to remember you can change your captain each week.

Remember to select your four reserves as they will score full points. Essentially, the only difference between your reserves and on-field team is that the reserves cannot be made captain or vice captain.

Your team will be granted an automatic Emergency. Should one of your starting 17 fail to play, the lowest scoring player from those in your squad - but not in the starting 17 - will be automatically substituted for the non-playing starter.

It sounds a bit confusing, but is quite simple - you have an emergency back-up in your line-up.

In between rounds, you can substitute players OUT of your starting 13 or from your bench, choosing their replacements from the remaining players in your squad of 25. Substitutions must equate positionally, eg: a hooker for a hooker.

You can make unlimited trades on your initial team entry until the 1st round lock-out. Once the round starts, your team is locked and you can’t make any changes.

After the 1st round, you can then trade up to two players on the conclusion of each round; however, you will only have a total of 30 trades for the entire season. It is your decision as to when and how you use them but be sure to choose carefully.

This year, trades can be reversed up until each week's lockout, meaning you can change your mind on a trade or make a different move if injury strikes one of your players late in the week.

Player pricing plays a significant part in team selection and trading. Each player's price will vary from week-to-week based on their prior round performances in relation to their current value.

It's done by a secret calculation, but put simply: players exceeding expectations will go up, boosting your team’s value.

This extra money is added to your salary cap (and consequently your squad value), and will help you (potentially) trade for better performing, but pricier players. The trick is to find players you think are undervalued and trade them at the peak of their season form (and value).

Your Toyota NRL Dream Team is awarded points based on the real performances of the real players in each game, throughout the 26 rounds of the NRL home-and-away competition.

Points scored by your Dream Team are based on the performance of the starting line-up of your 17 players for each round (13 on field and 4 reserves, with double points for your captain).

The selected players in your team score points as follows, based on the actual match-day statistics provided by the NRL's official statistician Sports Data.

Points are awarded as follows:

Try: 8 points
Try Assist: 5 Points
Goal: 2 Points
Field Goal: 5 Point
All run metres: Total metres run divided by 10, rounded down to nearest whole number
Line Break: 4 Points
Line Break Assist: 2 Points
Tackle Break: 3 Points
40/20: 4 Points
Tackle: 1 Point
One-on-one tackle: 1 (extra) Point
Missed Tackle: -2 Points
Ineffective Tackle: -2 Point
Offload: 2 Points
Error: -3 Points
Kick Metres: Total Metres gained kicking divided by 20, rounded down to the nearest whole number
Penalty Conceded: -2 Points
Sin-Bin: -5 Points
Send-off: -10 Points

You can keep an eye on your Dream Team's progress with provisional LIVE scoring. Final Dream Team scores are released each Tuesday.

In addition to the overall Competition, your team will be entered in a Private League, where you are ranked and compete against your mates, or a small group of other participants in the competition.

You can create and/or join up to five private leagues with your single Dream Team entry. For example, you could create and monitor your own league with friends, join a second league that you've been invited to by work colleagues, and play against family members in five separate leagues!

Your League will have its own 'fixtures' allocated (eg; your team vs dad's), where your team is matched up against another team each round, just like the real NRL competition. You will score a win and 2 points towards your League Ladder position if you get more fantasy points than the team you have been matched up with and play against.

Your League has its own Ladder, where you are ranked based on your win/loss record.

Everyone who is registered prior to Round 4 will play each other team, in their private leagues, once (rounds 4-18). From rounds 19 to 22 a Top 8 finals series will be played to find the overall League Champion. The bottom 8 teams also play a finals series.

Throughout the entire season your Dream Team will score points each week towards your overall position within the public league (the one that has the major prizes).

The first 65,536 players to join Toyota NRL Dream Team are automatically entered into the Eliminator. The Eliminator is a weekly head-to-head draw, where your dream team is matched up one-on-one against someone else's dream team, in a knockout competition.

If your team scores more than your opponent, you progress to the next round. If you score less, you’re eliminated. There is an additional prize for the Eliminator winner.

The Eliminator competition begins in Round 11.

Toyota NRL Dream Team is fully accessible on your Next G mobile phone.

Make trades, follow your progress in real-time and never miss the action on the official Toyota NRL Dream Team mobile site.

Click here to check out our mobile site or type http://nrlwap.virtualsports.com.au/ into your mobile browser.

In 2012 you can also play Toyota NRL Dream Team with the iPhone and Android Apps. Check out the Dream Team site for more details.

There are some massive prizes on offer in 2012 with Toyota giving the major competition winner a brand new Toyota FJ Cruiser, valued at $50,000.

The winner will also be presented with their prize in Grand Final week by NRL chief executive David Gallop, and will receive a framed photo of the presentation.

The second-place winner will receive a cheque for $1000.

Each week $500 cash is on offer for the best-performing Dream Team each round. Each weekly winner will also receive a replica NRL trophy with a plaque featuring the winner's name and their round victory.

Plus, every weekly winner will receive two tickets to the 2012 NRL Grand Final.

The player with the top single-week score for the entire season will win another $1000, plus four category 1 Grand Final tickets.

New to NRL Dream Team in 2012 are two mini-games, based around the NRL All Stars game and the State of Origin series.

The All Stars Dream Team winner will win $5000 plus a signed jersey from both the Indigenous All Stars and NRL All Stars teams, while the Origin Dream Team winner will receive $3000 plus a free Origin supporters kit for the state of their choice.

There are also 16 club champion prizes for NRL Dream Team, with a club prize pack going to the top-scoring fan of each of the 16 clubs.

The Eliminator provides an extra incentive to keep your tactical brain in gear all year, with $1000 plus four NRL Grand Final tickets up for grabs for the winner.

Toyota NRL Dream Team goes live on January 25! Click here to register your register your interest for Dream Team 2012.