TRYING to sleep after playing football is notoriously difficult among those competing at the highest level, or so I've found anyway. It is not uncommon to toss and turn until three, four or sometimes even five in the morning.

It is unusual, too, because our bodies ache for sleep, our eyelids hang low and on any other night you would fall into a slumber without a second thought. But despite all these physical indicators of fatigue, the mind races with all sorts of lunacy.

Countless hypotheticals bounce around your head and the internal questions fly. Questions such as: "Why did you kick the ball to the man on the other team, Robert?"

As the clock ticks into the wee hours it becomes difficult to tell what's real and what's a dream.

How hard we find it to sleep usually reflects how the game went, of course.

For example, in round one this year against Adelaide we won by three points. Brad Johnson acted as Clark Kent would that day and dragged us over the line.

That night I fell asleep as soon as I took my slippers off.

Fast forward to round 19 and after an ordinary showing against the Kangaroos I'm lying awake at 3am, counting sheep and seeing strange things in the shadows of my bedroom.

Lying there in the middle of the night, it felt like the rest of the world was asleep and I was the only poor morsel awake. I started to think of the Olympic Games and all of its different events.

I couldn't even tell you if I was asleep at this point, but my mind was bending with fatigue and fits of imagination. With what appeared to be a combination of the loss to the Kangas and the Beijing Games, I started to dream about what Olympic events my teammates might be most suited to.

There were some obvious ones and others that could only make sense at 4am. Daniel Cross would be a walk-up start for the marathon. Once dubbed "the white Kenyan" after a pre-season distance run, I think Crossy would have the tank to challenge the more genuine Africans.

Brad Johnson I had penned in for the weightlifting. Not overly big, Johnno can lift some serious weight in the gym. If you put him in a lycra jumpsuit and changed his name, he could be a real asset to the Turkish lifting team.

Young gun Adam Cooney has similar ability to another famous young gymnastics star, Nadia Comaneci. With one leg longer than the other, I suspect Adam would be a natural at the uneven bars, the perfect 10 beckoning.

Big Will Minson floated through my subconscious for a second, but the sport he'd be most suited to is chess and at last look it wasn't on the Olympic roster yet.

With dawn approaching, my slumber squeezed one more teammate into the Bulldogs' Olympic team. Of course, I had to find a spot for Jason Akermanis and his event struck me like the starter's gun in the 100 metres final. With Jason's steady hand and nerve, he would make a magnificent trap shooter.

The sun finally broke through the blinds to reveal a pair of discarded tracksuit pants on the floor and not the black labrador I could have sworn it was a few hours earlier.

As a kid, I dreamt about footy. Like most kids I slept with my footy under my arm, dreaming of one day playing in the big league. But these days my dreams, while still footy related, have gone a bit warped. No longer am I kicking goals or running through the banner with cheers from the crowd — far from it. Nowadays my dreams consist of playing the game and not being able to run.

Jarvis' mum tells me that frequently I will sit bolt upright in bed and start pointing and giving directions in a panicked plea to (I'm guessing) teammates who are having the same trouble running as I am.

This post-game sleeping pattern, of paranoia and wild dreams of playing the game under the influence of a sedative, can leave you disoriented when you do actually wake up, as the alarm goes off to remind you that a near freezing ocean is expecting you.

This week, I awoke to the reality that my teammates wouldn't be competing in Beijing and so, with the sting of defeat from the Kangaroos weighing me down, I made my way to pick up that day's paper. On the front page was a smiling Stephanie Rice.

Having broken the world record and nursing a gold medal, she must have slept peacefully that night, knowing all the sacrifices had brought her what she wanted.

The challenge facing my Dogs and all the teams still in the race this season is whether we would do the same.