So there I was, just walking down the hallways of Feed The Machine stadium when I bumped into Hunter.
‘Hey mate, did you know you look like our coach? I wonder where he is at the moment?’
‘But…I am your coach!’ I stammered, finally after he’d already walked on, too little, too late.
Interestingly while I’ve been M.I.A as coach for the last two rounds (and phoned in the one before that), it’s actually gone better than I’ve thought. If you count a 50% success rate in this Supercoach game something to brag about after clean forgetting the footy was on..
I was M.I.A and I’m blaming Thursday night football
Yes usually the first game in each round of the AFL is on a Friday and sorting a team out would be one of the last things I’d do after work but before dinner, just in time for the weekend.
But no, thanks to the bye round and the AFL needing to get things away early, there’s been plenty of games on a Thursday night instead. And still fixated on the working week, I haven’t remembered to open the Supercoach app until well into the first game of the round, meaning I can’t change of the players involved in that one: too late sunshine.
However in a step further over the last fortnight, I for some reason have completely forgotten to do anything with my team until at least three quarters of the way through the round. Which is not great form for a coach in Supercoach, or for any game really fantasy or otherwise.
Unless you’re me of course and you somehow jag a victory in this supreme demonstration of idiotic luck.
Round 16 – Coach well and truly M.I.A
Thankfully in AFL Supercoach you don’t have to pick a fresh team from scratch for each and every round. Was that a thing, then I’d be doomed from the outset. DOOOOOMED! What it does mean is that if you don’t make any changes to your lineup, then it remains the same as the week before.
Or in my case the week before that because as mentioned above, some times I coach so well, it looks like I’m doing nothing at all.
And boy oh boy did it work well for round 16.
Because in one of the rarest occurrences of this happening all year, all of the players on the field actually turned up and did something. Something that the Tottenham Hotspurs take in their stride weekly, but for me this is a completely novel concept. Not only did I have a full team, but they actually did alright for themselves given their coach (me) was completely M.I.A. Vlastuin impressed with 120 handy points. Miers accounted himself well with 113. And Maccrae, aka Feed The Machine’s actual machine brought the house down with 214 points as captain.
The rest of the group was decidedly average but not as bad as Maddies team so that was quite the suprise and appreciated victory.
Of course that joy was ended quickly this round..
Round 17 – Coach still M.I.A, try Mexico maybe
This round astonishingly, all players turned up again! Yes, not even a last second ‘Welp, he’s be taken out by a stray seagull as soon as he stepped out on the footy field’ moment. But even with all hands on deck, that deck was obviously the Titanic and down we went.
What didn’t help was the playing base having another lacklustre round (no coach yelling at the group from the sidelines? Yeah that probably played a big part) although looking at the scores from the bench compared to those who got picked (from two weeks ago and stayed there..) – there really wasn’t any life saving surgery I could have performed last minute here.
I was doomed from the start with this lot, me in attendance or not.
But there’s always next round right?
Yes indeed and just to rub even more salt into an already over-salted wound, it starts on a Thursday again. Which means I’ll probably remember to pop the coaches hat back on…about Saturday night.
Given the last two rounds, it’s probably a fifty-fifty chance of winning again really..