Oh yes friends, it's that time of year again! Another six months agonising over the health and form of 20-odd young men from across the country. AFL season is back, so that means one thing: DREAM TEAM, BABY!
Now, this is my second year, and I made a lot of rookie errors the first time round, but I've learnt from those mistakes and am off to a pretty good start. I only cracked a score of 2000 once over the entire of last season, but I started off 2011 with a bang, scoring 2054. I'm stoked!
Go under the cut to check out my squad of super maxi legends.
BACKS
I did skimp on my backs a bit this year, preferring to load up my other positions, but now that the weekend's over, I'm not really regretting my choices. Astbury didn't live up to his scores in the NAB Cup, and Reid disappeared in the second half for the Swans after a promising start, but it's another two weeks before they start (potentially) dropping in price, so I'll be hanging on to them til then, and if it goes that badly, will sub them out for one of my perfectly good bench players. Used the Captain Loophole this weekend, naming Gibbs as my VC and not nominating a Captain, so that I'd keep his very impressive score from Thursday night. A similar gamble didn't go so well with my Emergency Loophole. Nominated Duigan as my emergency, he didn't score too badly. Had heard Otten was going to be the sub for the Crows, so assuming he wasn't going to score that well through lack of game time, I subbed him out and put in Hibberd who wasn't playing this weekend. This meant I would get Duigan's score instead of a 0 for Hibberd. Totally backfired, Otten outscored Duigan, and those 13 points would have made a difference in one of my league head-to-head games. ARGH. You win some, you lose some!
MIDFIELDERS
I'm pretty happy with my midfield. It's the most crucial part of a Dream Team, so it's worth it to do your research. Swan is always reliable, Bartel is part of a great midfield at Geelong, and Swallow is really starting to kill it as far as Dream Team is concerned. I'd had Selwood last year, and he was a good addition so I grabbed him again. He scored very poorly today as he was tagging Brent Harvey, so I'll give him a few more weeks, but if it's looking like he's going to be in a tagging role most of the season then it's bye bye Sellers. Liam Anthony was a bit of a gamble for me. I didn't really know a lot about him, and reports were mixed. I liked the look of his numbers, and I needed to get Masten out of my team, so I thought 'What the hell'. He did well today, so he's safe at this stage! Ideally David Swallow is the rookie who will be in the starting position more often than the other three, but given the Gold Coast bye this week, Libba Jr did a cracking job. I would have been happy for him to just get above 50, but he scored 72. Gaff did a reasonable job today, but I think he'll be spending most of his time on the bench as a cash cow, increasing in value until I sell him off for a better player.
RUCKS
Another area where I splurged a bit. Most teams will either have Sandilands OR Cox, being that they're fairly expensive, and in most cases that saved money can be put to better use elsewhere. But hey, why not just get the best? They both scored awesomely this weekend, especially Coxy with a massive score of 142. Fingers crossed they both stay fit and healthy for the duration of the season, but if they don't I'm pretty happy with Tippett as a backup. The fourth ruckman rarely gets used, so Smith is just there as another cash cow.
FORWARDS
This is the only section of my team that I'm a bit 'Aw, man' about. It's not really due to my selections, cause they're good players, it's just that they all played a bit shit this weekend! Late in the week I upgraded Zaharakis to Franklin, so obviously Murphy's Law dictated that Zaha would outscore Buddy by 30 points. Grr. A 72 from Buddy and a 78 from Riewoldt were certainly below my expectations. I had Voldt last year, so I'm confident in the fact he'll bounce back and give me some good scores in the future, but Buddy is on the chopping block. He's got two more weeks to show some form, otherwise he'll be getting traded. Likely for Mayne, he played his butt off this weekend, and I'd expect him to keep it up. Didak was TERRIBLE with 67, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that it was a bad day. Krakouer absolutely nailed it, and Richardson was solid as well. I'll admit I really only picked Darling cause he was a West Coast boy, but he impressed me today.
So that's my team! I've given myself a far better base to work from than last year, so I'm happy. I'm in 5 head-to-head leagues, won four games today, and lost one (by 6 points! FUUUUUU!). The head-to-heads are my favourite part of DT, but I barely won any bloody matches last year, so it's awesome to get off to such a good start.
WOO! DREAM TEAM! YEAH!
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