I got an email today from a couple of blokes offering to sell me naming rights on their AFL Dream Team league. Yes, you read that right. Someone thinks that it’s worth some of my money to name their league “www.fanfooty.com.au” as a guerrilla marketing tactic so I can get branding on VirtualSports’ Web site. What a crazy industry this is!

The price they asked was far more than I think the “service” is worth. I don’t want to reprint their email in full, but let’s just say their fee was well into four figures. They claimed it was just to cover their members’ entry fees so that they can offer big cash prizes to the winner, and the fee would only be payable if their league was in the top 10 leagues for at least 10 weeks.

I have to admire these guys, they have balls of steel. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before they find a willing buyer, but I think they might need to lower their price just a tad. What do you think would be a fair fee for naming rights to a top 10 fantasy league? Any takers for a number greater than zero?

#10: You haven’t got Chad Cornes. Chad is the #1 fantasy back, averaging 101.5 in DT last year. The only other back to average more than 90 in 2007 was Joel Bowden. It is mandatory for a good AFL fantasy team to pick Chadwick, a.k.a. Studley, a.k.a. The Chad. Don’t leave home without him.

#9: You’re starting a rookie ruck in your 22. Yes, it’s easy to see that Matthew Kreuzer is a quality player. Sure, Shaun Hampson looks like he’ll do alright this year. Fine, have Matthew Leuenberger in your 30. Just don’t put any of those boys in your 22. Young ruckmen take a long time to develop. Even Josh Fraser, first picked in the 1999 draft, had a debut season in 2000 that was not fantasy-22-worthy. Keep them on your bench and start Troy Simmonds as your #2 ruck at the very least.

#8: You’ve picked injured and/or sore players. Obviously you shouldn’t have any of the seven players who have already blown out their knees this season, but I’m talking here about players who are probably going to represent some good value at some stage during the season, but not from round 1. These players are on the dreaded “modified program” due to very poor fitness levels from an interrupted preseason, and many of them won’t even play in round 1. This includes Daniel Bradshaw, Sam Butler, Mark Coughlan, Nathan Thompson, Brendon Goddard, Trent Hentschel, Scott Gumbleton, Matthew Lloyd and Danny Jacobs. Warren Tredrea is also on the fringes of this group, preseason media hype notwithstanding. –EDIT– Oh, and I forgot the biggest name on this list: Chris Judd.

#7: You’ve picked a full-time full back. There was a time when Matthew Scarlett was fantasy-relevant, but no more.

#6: You haven’t picked Nick Stevens. 133 in the NAB Cup not enough for you? Come on, he should be an absolute lock. As I said in this week’s Coaches Box, opposition coaches are going to let him rack up cheap outside possessions until the cows come home because his hurt factor is very minimal. Should give you 22 games of sterling service.

#5: You’ve got more than two premium-priced centres. Your centres should be filled with rookies and the odd mid-price improver. Sure, it looks fabulous to have the entire Geelong engine room in your team from round 1, but salary cap fantasy is all about improvement, and there’s not a lot of improvement left in Jimmy, Joel and Gazza. Two of them maybe, but you have to leave room for plenty of cash cows, even in your 22. Which leads me to…

#4: No rookies in your 22. Don’t play it safe! I learned this lesson the hard way. It’s not actually a “risk” to start rookies in your 22, it’s mandatory. You are selling your team short if you don’t. Picking the right rookies is vital, obviously, but the rewards are far greater than picking a bunch of third-year players priced at $150k-$200k who will deliver the same scores at best.

#3: You’ve picked 2007’s fantasy young guns instead of thinking about 2008. No, it’s not a winning move to pick up Joel Selwood this year. Sure, he’s going to score well, but you’d be paying top dollar for his services and that money could be better spent elsewhere. Pick the rookie who is going to be this year’s Joel Selwood. The same goes for Jake King, Ricky Petterd, Andrejs Everitt, Clinton Young, Alwyn Davey, Tim Boyle and David Rodan.

#2: You haven’t aimed for the top. It’s no good having 10 players in your squad who, at best, will improve from averages of 75 last year to 80 this year. You have to pick players capable of cracking the ton every week. It’s worth spending the extra money to get Joel Bowden rather than Jason Gram, Scott Lucas rather than Robert Murphy. Bowden and Lucas are the players who can deliver consistent 100+ games, whereas Gram and Murphy just can’t get there often enough. That sort of penny-pinching will only pinch points away from your team in the long term.

#1: You just posted your entire squad to BigFooty.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about structures of fantasy salary cap teams. Experienced fantasy AFL coaches think about players as being in three categories: premiums, mid-prices and rookies. Premiums are the best fantasy players in the competition, proven guns whose prices already reflect their quality. Rookies are priced at about $140,000 down to the bare draftee or rookie price.

One of the cardinal sins which noobs make in selecting their fantasy team is getting too many players from one category and not enough of the others: specifically, that they choose way too many mid-price players and not enough premiums and rookies. So, given what I’ve learned in my time in the EliteDre@mTe@mers forum and in talking with the experts on the Coaches Box, here’s a team structure I think is going to work this year.

BACKS
3 premiums from: Chad Cornes, Joel Bowden, Josh Drummond, Peter Burgoyne, Lindsay Gilbee, Heath Shaw, Darren Milburn, Sam Fisher, Andrew McLeod, Adam McPhee
3 mid-prices from: Shannon Hurn, Mark Nicoski, Xavier Ellis, Tadhg Kennelly, Brad Symes, Martin Mattner, Jesse W. Smith, David Mundy, Brett Jones
3 rookies from: David Myers, Dennis Armfield, Callan Ward, Levi Greenwood, Eric McKenzie, Darren Pfeiffer, Tom Lonergan

CENTRES
2 premiums from: Nick Dal Santo, Gary Ablett jnr, Kane Cornes, Luke Hodge, Jed Adcock, Joel Corey, Heath Scotland, Adam Goodes, Andrew Carrazzo, Daniel Cross, Sam Mitchell, Dane Swan, Simon Goodwin, Nathan Foley, Mark McVeigh, Brent Stanton, Tyson Stenglein, Matt Priddis, Chris Knights, Scott Pendlebury, Jobe Watson, Steven Salopek
2 mid-prices from: Nick Stevens, Richard Tambling, Chance Bateman, Ryan Griffen, Bryce Gibbs, Byron Schammer, Brett Peake, Andrew Foster, Courtenay Dempsey, Brent Prismall, Clinton Jones
4 rookies from: Chris Masten, Jamie McNamara, Travis Tuck, Daniel Connors, Rhys Palmer, Bachar Houli, Beau Muston, Craig Bird

RUCKS
1 premiums from: Dean Cox, Jeff White, Josh Fraser, Brendon Lade, Darren Jolly, Justin Koschitzke
1 mid-price from: Troy Simmonds, Daniel Gilmore, Jonathan Griffin
2 rookies from: Matthew Kreuzer, Shaun Hampson, Angus Graham, Max Bailey

FORWARDS
5 premiums from: Matthew Pavlich, Nick Riewoldt, Jonathan Brown, Scott Lucas, Steve Johnson, Quinten Lynch, Ryan O’Keefe, Nathan G. Brown, Lance Franklin
2 mid-prices from: Stuart Dew, Barry Hall, Brett Deledio, Brendan Fevola, Travis Cloke, Dale Thomas, Tom Hawkins
2 rookies from: James Sellar, Jarrhan Jacky, Ben McKinley, Cyril Rioli, Daniel O’Keefe, Lachie Henderson, Lachie Hansen

The only deviation from that I’d see is loading up on two premium rucks, as I did last year. You’ll notice that I will be starting one rookie in the backs and two in the centres in my 22, but none in the rucks or forwards: that reflects my opinion on the rookie talent stocks in the various positions this year. My final list will be dictated by NAB Cup form, injuries and team sheets for round 1, of course, but I would be surprised if any of my 30 came from outside the above squad.

I’m seeing a lot of plan teams get posted in places like BigFooty’s fantasy forum and there are some strange names that are cropping up for reasons that don’t quite gel with me. Here is my list of the most popular players who won’t live up to the faith being put in them by fantasy coaches.

Brad Symes
Yes, he looked solid in Dubai with 73 including 35 in the third quarter, and he is most likely going to deliver an improvement over his 61 average in 07. He’s the single “mid price” back in a lot of fantasy teams at the moment. However, I put his ceiling at a maximum of 75, and I wouldn’t be confident that he’d get much past 70 most weeks. Even if he does manage 80-85, that’s not quite going to cut it to get into my starting 22 I’m afraid, especially not with a heap of other tasty options much further down the price scale in the backs. There are just too many sub-$120k backs worth a punt in your 22, let alone on your bench: Callan Ward, Tom Lonergan, David Myers, Levi Greenwood, Dennis Armfield and Eric MacKenzie are all going to be better value.

Tadhg Kennelly
No less an esteemed scholar that Mr Fantasy in the AFL Record has Kennelly down as one of his “Hot Shots”, citing his 98.5 average in his first 4 games of 2007 before going down with a knee injury. The only problem is that Tadhg has played 127 home & away games for only four Dream Team tons, two of which came in those four games. Those four games were the exception, not the rule. I am tipping that Kennelly will not be given the same free role in 08, because unlike the early part of 2007, Adam Goodes has had a solid pre-season and is ready to take up the halfback garbage collection role in which he excelled in the latter part of 2007. Don’t be so quick to place your bets on the Irishman.

Marc Murphy
Murphy is a fine player, no one is questioning that, but fantasy is all about improvement over your rolling average. As I said on this week’s Coaches Box podcast, if you’re in the market for a #1 draft pick Carlton mid then Bryce Gibbs is far more likely to improve from his 07 average of 55 to 75 or more than Murphy is to lift from 75 to 95.

Chris Judd
Plenty of pixels have been spilt in this offseason on whether it’s a good idea to have Murphy, Nick Stevens and Judd in the same fantasy midfield. Stevens is a lock, I’m not on the Murphy bandwagon, and I just don’t trust Judd’s fitness. Perhaps more importantly, I don’t want to have to worry about Judd’s groin for the whole year. Things were bad enough last year with Nigel Lappin’s knee, Jimmy Bartel’s head and… well, Judd’s groin. The only one obsessing over that particular area should be Rebecca Twigley.

Tai and I are proud to announce the launch of a new fantasy AFL dream team competition called Lethal League. We’re putting up just on $5,000 of our own money as the prize pool for the competition, including a $1,000 first prize and weekly prizes for first, second and third. It uses the same dream team scoring system as the official AFL Dream Team and fantasyfooty.net.au, among others. The major difference (among several) in Lethal League is that you get unlimited trades, part of an innovative new system which keeps the rewards of picking hot new players early but removes the “cash cow” mercantile mentality of other systems.

Most importantly, we will be offering live scoring for your Lethal League teams, not just for the team on its own but live league scoring as well… for all teams in all your leagues. As each weekend progresses during the AFL season, you’ll be able to see your opposing teams’ players revealed live as each game “locks out”, then watch your own team go head to head with your opponent, and also spectate as the other teams in your league battle it out player by player.

I feel very strongly that live scoring is by far the most exciting thing about fantasy sports. Watching your team rack up the points online in real time as the games occur is the best part of fantasy, and it’s what made Tai and I start FanFooty in the first place. For various contractual and other business reasons, the companies behind the other fantasy AFL competitions you have played have not provided you, the fantasy sports nut, with the “killer app” in fantasy, which is live scoring embedded into a fantasy-specific site. That changes in 2008.

The FanFooty Fanplanner has now been updated for what should be the last time with hopefully 100% accurate prices and positions, taken from the AFL Record which went on sale this week. One of the big questions before every AFL Dream Team and Herald-Sun Super Coach season is which players, of the 100 who are in the qualification zone of having played between one and eight games the previous year, that VirtualSports will arbitrarily decide to discount in price. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the choices: old or young, injured or fit, experienced or green… no pattern has emerged. This year the discounts are in four bands from 10 to 40 per cent based on their average from 2007 multiplied by this year’s magic number of 4343. Here are the players:

10% discount

• Bachar Houli, ES C: $196800/$181900

Houli is in that awkward price band where he’s not really in the radar of serious fantasy coaches because they’re looking towards rookies. Not enough savings for mine.

20% discount

• Nick Gill, AD F: $242100/$315900
• Thomas Murphy, HW B: $233700/$306900

Both of these players interest me. Gill showed a fair bit late last year - I bought him for my own teams and wasn’t disappointed - and if (BIG IF) Neil Craig continues to implement the Mark Thompson attacking game plan we saw last Saturday then he will reap rewards. Murphy has looked pretty good in the Clinton Young mold in his limited opportunities, but it’s not clear yet how many games he will get this year, especially since Clinton Young himself may keep him out. Both worth keeping an eye on.

30% discount

• Adam Hartlett, CA B/F: $101100/$164000
• Chad Jones, WC F: $139100/$229800
• Ben Reid, CO F: $138800/$134600
• Sean Rusling, CO F: $266000/$374900
• Courtenay Dempsey, ES C: $133800/$256000
• Heath Hocking, ES C: $133800/$151400
• Ryan Cook, CO F: $129700/$170600
• Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls, RI C: $127700/$90200
• Jamie McNamara, WC C: $124700/$111800
• Josh Hill, WB F: $103400/$90200
• Matthew Ferguson, SK B: $91200/$176600
• Tom Hislop, ES C: $163100/$158600
• Ryan Lonie, CO C: $212000/$287500
• Wayde Skipper, WB R: $212300/$251100
• Brent Prismall, GE C: $218300/$252400
• Andrew Foster, FR C: $209700/$264400
• Ed Barlow, SY C/B: $198600/$213900
• Lewis Roberts-Thomson, SY B: $231100/$295600
• Anthony Corrie, BL F: $214300/$272200
• Sam Iles, CO C: $170200/$239100
• Andrew Browne, FR C: $114700/$169400
• Nick Stevens, CA C: $237200/$313600

Plenty of value in this band. Stevens is pretty much a lock in every team, he’s this year’s Adcock. Dempsey is getting a lot of interest as well due to his pace, though injury is a concern with him. At least one of the two Freo centres, Foster and Browne, will make it onto top 100 teams this year, I am tipping. McNamara is very tasty at that price and plenty will take a chance on him getting a share of the midfield rotation in the depleted Eagles engine room. The two Collingwood forwards will also take the eye of many coaches, although Rusling is still a mite too expensive and it’s probably a year too early for Reid. Skipper might fool a few coaches but he’s still overpriced after the discount! Finally, Corrie is getting some press in the pre-season but we’d need to see him put it on the park first.

40% discount

• Danny Stanley, CO B: $103000/$170000
• Matthew Laidlaw, SY C: $99000/$148300
• Eric MacKenzie, WC B: $104200/$90200
• Brock O’Brien, FR B: $164200/$188500
• Garry Moss, HW C: $125100/$90200
• Beau Dowler, HW F: $125100/$90200
• Daniel Connors, RI C: $125800/$139000
• Travis Tuck, HW C: $138100/$108200
• Garrick Ibbotson, FR B/C: $96400/$132900

Connors managed 84 in DT and 88 in SC from 25 possessions in one of his four games last season, and at $125,800/$139,000 that’s going to interest a fair amount of coaches. The two Hawk centres would need to be named for round 1 to attract much interest. The two Freo backs both have to prove themselves, but MacKenzie from the Eagles impressed on a wing in the WAFL last year despite his size, and he will feature in a number of fantasy backlines if he shows anything in the NAB Cup. Mr Fantasy in the AFL Record doesn’t think much of Dowler, saying he’s not the “type”, but I’m more bullish on his prospects for improvement at that price.

This is a list that you’re going to have to keep in front of your mind when structuring your 2008 AFL Dream Team and Super Coach squads. All of the above players are listed with colour-coded discount figures in the Add Player pages of the Fanplanner. Get cracking!

I tried this once last year and it was very well received, so I’ll try to do more of them this year.

The FanFooty Fifty is my ranking of the top 50 fantasy players, with the main criterion being “pointscoring potential”. However, a player’s position does also play a part in his ranking, so that non-centre premiums get ranked higher due to their rarity; price is NOT a factor; players injured for the next home & away game do not appear, of course.

1. Dean Cox: Picked first in good fantasy sides despite interrupted pre-season
2. Chad Cornes: Lock to average 100+… not so true of most who did so in 07
3. Kane Cornes: Two consecutive 105+ years can’t be ignored
4. Dane Swan: Two consecutive 100+ years at such a young age is impressive
5. Jimmy Bartel: Brownlow hangover keeps him relatively low despite record 2007
6. Joel Corey: Would benefit from more attention on Bartel, especially early
7. Matthew Pavlich: Best fantasy forward last year and will salute again in 08
8. Brad Johnson: Just shaded by Pav on upside at the age of 31… solid as a rock
9. Paul Chapman: Explosive when fit and he’ll finally be fit to start this year
10. Nick Riewoldt: Still need him to play closer to goal to maximise fantasy scoring
11. Heath Scotland: Coach Ratten will let him run free like Pagan did in 07
12. Daniel Cross: Potential to reach Kane-like heights, if not Bartelesque
13. Scott Thompson: Unchallenged king of the Crows midfield now
14. Joel Bowden: Can start a year poorly but will end up averaging 95+ as usual
15. Andrew Carrazzo: South African performance cast doubts on his midfield TOG
16. Lenny Hayes: Lot of faith being put in him by fantasy coaches not to get injured
17. Matt Priddis: Pre-season injury to Kerr means a sudden increase in responsibility
18. Tarkyn Lockyer: Terrible NAB Cup game but he’ll be good in his normal role
19. Jonathan Brown: 22 games last year but not quite consistent enough for top 10
20. Cameron Bruce: Melbourne have to get better this year, surely…
21. Gary Ablett jnr: Not a fantasy forward any more which will hurt his popularity
22. Jordan Lewis: Time for Lewis to inherit Crawford’s role in the Hawks midfield*
23. Sam Mitchell: Ceiling is below 100 but will always deliver consistently
24. Nigel Lappin: Ageing and under threat in midfield rotation from a host of kids
25. Adam McPhee: Will become especially valuable in SC if his move forward sticks
26. Jeff White: If Cox goes down, White assumes the #1 fantasy ruck mantle
27. Scott West: Energiser Bunny has nothing on Westy… must slow down slightly
28. Leigh Montagna: Dal Santo got the tags in 07 but Monty will attract them now
29. Heath Shaw: Looks like he’s the new Pies quarterback after Clement’s retirement
30. Luke Hodge: Played injured for a lot of 07 so has some upside if fit in 08*
31. Brent Stanton: Gets no press but he’s the star in the Dons midfield now
32. Jed Adcock: Still has some upside left after everyone got on board in 07
33. Simon Goodwin: Might get rested forward more in 08 which makes him hot in SC
34. Nick Stevens: Judd will attract attention away from him and he will deliver
35. Luke Power: Becoming inconsistent but will crack tons every other week
36. James McDonald: Quietly averaged 96+ in last two years while focus was elsewhere
37. Adam Cooney: Took on a lot of responsibility in 07 and was good enough for it
38. Chad Fletcher: Plenty of Eagles midfield points to share around
39. Scott Lucas: If Knights doesn’t mess with him like Sheedy did, he’ll deliver
40. Adam Goodes: First full pre-season in years means he’ll start much stronger
41. Tyson Stenglein: Plenty of Eagles midfield points to share around
42. Adam Simpson: Still needs to be The Man in Roos midfield with others not starring
43. Sam Fisher: Goddard will start slowly so Fisher will start where he left off in 07
44. Peter Burgoyne: Back eligibility means he will be very popular this year
45. Nick Malceski: One of the premium backs who will make it into a lot of teams
46. Daniel Kerr: Pre-season injury doesn’t help at all… he’ll be back though
47. Matthew Boyd: Excellent numbers last year but Cross/Griffen will limit him in 08
48. Tyson Edwards: Worrying move into the backline in NAB Rd 1 killed his numbers
49. Matt Rosa: Plenty of Eagles midfield points to share around
50. Josh Fraser: Battled in Abu Dhabi but showed he’s still capable of solid scores

Warming Up: Chris Judd, Domenic Cassisi, Brendon Goddard, Steve Johnson, Quinten Lynch, Joel Selwood, Brad Green, Chris Knights, Shane Tuck, Ryan O’Keefe

Note that Lewis and Hodge are suspended for round 1, but I included them anyway. A big part of these lists is reader feedback, so don’t hesitate to attack my ratings of individual players, and suggest changes you’d like to make to either the 50 or the “Warming Up” section, which is players who just missed out on the main list. I’ll be glad to hear your opinions!

Fantasy sport started in the 1960s in America, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that records exist for competitions for Australian rules fantasy football. The history of fantasy AFL is littered with attempts to build Web sites and services to enable the full American experience of rotisserie leagues, where fantasy coaches engage in private drafts with a handful of friends to play against each other with distinctive teams. However, despite the obvious passion with which Australians hold their native football code, it is the British-style salary cap competitions, particularly those operated by newspapers and the Australian Football League (AFL) itself, which has attracted the vast majority of interest from the public.

The pioneer was Fairfax’s Age newspaper in Melbourne, which ran a competition in its pages for three or four years during the mid-1990s. Players were given ratings of 1 to 10 and participants had to not only pore through the back half of the newspaper looking through all the players and their stats, but then could only find out how their teams went on the weekend in the paper during the following week. Team selection and trading was accomplished by cutting a form out of the newspaper and mailing it in. News Ltd’s Australian newspaper launched a competing game several years later which as far as I can tell was the first to be called Dream Team. News Ltd now owns the Dream Team trademark. The Australian’s Dream Team game eventually introduced phone-based team updating, which was originally on a free 1800 number but was then shifted to a metered 1300 line, giving News Ltd a significant extra revenue stream. The Australian Dream Team was discontinued after 2002.

The first online competition I can find evidence of was the Internet Fantasy Footy League, a service offering private rotisserie-style leagues started in 1994 by a South Australian called Mark Braithwaite, better known as braithy. Registration to join the IFFL and its sister competition Goalkicking Fantasy League (GFL) cost $20, and coaches competed for small cash prizes within their leagues. Scoring was based solely on the goals and behinds each AFL player scored on the field each week.

The success of IFFL, albeit on a small scale, encouraged some imitators. Simulated League Football started in 1995, using the same scoring system but adding more complexity in the management area, and has operated since then. The AFFL, where the A originally stood for Andrew’s but now stands for Adelaide, was started in 1996 by Andrew Newman, a maths student at Adelaide University and continues to this day with rules such as putting players on a “veteran” list after they have been retained by the same fantasy team for 10 years! Four such leagues came together in 1999 to form the Australian Fantasy Football Association. One of these was Robert Birks’ Fantasy Australian Rules Competition, which started in 1996 as a free service, then in 1997 required a $20 entry fee only to fold soon after. Another AFFA member was the RNAFFL (Richard’s NETional Australian Fantasy Football League), run in 1997 by Richard Scott which claimed to be the first online competition to restrict teams by player position.

Between around 1997 and 2001 there doesn’t seem to have been much activity in fantasy AFL outside of the IFFL and SFL. The Australian Fantasy Footy Super Leagues site ran from 2001 to 2004. The Australian Fantasy Football League arrived in 2002 but hasn’t been seen since late 2006.

2001 also marked the entrance of VirtualSports, a business unit of VaporMedia, who have come to define the “industry”, such as it is. In their first year they ran private draft leagues called Footy Leagues, a public salary cap competition which they called Dream Team which ran for a whole year, and a third service with the same rules as Dream Team but running on a weekly basis called Round-By-Round. While the exact number of Dream Teams registered in 2001 is not known, the spread of team IDs on their pages suggests that they did not get much more than 300 teams. The 2001 version of the rules did not allow for any trades from the initial 30-man Dream Team squad, restricted the amount of players you could buy within certain price bands, and used a scoring system incorporating rebounds and clangers where scores were much less weighted towards raw possessions.

In 2002, VirtualSports won the contract to provide the first official AFL fantasy game, which also took the Dream Team name, sponsored by Sony but operating within the exclusive Telstra Internet content deal with the AFL. Again, the rules allowed no trades after buying your initial team, although the squads were increased to 36. The scoring system was amended to the same which is used in the Dream Team competition today, and in a number of other current fantasy competitions. The Weekly Game, for which the prize was a PlayStation2 and a PS2 game, was kept separate to the season-long Dream Team competition, which had a prize of two tickets to four sporting events plus airfares and accommodation plus the inevitable PS2. The number of coaches, not readily apparent from Web archives, appears likely to have been at least 20,000 judging from team IDs, and the AFL recently claimed that there were almost 39,000 participants, although that figure is most likely an amalgam of the entries of two competitions where there was significant doubling up, and thus the real figure is probably a lot closer to 20,000.

In 2003 the Dream Team competition was sponsored by Yellow Pages, a Telstra business unit, and it attracted 27,920 entries. Innovations included player positions, a mid-season draft where a small number of players could be replaced, and head-to-head private leagues using Dream Teams. First prize was scaled back to four tickets to the AFL Grand Final plus airfares and accommodation and an Xbox. 2004 saw the introduction of Kelloggs as major sponsor, and the growth of the game took off with 48,532 registrations. Much of this can be attributed to the new $10,000 cash prize, while the number of trading weeks increased to two (after rounds 7 and 15). The popularity of Dream Team skyrocketed in 2005 with 131,254 teams registered, with the major innovation being the introduction of weekly trading, albeit a maximum of two per week and 20 for the season - a restriction that has continued. The Weekly Game was also merged into the Dream Team competition. The competition has continued on since then with no appreciable tinkering with the system except a gradual inflation of first prize up to its current $50,000 under the sponsorship of Coke Zero. Registrations reach 180,902 in 2006 and 237,114 in 2007.

VirtualSports, which had branched out into half a dozen other type of fantasy sports since its success with Aussie rules, also signed a deal in 2006 to launch a competition very similar to Dream Team on behalf of the Herald-Sun newspaper, marking the return of fantasy football to the pages of Australian newspapers after a break of many years. Unlike previous competitions, however, Super Coach was not run by printing huge tables of statistics in the newspaper, but run exclusively online with only peripheral involvement in the paper edition. The Super Coach competition, which only differed to Dream Team in the scoring system it used which was taken from Champion Data’s proprietary ranking points formula, quickly gained popularity with 91,619 registrations in 2006 and 152,317 in 2007.

While VirtualSports was having this high-profile success, there were a number of more community-based sites which were filling in the gaps for fantasy coaches. Matthew Tobin started his private league MTFAFFL in 2002 but relaunched it as WebFooty in 2003, running until 2005. Gerard McDermott and Darren Wheatley started Footy Rocks in late 2002 with a slightly different scoring system and a more accurate positional structure starting in the 2003 season. Footy Rocks offers both a public game and private leagues. My Fantasy Footy, started by Colin Harris in 2003, continues to concentrate on private draft leagues at a cost of $20 per league with the same scoring system as Dream Team. Bomberland, the site run outside the terms of the Telstra/AFL deal by Essendon Football Club, has included its own salary cap competition since 2003 called Wizard of Windy Hill, where only Essendon players can be picked. Goal Sneak, which had started life in 2000 as an AFL stats application for PCs, transformed into a salary cap fantasy product in 2004 with its own scoring system and $1000 betting voucher as first prize. Goal Sneak also runs an identical competition called Fantasy Footy Challenge in conjunction with the forum site BigFooty and a different betting partner with a $2000 betting voucher as first prize.

The commercial success of VirtualSports has not gone unnoticed by others in the football industry, and there are now other “whitelabel” options for media and sporting organisations to get their own competitions. Behind VirtualSports itself, which in addition to Dream Team and Super Coach also started a competitions for Sportal and the AFL Players Association in 2007, another new player entered the industry in 2007 in the form of Extracorp, based in North Melbourne, which had already had experience as an AFL partner through its contract for providing official footy tipping software products. Extracorp won contracts for 2007 for competitions on behalf of Optus and the Adelaide Advertiser and also runs its own salary cap competition at Dreamteam.com.au. TheBench was launched in 2007 by Panacea Technologies with a private league system but will add a salary cap game for 2008. Fox Sports runs its own in-house-developed fantasy AFL product.

There are still a number of deficiencies in the online fantasy AFL experience for the fan, especially in comparison to the far more advanced NFL product offered by companies such as CBS Sportsline, ESPN and Yahoo!. In part this is due to the relative youth of the Australian industry and the lack of cutting-edge technical expertise amongst its companies. However, some fingers must also be pointed at Telstra, whose exclusive Internet content deal with the AFL stands as a roadblock to the development of innovative online products, locking in AFL partners such as official statistics provider Champion Data and preventing them from striking deals with media companies to offer such vital components as live stats for online properties. Demand for fantasy products from the Australian public continues to double every year regardless, so the impetus for the AFL to open up the industry will build and build.

A note: I define fantasy football here as requiring teams made up of real AFL players where the competition involves your team scoring points from the actions of players in real AFL games. Thus management simulations with imaginary players don’t qualify.

A second note: I purposely left my own Web site FanFooty out of this… maybe someone else will write their mini-history some day

It was quite surreal watching a football match being played in bright Dubai sunshine starting at 8.45pm local time, but that’s the brave new internationalist world of football. Adelaide were more than up to the task, which would have been slightly disappointing for the Collingwood hierarchy who didn’t put on much of a show for their major sponsor Emirates, but we can blame three weeks of altitude training in South Africa plus a timely bout of gastro going through half the team for that. Nevertheless, there were some points to be taken out of the game.

• Brent Reilly looks like a million dollars, but he might not be the real deal. Yes, a fair few fantasy coaches of some note, including some in the EliteDre@mTe@mers league, love this bloke like a brother, and he did show flashes of brilliance in the second quarter including some Judd-like pack-bursting runs and a lovely supergoal to rack up 50 DT points at half time… but he ended up with only 75, good for 8th among the Crows. I’m still not convinced that he’s going to be able to post consistent tons. He has averaged 40 minutes on the pine across the last two seasons, according to the AFL Prospectus, so he’s one of those players whose TOG (time on ground) fantasy coaches keep very close eyes on, but in my mind it’s not certain that he’s going to take that extra step just yet. We’ll have another opportunity to see him against the Eagles in a fortnight.
• Fans of Scott Pendlebury have a slight cause to worry. Pendles and Dane Swan are supposed to be the replacement inside midfielder package for the ageing Scott Burns and Shane O’Bree. With Burns missing the Dubai game and O’Bree not starring, this was a perfect opportunity for Pendles to show that he can step up to the level that Swan has already attained. Sadly, he could only manage a DT total of 59 with 8 kicks, 9 handpasses, 3 marks and 2 tackles - including a duck egg in the first quarter (admittedly due to him being benched… but why?). One to watch with a furrowed brow.
• Tyson Edwards on the backline and Tarkyn Lockyer on the forward line? That was weird. Edwards’ move is far more likely to be permanent, which would probably remove him completely from fantasy calculations for DT/SC because he won’t be designated as a back and it’s not going to be healthy for his numbers. As for Lockyer, surely that was a crazy experiment that Mick won’t ever try again… please?
• Ivan Maric is probably not going to be worthy of a spot in your 22, and Kurt Tippett is probably not going to be worth stowing on your bench either. Neil Craig rotated several players through the ruck, not only Maric and Tippett but Scott Stevens and anybody else in a German-coloured shirt who looked tall enough. The Crows ruck division is going to be a shambles this year, no two ways about it, and there won’t be much fantasy value there.
• The replacement for James Clement’s “quarterback” position will not be Nick Maxwell, as some had surmised, but Heath Shaw. This will be an excellent move for him in DT, and an outstanding move in SC. Get on board.
• Nathan Bock is going to have some very good days at centre half back when he gets a good match-up, as he did with Travis Cloke in a BOG performance in Dubai, but he still won’t deliver significant fantasy value. On a day where he dominated his position and thrashed his opponent, he still managed only 79 DT points.
• Rhyce Shaw is worth keeping an eye on, but no more. He has burnt fantasy coaches before.
• Brad Symes is the real deal, but temper your expectations. A highly impressive 35 points in the third quarter underlined how good he can be. Nevertheless, he’s more of an accumulator than a gun. Expect him to improve from his 61 average in 2007 to around 80 at most, but don’t be disappointed if he doesn’t crack it for many tons.
• And finally, be wary of getting excited about this hyper-attacking gamestyle that Neil Craig sprang on Collingwood in this game. It’s not the way Adelaide has gone about it in recent years. The Crows might even get to the NAB Cup Grand Final playing that sort of game all the way through, only to drop it for their old Wall-based strategy in the regular season. Don’t be fooled into assuming that their games are going to become Carlton-under-Pagan-style goalfests where Crow plodders are going to transform into fantasy superstars. Then again…

So Carlton “hosted” Fremantle at SuperSports Park in South African this past Saturday, but it was only this evening that we got to see footage of the historic event. As the first televised game of the 2008 AFL season, I’m sure you’ve been gagging to get some idea of how some of the players you’ve had an eye on are traveling in preparation for another big fantasy campaign. Here are the things we learnt:

• Matthew Kreuzer looked very impressive. He was known for loving life under the packs as a junior, and it looks like he hasn’t lost that lust for the footy wearing a Blues jumper, putting his body on the line and his head over the ball on several occasions. We still don’t know what his TOG (time on ground) will be like during the year but he’s going to be a fantasy gun eventually, if not in 08.
• Des Headland is a downhill skier. Looked like a man playing with boys, especially early, but drifted out after the first quarter.
• Fans of Brad Fisher should be worried. Not only did Kreuzer bomb a huge 65m goal post-high from 50, but Cameron Cloke also sailed one through from 60m late in the game, and apparently both of those players are going to be rotating though centre half forward for Carlton this year. That means less TOG for Fisher, and it probably dampens the fantasy prospects of all three players.
• If Byron Schammer stays fit and is given time in the engine room, he will deliver 90+ DT scores.
• There are still question marks over Andrew Carrazzo’s 2008 DT production. With the retirement of Matthew Lappin and speculation that Ryan Houlihan will spend more time on the forward line, along with talk of Setanta O’hAilpin being left at half-back, it’s going to be left to Carrots to hoover up a lot of garbage on the ground in the Blues backline. This might sound like a good fantasy move, but it would mean that he gets less time to run into space and receive marks, which is vital to average 100+ like Carrazzo did in 2007. On his South African performance I’d lean towards Carrots a bit more for Super Coach, where making turnovers is more important than uncontested marks.
• Perennial under-achiever Ryan Murphy might get upstaged this year by new draftee Chris Mayne. Mayne did some nice things, with two goals including a nice long one plus some good-looking leading up the middle. Most importantly, he has the McManus-style blonde curly Shirley Temple hairdo.
• Shaun Grigg knows how to get the footy, but doesn’t know as much about how to get rid of it. Consider for DT, but not SC.
• Finally, Nick Stevens has a big arse. He’s got a few kilos still to drop, but he should be fine.