Joel Selwood: Really that great?

[Goggin Our Best]

He ducks a lot though

Paul Puopolo and Joel Selwood are cousins you know - true story - there related

Apparently their Great Great Great Great Grandmothers name was Mrs Duck

 

[Bardo State]

I think it's hard to argue the best player currently isn't Gaz.

After that you have Pendles, Mitchell, Selwood, Watson, ordered depending on who has had the better past month. Overall I think Watson lags behind the other three, but I sould be hard pressed to separate Selwood, Pendlebury and Mitchell.

Selwood is a gun. He's a brilliant player that is awesome to watch (apart from the more than occasional playing for a free). Would love him at Hawthorn.

 

[Partridge]

It's got to the stage where he could be jumping up and stretching for a mark and get clotheslined by Sandilands and there'd still be two pages worth of outrage on the gameday thread about Selwood getting another high contact free kick. Most likely suggesting that he 'jumped into it'.

It's already happened - Round 1, 2011. He got knocked out sliding in to a contest - and his head and upper body were VERTICAL (that means straight up), and the got clobbered quite legally by Farren Ray (I think). Even with blood oozing from his mouth you could hear the cries of "duckwood" going around the ground, cries mingled with joy I guess.

 

[Partridge]

I'd have him ahead of Johnson in most skills these days.

Same here. Better and longer kick, and stronger mark. Remarkably he kicks more goals these days too.

 

[pacman]

I'd have him ahead of Johnson in most skills these days.

Skills like leadership strength & courage yes but kicking miraculous goals and freaky stuff not for mine.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

Still cuts deep knowing that we picked that spud Mitch Thorpe before Selwood. Had we got that pick right, you can easily add another premiership to the hawks and take one away from he cats. Selwood is a champion - no brainier.

No, you can't.

Would Geelong have picked Thorp, one of the picks after Selwood in the first round (Reid, Armitage, N.Brown, Everitt, Frawley, J.Riewoldt, Sellar, D.O'Keefe, M.Brown, Hampson, Leroy Jetta), or someone else? Impossible to know.

And would Hawthorn's more immediate success with Selwood in the side in 2007 have completely changed the players that came into the club from the 2007 draft onwards (which only means that Schoenmakers, Shiels, Savage/McEvoy, Breust, Suckling, Stratton, Duryea, Smith, Puopolo and Wanganeen might never have made it to the club)? And that's even if we assume that players like Gibson, Burgoyne, Gunston, Hale, Hill (pick was via a trade) and Lake would still have been acquired for a nominally 'lower' price than the other teams accepted.

 

[Bomberblitzer]

imo the only reason people might have Watson below guys like Selwood, Pendlebury, Mitchell is because he hasn't played in a team that has had finals and Premiership success. Individually, Watson has achieved just as much (if not more) than those guys - Brownlow, multiple AAs and B&Fs, AFLPA Captain award et cetera. I firmly believe that if Watson had won 3 Premierships with Geelong, he'd be the unrivaled second best player in the comp.

 

[Boxhead_31]

Had it with Watson in last year's Dreamtime match too.

Pendlebury there was his round one effort v Hawthorn in 2012 (I think it was?), Ablett every week. Even had it with Dangerfield.

Agree though, haven't had it with Selwood or Cotchin yet.

Miss the Sydney game last year I take it?

 

[Essendonia]

Excels at the basics and also quite a smart footballer. But not one of the blokes who live in the special football dimension and who can do abnormal things on the field like Ablett(s), Hird, Stevie J at times.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

Skills like leadership strength & courage yes but kicking miraculous goals and freaky stuff not for mine.

It's quite neat that both registered 46 scoring shots in 2013. Johnson went 23.23 and Selwood went 30.16. In most instances, I'd go for Selwood in front of goals. Johnson is just as likely to produce an absolute shocker as a miracle these days.

 

[SJ]

Skills like leadership strength & courage yes but kicking miraculous goals and freaky stuff not for mine.

I'm talking about skills like hitting the target (teammate and goal).

 

[Lunchlady Doris]

I this current Hawthorn team it would be like cheating.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2

Only in my opinion mind, but if the current Hawthorn team could be said to have a weakness - inside mids might be it, at least once Mitchell and Burgoyne are gone. Selwood in your team would be fairly horrific.

 

[pacman]

I'm talking about skills like hitting the target (teammate and goal).

It's just an outsiders view.
IMO Ablett & Johnson have the best skills with ball in hand in the comp.

 

[Judd2Sewell]

No, you can't.

Would Geelong have picked Thorp, one of the picks after Selwood in the first round (Reid, Armitage, N.Brown, Everitt, Frawley, J.Riewoldt, Sellar, D.O'Keefe, M.Brown, Hampson, Leroy Jetta), or someone else? Impossible to know.

And would Hawthorn's more immediate success with Selwood in the side in 2007 have completely changed the players that came into the club from the 2007 draft onwards (which only means that Schoenmakers, Shiels, Savage/McEvoy, Breust, Suckling, Stratton, Duryea, Smith, Puopolo and Wanganeen might never have made it to the club)? And that's even if we assume that players like Gibson, Burgoyne, Gunston, Hale, Hill (pick was via a trade) and Lake would still have been acquired for a nominally 'lower' price than the other teams accepted.

Good points.

 

[Judd2Sewell]

Only in my opinion mind, but if the current Hawthorn team could be said to have a weakness - inside mids might be it, at least once Mitchell and Burgoyne are gone. Selwood in your team would be fairly horrific.

Not to mention having the two best leaders in the AFL in the same side. Sigh.

 

[Zeke]

I haven't read any replies to this thread, but yes, he's that great.

 

[Scotland]

No, you can't.

Not only that, given Hawthorn let Josh Kennedy go at the end of 2009, what's to say they would've sucessfully made room for Mitchell, Lewis and Selwood?

 

[donbooger]

It's just an outsiders view.
IMO Ablett & Johnson have the best skills with ball in hand in the comp.

Johnson is definitely highly skilled, a trait only second to his ambition. For every replay of a brilliant kick, a kick where only Steve Johnson in the whole league would attempt and succeed there is another kick often forgotten that will fall into the hands of the opposition with not even a Geelong player in the wide frame camera.

He is a magnificent ball magnet with excellent play reading, and on good days only Ablett is comparable. Ablett though does not have entire games that stink to high heaven like Johnson because only Johnson would follow ten awful kicks by attempting 10 more pin point, no look, cross body kicks into the corridor.

 

[romeoh]

Ablett is still superior to everyone else but the gap isn't as great as it was two years ago.
Stevie J is fantastic to watch, a brilliant footballer and carries the unreliability as a freak too-so its hit and miss with him and I love all his sides and the unpredictable nature of his football.
But Selwood, apart from everything else he brings, gets it right nearly every time he touches the ball, and that is unusual and to be valued.

 

[1990crow]

Selwood a great player? Sure. But he shits me no end with his free kicks around the neck, constant sooks to the umpires when things don't go his way and his kicking/scragging of players when they're already of the ground - not something a "tough" player should be doing.

 

[PatrickBateman]

I'd have him on similar pegging to Watson. Both very good solid players but not freaks like Ablett and Pendlebury.

Sorry, can't have Watson in the same bracket. Unlikely to have a flag under his belt too. Won a Brownlow in a team with no legitimate challenge to him. Meh..

Ablett

Selwood - Pendlebury (hard to split)

Gap

... the rest.

 

[forwardflanker]

imo the only reason people might have Watson below guys like Selwood, Pendlebury, Mitchell is because he hasn't played in a team that has had finals and Premiership success. Individually, Watson has achieved just as much (if not more) than those guys - Brownlow, multiple AAs and B&Fs, AFLPA Captain award et cetera. I firmly believe that if Watson had won 3 Premierships with Geelong, he'd be the unrivaled second best player in the comp.

lol... Pendlebury has a norm smith, 4 All Australians (Watson only has 2), 2 Anzac medals, 2 copeland trophy's and has done this in team where there is actually some competition for awards - i.e. it's a lot harder to win stuff when your competing against Swan than it is versus Stanton. Also did a mention that he is four years younger than Jobe? The claim that Watson has achieved as much as players like Pendlebury and Mitchell is absurd. If anything the fact he's been playing in a garbage team for most of his career should make it easier.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

Selwood a great player? Sure. But he shits me no end with his free kicks around the neck, constant sooks to the umpires when things don't go his way and his kicking/scragging of players when they're already of the ground - not something a "tough" player should be doing.

Amazing, really, that such a soft player has been voted most courageous by his peers the past two years (and three times overall in his career).

 

[TheRoo32]

Stevie J is the more mercurial and IMO is the best footballer in the league (Even better than Gazza Jr.)

 

[TerryWallet]

15 pages of good reading.

Thread seems full of knowledgable football fans with utmost respect for a rare footballer/leader combination in Joel Selwood. Especially , it seems, Hawthorn fans who have had the pleasure of seeing some of the most competitive clashes in recent times and respect the way Selwood thrives on the big moment better than all.

Also seems a few disparate Essendon fans who crave Jobe to be recognised as the 2nd best player in the comp.

Well, he's not.