When then does fantasy football become madness? When does imaginary AFL start taking over from real AFL? When do you cross that fine but significant line between fan and fanatic – between coach and crackpot – between seriously keen and seriously deranged?
In my opinion, it’s when you start talking to your players.
Don’t think, Mayors – DO!
One of the wonderful and slightly freaky aspects about Toyota AFL Dream Team is that after a while you start to believe that you’re coaching a real team. Your players listen to you, your players respect you, and your players lift in response to a half-time spray.
Who hasn’t checked the stats at the end of the second quarter and then let rip after discovering a star midfielder is marooned on 15?
“You could have been Kane Cornes, you useless @#^#%#d! You could have been Hayden Skipworth plus a fair chunk of change! For God’s sake, man – where’s your pride? Where’s your honour? Do you realise you’re being beaten by DARREN GLASS?!?”
I do this sort of thing all the time and, on some level, I honestly believe it works.
Playing for the jumper
Not only do I yell at my players, but I have come to believe that they only play for me. Forget their AFL team. Forget their careers, their livelihood, and the thousands of other Dream Teamers who have them too. My boys pull on their boots for one reason and one reason only – for the everlasting glory of the Hindsight Mayors.
I like to imagine that my players hang on my every move. I like to picture them anxiously clustered around a noticeboard on Friday afternoon waiting for me to pin up team lists.
Just last week, I enjoyed picturing Stephen Hill’s dejected face when he pushed his way to the front, scanned the names, and then realised he’d been benched. You see, I wasn’t just demoting the kid, I was sending him a message. If he wanted to play in the season opener against the Porcupines, he had to put his head down and show me something on the training track – he had to show his fellow Mayors a little thing called ‘ticker’.
I hope he’ll rise to the challenge.
Of course, deep down I know that Stephen Hill couldn’t give a toss what I do – that getting a game for Fremantle must rate slightly higher on his list of priorities than getting a game for the Hindsight Mayors – but somehow it doesn’t seem to matter.
As far as I’m concerned, the Mayors are as real as any team in Australia. They train together, they win together, they stand around in a circle and scream out the team song together (which, by the way, is the 80s classic ‘What About Me?’ – the Moving Pictures version, not the Shannon Noll one) and sometimes they even ruin their entire season by getting themselves suspended after smashing into parked cars (thank you Heath Shaw and Alan Didak).
Making tough calls
When you think about your team this way, Dream Team gets that little bit harder. It’s not just a game of stats anymore – it’s a game of guesswork and emotion. When I picked Dids this year, for example, I didn’t just look at his numbers. I looked at his relationship with the Mayors. I figured he owed the club after last year’s debacle and I figured he might feel that way too.
Similarly, when I made the agonising decision not to re-sign Steve Johnson after two years of faithful service, I knew he’d take it badly. It felt like a betrayal and Steve obviously agreed. In the words of Teddy Whitten, he’s spent the first few rounds of 2009 sticking it right up me.
This week’s question
I know that other people view their teams this way too, and I’d like to hear from you. This week, I want you to give me an example of when you treated your team as if it was real or let emotions get in the way of stats. Send it to dreamteam@afl.com.au, making sure to put ‘Hindy in the subject line. I’ll run the best answers in round five’s column.
Thanks also for all your responses to last week’s question. Stay tuned for the results next week.
Cheers,
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.
