The 11th Hour Shakes…

Hello fellow coaches!

I am writing this while crouched in the corner of my cubicle space, scared to look at the computer screen with my team on it.

I don’t completely understand what happened. The last 3 weeks have gone by and I’ve barely touched my team, I was actually really happy with the structure and players I’d selected. This is mostly due to the fact that I’ve spent the entire preseason doing nothing but research for my Fantasy team. Hours spent reading DT Talk articles and discussing with my fellow coaches via forums and twitter all the various strategies and player combinations to decide which would be the strongest possible round 1 team.

As always I had a quick look over my team last night, looking at a few players I’d left out but couldn’t see any possible changes I could make. I went to bed, still really happy with my team.

Then it happened.

3am I woke up from an AFL Fantasy induced nightmare. Ryan O’Keefe had completely killed it in round 1. I need Ryan O’Keefe in my team! I quickly logged on, made a few changes and by 3:15am I was back asleep with Ryan O’Keefe sitting in my midfield.

This morning I woke up, remembering the outcome of what I’d done mid morning but not completely sure how I’d done it. I logged on to see that ‘midmorning’ Anthony had also decided that in order to get the cash needed to upgrade to ROK in his midfield, Buddy Franklin‘s services would no longer be required in his forward line. Instead he had decided that Siposs deserved a spot at F3. This didn’t sit well with ‘fully awake’ Anthony.

This resulted in more research and scouring of Fantasy relevant articles on the internet and knee jerk reactions.

What?

‘Gary Ablett Jnr to play less game time!?’ I’m not paying over $600k for an underperforming premium.. Drop!

‘Ricky Petterd promoted to the senior list!?’ He’s scored 77 points per 100 mins in the NAB!… Lock!

Now that I think about it Pittard hasn’t really impressed me… Drop!
Is Whitfield really worth $180k!?… Drop!

… This went on for most of the morning, leaving me with a team I could no longer recognise and was deeply ashamed to call my own! The thing is, I knew I was going too far, but couldn’t stop. The more changes I made, no matter how justified I thought they were, the worse my team would look, resulting in even more changes!

After some sound advice from some fellow twitter coaches who have talked me off the proverbial Dream Team ledge (you guys know who you are) I’ve gone back and changed my team to how it looked last night before my 3am nightmare.

The moral here is that we are in the ’11th hour’ at the moment. Lockout is very close and it is causing a lot of us to second guess our decisions.

Just remember, you’ve done the research and locked in these players for a reason. Back your preseason judgement and don’t mess with your structure. You will regret it!

The only changes we should be looking at this week are based on injuries or whether rookies are playing.

If you feel the urge to make those sweeping changes, take a deep breath, step away from your team and talk to another coach!

And remember, Keep calm and lock Swan!

Good luck fellow coaches!