Sublime skills, a true leader of men, the ability to find something special when the rest of the team is down,

perfect teeth, really nice hair

... A team’s captain should be one of its best players, but

also someone who brings out the best in the players

around him — if not the best individual player on the

field, then certainly the most valuable.

That’s all fine and dandy (just like our ideal captain) in

the real world, but some of that holds true in AFL dream

team as well. The player we select as skipper is quite

literally twice as valuable as any other player, because he earns double points.

With our dream team captain, we don’t have to be quite as concerned about his leadership ability, or his selflessness (perfect teeth doesn’t hurt, of course). We

are simply concerned about his ability to rack up points

consistently.

Earlier in the season, the choices were clear: your captain was either Gary Ablett or Dane Swan. However, a

trough in Ablett’s form has some dream team coaches

looking at other alternatives particularly if, due to his

high price or a perfectly understandable anti-Collingwood bias, Swan is no longer an option.

A reasonable place to start is to look at each player’s

average score. It stands to reason if a player’s average

points haul is about 100 then, as skipper, his average

will be a more than acceptable 200. Thank you Captain

Obvious.

On a week by week basis, however, particularly heading

towards the finals, a player who consistently racks up over 100 points is probably a safer bet than one who dominates with 140 points one week but slips back to 60 the following round.

The temptation then, might have been to opt for a glamour forward like Jack Riewoldt (or the ‘‘other’’ Riewoldt, you know, Jack’s cousin ... what’s his name)

but, unless it’s desperation time, I’d look elsewhere.

Which brings us back to the reason so many dream team coaches went for Ablett in the first place, and why he is not so great now.