As any competitor worth his salt knows, two hours and 40 minutes is the time between 5pm Thursday team announcements and the start of the first, annoyingly scheduled, game – a time in which 200,000 frantic dreamteamers converge online in a last minute trading frenzy that would melt even NASA’s computer systems.
It always starts well. The site is fine at 4.50pm and you think you have it sorted. You’ve got two computers, 15 browsers, and back up phone-a-friends placed strategically around the city. What could possibly go wrong?
Everything!
As soon as Fremantle’s line-up comes in, all hell breaks loose. No Broughton? No Broughton!?! Where the #@$# is Greg Broughton!?! You are KILLING ME, Mark Harvey!
Desperately, you try to trade him before the site slows down. You know you have to be fast. You know that any hesitation - any false key press or error of judgement - could cost you, as thousands of people are trying to do the exact same thing at the exact same time. You think you’ve done it, too, but suddenly the trade button won’t work. Is it frozen, or is it just slow? You have no idea. Calls start coming through from panicked friends - “Can you help me out? My computer’s down and I need Nick Suban!”
“Are you JOKING?” you yell back. “It’s every man for himself! I’ve got my own trades to worry about!”
But there’ll be no trading today. The button never does come back and as the seconds turn into minutes, you start eyeing off the refresh key. Will it save you or make things worse? It’s hard to say. You close your eyes, you click the mouse, and you don’t see your team again until half way through the first quarter.
The team you’re left with
It’s always a case of what might have been when it comes to Toyota AFL Dream Team. Everyone, myself included, thinks that they would have had the best team in history if they’d only included Bernie Vince or Kyle Cheney or any of the hundreds of selections they flirted with, however briefly, in the months preceding.
“I was going to pick Buddy Franklin!”
“I should have had Steve Johnson!”
“Ricky Petterd was in my team right up until lock-out!”
Nothing hurts more than a big score in round one from any of the people you “almost” had. It’s like a personal insult - a slap in the face – proof positive that God hates you and that you’re the unluckiest Dream Teamer ever to have graced the game.
Deep down, of course, you know that you almost selected everyone at some point or another and that a big score in round one doesn’t necessarily mean much. You know this, but you whinge anyway, competing with your friends for the hardest of hard luck stories. In the end, though, you’re stuck with the team you entered, and it’s time to guide those spuds to premiership glory!
The league you love
Some people like Dream Team for the football. Others like it for the chance to win Toyotas. In my case, it’s all about smashing friends. The overall competition is great and all, but there’s nothing quite like watching Presti rack up 20 and knowing that some idiot your league picked him this year.
For many people, our teams and our leagues start to feel real after a while – they develop rivalries and histories and begin to feel more important than the AFL itself. My friends and I take our league so seriously that I even wrote a website for it, complete with news, team profiles, team theme songs and team crests (which, proudly, were the inspiration for the team shield idea in Toyota AFL Dream Team this year).
I know that we’re not alone out there. I know that there are other coaches who take their Dream Team just as seriously and that’s what this column is all about. I want to hear from the crazies, the nut jobs, the people that don’t even watch the games anymore, they just stare at changing stats, like characters in The Matrix.
This week, I want you to complete this sentence –
“I knew I was taking Dreamteam too seriously when ..."
Send your answers to dreamteam@afl.com.au, putting 'Hindy' in the subject line. I'll run the best in next week's column.
I also encourage you to send images of your team shield to dreamteamshields@gmail.com. During the year we’ll do a gallery of the truly great DT shields, so don’t be shy.
Until next week,
Hindy
CEO and coach of the Hindsight Mayors
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
