If We Can’t Get It Together

Chaos rules the roost today and there is not a whole lot I can do about it. Carnage is in the nest and it could stay until spring. Until then, it looks like a swirling tide has beset itself upon me and I can do nothing but ride it out…for good or ill, of course. It won’t all be bad-just hurried and unexpected and disorganized.

Andrea still hasn’t returned and an adequate replacement…well, there aren’t too many young college girls who can handle the weirdness and at any rate, most universities seemed to have marked my card and the interns aren’t as abundant as they once were. This is the price you pay in a booming labor market.

My bags from the Tokyo Experience remain unpacked. The phones won’t stop ringing. My correspondence is a mess, piled up all around me like a goddamn memorial to my organisational ineptitude. Houndish letters from editors, local utilities companies and people I owe money too surround me, sucking out all energy and giving me the urge to flee. I missed the release date of the new You Am I album.

Catherine, my patient gin-loving girl, set the alarm for six-thirty flat this morning, bestowing upon me an unknown period of bad luck and misfortune that can only be overcome with time and the benevolence of those dishing out this karmic hardship. When the damned clock squawked at me like a wild goose and I rolled over to see it convulsing spot on the half-hour, I knew I was doomed. I filled with anger and panic in the ensuing moments, thoughts of violence and vengeance dominating. But I soon accepted my fate and lay there coldly with The Fear. The next few weeks won’t be pleasant, for me or anyone in close vicinity, but these are what those in the business of karma call “The Breaks”. So much for all that.

When I sucked up the courage and strode to the frosted deck for a Dunhill and the morning news, I was greeted with the fine yet expected news that the man who put the temporary kibosh on my political career has been removed as party leader. The bells chimed for Brendan Smith today, much like they chimed for Parramatta coach Brian Smith yesterday. They were loud and definitive and stemmed, purely, from an inability to galvanise their respective units into winning outfits. Both are probably decent men but decent men don’t always make the nut. Ah, the turning wheel. You can’t escape your due in politics. They are wise words and well worth remembering.

And my fantasy rugby league side is on the verge of disaster. I have been brooding over it all weekend, in drunk times and sober.

My Geurie Greens are leading the competition and have been, without doubt, the top side. Captained by the incomparable Tony Grimaldi and starring treacherous front rower Steven Price (5th in the Clayton Friend Medal for best and fairest player), goal kicking sensation Hazem El Masri and speedster Brett Stewart, the Greens have been most difficult to beat this year. On a diet of hardworking forwards and speedy outside backs, the Greens have essentially dominated. We comprehensively decimated arch-rivals, the Orange Men of Otford, winning for Dublin and Rome and Catholicism the world over. The local derby over the Dunedoo Dunarts was well won by the Greens. And the team has a few front runners for rep jerseys at the end of the season.

But, as I said, disaster looms, coming quickly off the horizon like a gang of tomahawk waving Indians. Geurie has been rattled by injury and ravaged by a lack of player diversification (I have 4 players from each of the Warriors and the Roosters and this is causing me grave concern). A looming administrative battle over how many players will be kept in next years sides will scuttle me for the better part of a week. Very fair trades, like my generous offer to trade the Tuncurry T-Rexs Sione Faumuina for Travis Burns or the Pooncarie Prophets same for Reni Maitua, being rejected for no apparent reason other than stubbornness and suspicion. The Greens will fight and they will fight from the front. But trouble lies ahead and the word on the street is the Banshee is out.

Fantasy sports can kill you. Or at the very least, strain your friendship with most of your mates and your none-to-understanding woman. Fantasy leagues certainly haven’t become a national pastime here as they seem to have in the U.S. But they will and when they do, well, who knows to what catastrophic tragedy of statistics and violence Australia will be plunged into.

But while fantasy sports has a touch of sociological negativity, from a gambling point of view, as a concept, it is a treasure box from heaven.

With a fantasy team in a particular sport, you are driven to win. What at first starts as an interest in a particular sport soon becomes a life-consuming obsession. Winning is everything and nothing but Total Glory will make the nut. As a result, you scan articles and statistics and injury lists in order to field the best possible side, a side that will carry you to said Total Glory. At times, the fortunes of your real club become irrelevant in comparison to your fantasy side. Not for me. I bleed blue and white. But for other less loyal folk, well…

Hours are spent looking at tackle counts. Lunch times are spent scanning team lists and finding available players. Work days are permeated by trade talk and discussions of the pros and cons of particular players. Drunken hours are spent arguing over a player’s ability to play a certain position. Late night time studying fullbacks and their return yards.

With fantasy sports, you develop such an obsession with a sport due to your tangible involvement that you spend an extraordinary amount of time researching and analysing that you can’t help but improve your knowledge of the game. As a result, you are better prepared to price up games and win money.

Simply, due to the fun and competitive nature, you study a whole heap more than if you just looked to do it for pure gambling purposes and the result is your knowledge of the game has increased and as a result, you should be in a better position to win on the punt.

There is no doubt that it has helped my rugby league punting this year. And it certainly ensures I don’t get lazy when NFL season rolls around…

If poor discipline, a low bank roll, fear of losing or stupidity are your problems on the punt, fantasy sports probably won’t help you. But if your problem is not properly understanding a sport or not properly researching a sport, get yourself a fantasy team. It will give you focus and the competitive urge inside you will drive you to make sure you do your homework. And that should lead to better investment results and more calls from your bookmaker asking where he should send the cheque too.

And that, rut dwellers and gin lovers, is that.