SuperCoach 2019 winner Dwayne Delmenico reveals how he hung on with no trades left
The best SuperCoach in Australia this year made a list of rules at the start of the season — and didn’t stick to any of them. He reveals how he pulled off a remarkable triumph.
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A Melbourne property analyst and Collingwood fan has ridden his luck, a “ticking time bomb” of trades and an anxiety-inducing final round to be crowned the 2019 SuperCoach champion.
Dwayne Delmenico is $50,000 richer after claiming the title of Australia’s top fantasy footy coach.
His team Rexwells Crumbers entered the final round 82 points behind the No.1 ranked side, and Delmenico attended the Pies v Bombers clash on Friday night but hardly noticed Collingwood’s come-from-behind win.
“The actual score of the game barely registered, I was just watching (Adam) Treloar and (Zach) Merrett who one of the other guys had,” he says.
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Both had quiet matches, giving him a shot at the title, but after a rollercoaster weekend it all came down to Port Adelaide playing for pride against the Dockers in the final game of the home-and-away season. It was a dead rubber for most fans, but Delmenico was hanging on every kick and handball.
“Watching (Scott) Lycett dominate was pretty awesome, but when Justin Westhoff took it out of the ruck and gave it to (Travis) Boak for a goal I thought it ended me.
“It was pretty tough viewing. After that game finished I was sure I’d lost.
“When the result came out I was genuinely speechless.”
It turned out Delmenico got lucky when one of his rivals left Westhoff on the bench, but his bigger break came from Lycett — although that’s not what he was thinking when the Power big man was dropped in Round 20 after a string of big scores.
“The week I brought him in he went on a huge run, he was my poster boy. Then when (Ken) Hinkley dropped him I almost fell of my chair,” Delmenico says.
Unfortunately — or so it seemed at the time — he had no trades left so had to keep Lycett, playing Isaac Heeney instead and bringing the former Eagle back for his grand final cameo.
“It felt like a ticking time bomb that was going to blow up at any moment,” he said of using his last trade to replace injured Docker Luke Ryan with four rounds to go.
“I was on a tightrope and if anyone was out I would have had doughnuts everywhere. Miraculously I got through.”
Delmenico says having an extra forward on the bench who could score well was a key part of his SuperCoach strategy, but he couldn’t credit his win to long-term planning.
“I wrote down a list of rules in the notes on my phone at the start of the year and I didn’t stick to them at all.
“One was no injury-prone players but I had Tom Rockliff and Josh Kelly at different stages. I also had ‘no second-to-fourth-year players’ and something about a ‘fifth-year goldmine’. The last one is ‘stick to the rules’, which I clearly didn’t.”
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He says much of his windfall will go towards his wedding early next year, but “I’ll splurge a bit on something”.
His best advice for other players is to not lose hope.
“I was ranked about 20,000th last year and 40,00th overall after five rounds. I didn’t even win all my league grand finals.”
Originally published as SuperCoach 2019 winner Dwayne Delmenico reveals how he hung on with no trades left
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