The Plus Four: Round 16 Special Edition

Warnie has handed over the +4 column to AFL Dream Team’s First Lady (or so we call her anyway), Amanda – coach of Team Flossy.

DT TALK – Behind the Scenes

This weekend I’ve had the privilege of witnessing first hand exactly what goes on in the life of a DT TALK weekend. Of particular interest is the way the boys conducted themselves as skilled and confident members of the football media. We arrived at Aurora Stadium on Friday arvo to interview Xavier Ellis and Justin Sherman with the most professional looking microphone you’ve ever seen. Not only did Warnie have his school kids help him make it, it was complete with strapping tape to hold it together. The boys don’t actually have media passes either; it seems all you have to do is hold a camera and a mic and wander about the ground with an air of importance. I’m thinking about trying it next week back in Melbourne.

On Saturday we trekked back to Aurora to watch Hawthorn take on Brisbane. It was BLOODY freezing and nowhere near as entertaining as we’d hoped. But if you have a couple of Hawks players in your Dream Team you’d be pretty happy as they had 7 players that posted 100+ scores, inculding Jordan Lewis with a massive 145 and the ever consistent Luke Hodge with an impressive 126.

Basically the last few days have been complete DT overload, but thats my kind of weekend.

Team SWAN vs Team ABLETT

Back when I was building my team at the start of the year, it came the time to decide between Ablett and Swanny. As a mad Geelong supporter it was a no-brainer and I jumped aboard Team Ablett. All year I backed Ablett as captain, changing my selection only once to Stanton when Ablett was out in rnd 6. But I expect a lot from my captain and when Ablett’s scores started to slide, I decided his 105’s and 103’s were not enough for me anymore.  So three weeks ago, in came Swan. His first 3 weeks as a member of Team Flossy have delivered scores of 161, 141 and 138!

It is safe to say that I am well and truly onboard Team Swan. And with Ablett’s recent scores, maybe it’s time to upgrade to premium…

Thank god Brown is back!… oh wait a second…

If you were someone who held onto Jonathon Brown like I did, you would have been relieved to finally see him back in this weeks line-up. In a private conversation, Lions coach Michael Voss looked Roy in the eye (see video) and told him that you could even lock in Browny as captain this week!  And with that endorsement I was pretty pumped to watch Browny smash out a huge score against the Hawks.

Well…What a letdown! Browny scored a somewhat under-whelming 48. However, in all fairness to the big guy, Brisbane were pretty terrible and barely gave him a chance. Let’s cross our fingers for something bigger and better next week.

Team FLOSSY vs Boom-Roys Flossys

All year I’ve had a pretty healthy rivalry going on with a guy in my league, Trent (Team Name: Boom-Roys Flossys). This week we finally came up against each other. I’ll be honest in saying that Trent has had a pretty good season and I thought he had me covered, but I was by no means throwing in the towel. Lockout rolled around and I was suprised to see Trent had made quite a bold tactical move; instead of sticking with Captain Swan (as he knew I would be doing just that) he’d put the magical C on Ablett. You can imagine I was pretty stoked to see Ablett get 81, his lowest score for the entire season. Trent was still to suffer another blow when one of his midfielders, Nick Dal Santo, was a late withdrawal.. and he had no cover. By this stage I was pretty confident I had it in the bag. I ended up winning, 2132 vs 2068. A 64pt margin.

I’m well aware that given he copped the Dal Santo donut, his score was quite respectable. If he had Nicky Dal in, he could have even won. But that there is the only valid excuse for his loss.  However, Trent believes he has a few more things to sook about and that without his ‘terrible luck’ he would have smashed me. Here is a quote from our coaches box just after the last game finished:

“ROFL… captain swan outscores captain ablett by 130 and I field a donut with bock and cloke on the pine and you can only beat me by 50 odd points.. you are a minnow”.

I have a few things to say about that. Let’s start with Captain Ablett vs Captain Swan. Taking captaincy off the highest scoring player this year, after scores in the last 2 weeks of 161 and 141, and giving it to someone who has scored 108 and 109 in those same 2 weeks is a HUGE risk, and in my opinion a really shit decision.

Onto his sook about Cloke being suspended. This simple facts are as follows. Cloke has an average this year of 78, as a result of  scoring over 100 in only 2/15 games and more often than not pulling a score between 60-70. His replacement for Cloke? Gumbleton. Gumbleton’s score? 72. Just 6 points less than Cloke’s average. And one last point, Cloke has only scored higher than 72 in less than half his games.

And lastly to his sook about having Bock on the pine. This week is not the first time Trent has brought up Bock in relation to a poor week, and it just doesnt hold up. Bock has almost been out more times then he’s been in with injuries. And of the 9 games he has managed, only twice has he scored over 100, with the 7 other scores being below 80. This gives Bock an average of 76 for the year. His cover for Bock? Henderson. Henderson’s score? 84. Number of times Bock has scored more than 84? Twice.

Is Trent abit of a clown? Have your say!

Well that’s all from me! It’s been a pretty fun weekend in Tassie and I’ve had a blast hanging out with Warnie, Roy, Calvin and Chop. Dream Team is alright with me, OOOOH YEAH!