Worst afl player you've seen (and why)

H4LF8ACK

Cancelled
Mar 19, 2018
82
96
AFL Club
Geelong
My shortlist;

Shaun Mckernan... showed a combined total of 15 minutes of quality football in 50+ games at 2 clubs

Richard Tambling... enough said


Jared patrenko - again 1 quarter of good football

Jake “push up” King

Very average footballer who was better known for doing better off field Andrew on the training track.

What Team has had the most!

Richmond
 
Tough thread and the criteria is obscure. The notion of what constitutes worst when the bulk of us could not hold a candle to those we deride is baffling.

Rather than the one to 20 game players who any of us could pull out of a hat I applied a minimum of 100 games in one or more Clubs. I also thought about where they were ranked in the draft and immeasurables like the amount of hype/pay disproportionate with performance.

For me there are acknowledged battlers described as having very ordinary skills. I excluded them. In fact some like Mickey Gayfer and Mike Pyke were battlers with Pyke being described early on as the worst ever AFL player. Pyke of course became a crucial player in the 2012 GF, esp when Mummy when down with injury. Gayfer became a wonderful contributor.

I also thought about fails in big games such as finals.

I started to think about who was the equivalent of Mitch Marsh, statistically the worst number 6 in the history of Test cricket who was gifted 30+ tests.

I am happy to say I could not think of one AFL player who came within a bull's roar of Mitch.

Of current or recently retired players from my team, I have a couple of nominations. Gary Rohan played 100+ games and was a highly touted number 6 draft pick. He collected 20 possies just once in his career with the Bloods and disappeared in two GFs. Tippett and McGlynn are two others.
 

blackus

Senior List
Jul 2, 2007
203
339
Perth
AFL Club
West Coast
yeah Cale Morton is up there. Jack Anthony would be in the mix and Cam Mcarthy is heading in the right direction for this award.
 

Tbonefreo

Norm Smith Medallist
Feb 13, 2013
7,900
10,146
Wagga
AFL Club
Fremantle
Tough thread and the criteria is obscure. The notion of what constitutes worst when the bulk of us could not hold a candle to those we deride is baffling.

Rather than the one to 20 game players who any of us could pull out of a hat I applied a minimum of 100 games in one or more Clubs. I also thought about where they were ranked in the draft and immeasurables like the amount of hype/pay disproportionate with performance.

For me there are acknowledged battlers described as having very ordinary skills. I excluded them. In fact some like Mickey Gayfer and Mike Pyke were battlers with Pyke being described early on as the worst ever AFL player. Pyke of course became a crucial player in the 2012 GF, esp when Mummy when down with injury. Gayfer became a wonderful contributor.

I also thought about fails in big games such as finals.

I started to think about who was the equivalent of Mitch Marsh, statistically the worst number 6 in the history of Test cricket who was gifted 30+ tests.

I am happy to say I could not think of one AFL player who came within a bull's roar of Mitch.

Of current or recently retired players from my team, I have a couple of nominations. Gary Rohan played 100+ games and was a highly touted number 6 draft pick. He collected 20 possies just once in his career with the Bloods and disappeared in two GFs. Tippett and McGlynn are two others.
Just once?

Crikey
 

g_TRAIN

Near a spoon
Jun 15, 2006
3,165
8,111
Sydney
AFL Club
St Kilda
Billy Longer.

Occasionally wins the hit outs but has no other ability at all.. He's as slow as a turtle, has no agility, can't judge the flight of the ball, drops simple uncontested marks, can't kick, can't tackle and averages less than a kick per game.

Easily the worst in the AFL at the moment
 
Aug 11, 2006
33,042
27,534
Perth
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Timberwolves, Crystal Palace
Trent Croads stint at Freo was very very average. I dont know how Hawks fans rated him, but he wouldnt be on too many peoples favourite players list at Freo.
Ultra talented, Flashy flamboyant CHF at hawthorn, Crazy trade to get that Pick 1. There was an angry mob at hawthorn HQ when we traded him. We had just given an ultra talented McPharlin who wanted to go home, and we freaking Bundled our best young player in it as welkl to get Luke Hodge who was unproven

Came back and was a rock for us for a couple of years as well. Worked out ok in the end
 

MiPiG

Debutant
Dec 31, 2018
55
38
Somewhere near Cologne, Germany
AFL Club
Fremantle
Ultra talented, Flashy flamboyant CHF at hawthorn, Crazy trade to get that Pick 1. There was an angry mob at hawthorn HQ when we traded him. We had just given an ultra talented McPharlin who wanted to go home, and we freaking Bundled our best young player in it as welkl to get Luke Hodge who was unproven

Came back and was a rock for us for a couple of years as well. Worked out ok in the end

Yes thanks for McPharlin, he was terrific! Croad, not so much. I remember he was very quick, he just didnt seem to be able to do anything else very well. Well, not for Freo anyway.
 
Last edited:
Aug 11, 2006
33,042
27,534
Perth
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Timberwolves, Crystal Palace
Yes thanks for McPharlin, he was terrific! Croad, not so much. He remember he was very quick, he just didnt seem to be able to do anything else very well. Well, not for Freo anyway.
Mcpharlin was a stud. Hugely under-rated over east.
 
Feb 23, 2009
32,141
45,742
Melbourne
AFL Club
Richmond
Other Teams
New York Jets
My shortlist;

Shaun Mckernan... showed a combined total of 15 minutes of quality football in 50+ games at 2 clubs

Richard Tambling... enough said

Jared patrenko - again 1 quarter of good football
Actually, this is plain wrong, and just built by the media hype because of the Tambling over Franklin debacle.
Tambling had some brief periods of great footy, and some further extensions of solid footy. He was below average overall, but he was far from the worst. To give you the correct answer from the Tigers, Jarrod Oakley-Nicholls played 13 games between 06-09. He is undoubtably the worst player to have put on a Tiger jumper, especially considering he was taken inside the top 10 (I still have no idea how).
He was an uncoordianted, fumbly, skinny, cat of an outside player. He made Jordy McMahon look like Ben Cousins and Richard Tambling look like Andy McLeod compared to him.

Other nominations from Richmond include Adam Pattison. This guy somehow made it onto 3 AFL lists!!! And one of them was Hawthorn!?!?
66 games in total, I don't remember a single good one. He did take a nice contested chest mark though. One time.
 

Rusty Brookes

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 9, 2001
6,702
8,679
Preston
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Hawthorn, Manningham Cobras
Yes thanks for McPharlin, he was terrific! Croad, not so much. I remember he was very quick, he just didnt seem to be able to do anything else very well. Well, not for Freo anyway.

Problem was he was a natural backman and Freo played him forward. He was fine at CHB and was an All Australian in 2005. In fact, his second Hawthorn stint was pretty darn successful.
 
Aug 13, 2006
14,778
13,879
Melbourne
AFL Club
Melbourne
Isaac Weetra the worst I've seen at Melbourne. Absolutely no discernible talent.

From demonwiki

A shock selection for Round 1, 2008 he retained his place the next week but was underwhelming in the Demons second consecutive massive loss. Holds an average losing margin of 99.5 over his two games.
By mid-season he had returned to the Sandringham reserves and was delisted at the end of the season

Shannon Byrnes at Melbourne pretty awful for a senior player who had a decent career.
 
Mar 18, 2013
14,611
31,079
Melbourne
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
University
Isaac Weetra the worst I've seen at Melbourne. Absolutely no discernible talent.

From demonwiki



Shannon Byrnes at Melbourne pretty awful for a senior player who had a decent career.

There’s another question in play here - who are the league’s worst one-time, two-time, three-time etc. premiership players? I’d love to hear a nomination for a worse two-time premiership player than Shannon Byrnes.
 
There’s another question in play here - who are the league’s worst one-time, two-time, three-time etc. premiership players? I’d love to hear a nomination for a worse two-time premiership player than Shannon Byrnes.
Dean Wallis wasn't great
 
Aug 13, 2006
14,778
13,879
Melbourne
AFL Club
Melbourne
There’s another question in play here - who are the league’s worst one-time, two-time, three-time etc. premiership players? I’d love to hear a nomination for a worse two-time premiership player than Shannon Byrnes.
He'd be up there, but I think he played pretty well in the 2009 grand final and on the quality of that game alone he probably gets passed a number of guys who skated along in multiple flags.
 
Aug 13, 2018
13,727
19,295
South Melbourne
AFL Club
Sydney
Tough thread and the criteria is obscure. The notion of what constitutes worst when the bulk of us could not hold a candle to those we deride is baffling.

Rather than the one to 20 game players who any of us could pull out of a hat I applied a minimum of 100 games in one or more Clubs. I also thought about where they were ranked in the draft and immeasurables like the amount of hype/pay disproportionate with performance.

For me there are acknowledged battlers described as having very ordinary skills. I excluded them. In fact some like Mickey Gayfer and Mike Pyke were battlers with Pyke being described early on as the worst ever AFL player. Pyke of course became a crucial player in the 2012 GF, esp when Mummy when down with injury. Gayfer became a wonderful contributor.

I also thought about fails in big games such as finals.

I started to think about who was the equivalent of Mitch Marsh, statistically the worst number 6 in the history of Test cricket who was gifted 30+ tests.

I am happy to say I could not think of one AFL player who came within a bull's roar of Mitch.

Of current or recently retired players from my team, I have a couple of nominations. Gary Rohan played 100+ games and was a highly touted number 6 draft pick. He collected 20 possies just once in his career with the Bloods and disappeared in two GFs. Tippett and McGlynn are two others.
Fair call.
Thread would be more interesting and practical if it was 'worst player to make 100 games'.
Obviously a lot of strange units have made 1 or 2 games.
 
Tough thread and the criteria is obscure. The notion of what constitutes worst when the bulk of us could not hold a candle to those we deride is baffling.

Rather than the one to 20 game players who any of us could pull out of a hat I applied a minimum of 100 games in one or more Clubs. I also thought about where they were ranked in the draft and immeasurables like the amount of hype/pay disproportionate with performance.

For me there are acknowledged battlers described as having very ordinary skills. I excluded them. In fact some like Mickey Gayfer and Mike Pyke were battlers with Pyke being described early on as the worst ever AFL player. Pyke of course became a crucial player in the 2012 GF, esp when Mummy when down with injury. Gayfer became a wonderful contributor.

I also thought about fails in big games such as finals.

I started to think about who was the equivalent of Mitch Marsh, statistically the worst number 6 in the history of Test cricket who was gifted 30+ tests.

I am happy to say I could not think of one AFL player who came within a bull's roar of Mitch.

Of current or recently retired players from my team, I have a couple of nominations. Gary Rohan played 100+ games and was a highly touted number 6 draft pick. He collected 20 possies just once in his career with the Bloods and disappeared in two GFs. Tippett and McGlynn are two others.

Gary Rohan slips under the radar way too much. Seriously s**t.
 
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