Dear Footy Tragics,

This article is the last in the 2010 series of “Tuney’s Tuition”. From next Thursday, I’ll be heading down a different path with my weekly article.

In this final article, rather than give you a dreamteam tutorial, I’m going to discuss my own personal dreamteam achilles heal. It’s something I’ve battled for over 12 months and I know that I’m not the only one who struggles with the dreaded weekly captain choice.

Each week, no matter how many points I score, I end up kicking myself whenever my captian is not my highest scoring player for the round. As you could imagine, this happens most weeks.

AFL Rd 3 - Saints v Magpies

Last Sunday I watched the Collingwood vs Essendon game at the MCG. To my delight, Bren Stanton not only returned to the Essendon line up, he ran free and racked up 34 possessions, 9 marks and 6 tackles on his way to 139 dreamteam points. To my disgust, in the very same match my captain Dane Swan could only managed 25 possessions, 6 marks and 1 tackle on his way to just 83 dreamteam points. For the second time in four weeks, my $523,500 investment Dane Swan had failed to reach 85 dreamteam points as my captain. The final wash up was that I cost myself 56 points by choosing Swan over Stanton as my captain in Round 5.

I’ve long been a fan of choosing one captain pre season and locking him in, because choosing a winner week to week is virtually impossible. Most dreamteamers would have thought Dane Swan would have carved up both Melbourne and Essendon at the MCG. I even joked to a mate that Swan could score 200 points against the Demons in Round 2! Unfortunately, Swan pulled in just 21 possessions and a paltry 84 points.

My reason for selecting Dane Swan can be traced back to the early rounds of 2009, where my long standing captain Kane Cornes was suffering his first form slump in recent dreamteam memory. The consummate professional in Cornes had let me down after years of impeccable service. I vowed not to repeat my mistake in 2010, so I chose the best dreamteam player money could buy in Dane Swan. Needless to say, this plan has failed miserably thus far.

My ongoing saga continues this week, with Dane Swan playing against Carlton, Jimmy Bartel playing Richmond, Brent Stanton playing Hawthorn and Bryce Gibbs playing Collingwood. All four have the potential to post massive scores, yet only one of these four will prove to be the correct captain choice in Round 6.

All the best research in the world leads to nothing, when your chosen skipper who has averaged 140 points per game against his upcoming opponent, has an off day and can’t get his hands on the footy. All players are entitled to a poor performance, but not when you are our skipper please!

Good luck!