sorry to nitpick, but buckley 2002
as for the topic, i remember the day after richmond winning the grand finals, scores of kids were out the next day having a kick with their dustin martin haircuts
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Which Was The Best Norm Smith Performance?
- Thread starter abchawk
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sorry to nitpick, but buckley 2002
as for the topic, i remember the day after richmond winning the grand finals, scores of kids were out the next day having a kick with their dustin martin haircuts
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Isaac Smith. Couldn't replicate it any better than that. Same name.
voorhees
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and both super talented...
Darren being the more talented
Chris Judd 2005 too
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Chris Judd vs Peter Matera who was West Coast's greatest ever player? Or Ben Cousins?
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Petracca 2021 not getting much love here. What brings that game down a peg compared to some others?
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You could make an argument Chris Judd could of got the 2006 Norm Smith medal too. 28 disposals and 1 goal.
Embley got the nod with his 26 disposals and 2 goals. Got an important Mark in the back 50 late in the game too
He’s a sooking pasta maker who buys stolen goods?
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Yes I wish I was old enough to compare live the 1980 ones from KB. But for what I saw in 1989 and seen since, it would be a miracle like performance to do a near equivalent, letalone equal or better Ablett v Melb/Ess/Haw in 3 consecutive games on 1989, letalone 3 finals.
My personal favorite highlight reel is the Preliminary Final v Essendon, and I think it also because of Commeti’s commentary.
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Sorry I meant of the best handful that I picked.
Yes Buckley and Judd also did it in losing GFs as another pointed out, and Hayes in a drawn one.
Brereton 1985 is potentially the only other mega standout performance in a losing team that had a chance of winning one.
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Marice Rioli won the Simpson medal for BOG in a grand final in 80 & 81. 1981 was a losing grand final. He then won the Simpson medal (State of Origin version) in WA's victory over Victoria. You could argue that he was a big game player.
2020 Dusty
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Hate to say it but just behind Dusty 2020 for me
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Where does Andrew McLeod 97 & 98 sit?
You don't have to extrapolate this way to compare on level terms with other full game performances. You could equally list Dusty's % of goals, goal assists, score involvements, disposals etc in the game to figure out the impact he had compared to other great Grand Final performances. But it would be a bit silly to say in isolation for eg a 5 goals of 25 goals performance in one Grand Final is better than a 4 of 19 goal performance in another that was played over only 80% of the game time of other Grand Finals.
The simplest and fairest way to adjust player's performances in 2020 to compare with performances in other seasons is to do so in exactly the way that was done in the post you responded to, ie multiply all player statistics by 1.25.
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My thoughts on Dusty's only three Grand Final performances are well known to many on these pages. Collectively, they are almost ludicrously improbable. His average Grand Final player rating is around 28.6. To put that into perspective:
His 2020 entry imo was one you couldn't argue anybody has ever topped with total confidence. To kick 4 goals with difficult kicks where he had to beat one or more opponents in contests just to get those shots in just 80% normal game time, was alone worthy of BOG honours, easily. But combined with a healthy midfielder's disposal output, it was just an amazing performance.
His 2017 entry has no love on this thread but was an extremely high calibre performance even against the high bar set on this thread. 29 disposals, 22 contested, 2.2 and 2 assists, 9 score involvements and 3 score launches. He won a lot of contests and that ended up on the scoreboard for the Tigers, it was a truly great display.
In 2019 he also turned in a great performance in what was a very easy victory, with 4 goals and two assists, where the opposition team only scored 3 goals in total.
Grand total: 43 of 45 Norm Smith Medal votes, 28 of 30 coaches votes, highest rated player comfortably in all 3 Grand Finals. He rated an average of around 6 points ahead of the second highest rated player in the 3 Grand Finals, and that is a huge margin. His dominance was as near to complete as you could just about ever get.
So collectively his Grand Finals are on another level compared to anybody else. But I do think there have been individual Grand Final performances at or around a similar level.
Those I find tougher to rate for various reasons:
- Bartlett 1980, he put on a clinic, but didn't meet much resistance. To be fair he did it 3 finals in succession where he kicked one in every four goals scored by Richmond and its opponents in that final series. That seemed insane for a half forward at the time and it still does now, but he almost never had an opponent anywhere near him as he was kicking all these goals(mostly because they were left in his dust.)
- Ablett 1989, as has been said had a magic run in his last 3 finals. But in the Grand Final his 9 goals were from 42 kicked by both teams in the match. His finals series record of 27 goals were from 145 goals scored in those games, so he scored 18.6% of the goals in those matches where Bartlett for eg in the 1980 finals series scored over 24% of the total goals scored. Ablett's great 1989 GF performance netted him 21% of the goals in that game, similar to Dusty's 21% of goals in the 2020 GF - playing more in the midfield.
- Jarman's 2 goal scoring sprees Grand Finals. He scored 1 in 5 of the goals scored in those Grand Finals. I find these performances difficult to rate against other Grand Finals. He was undoubtedly brilliant, but I thought he possibly benefitted from some soft free kicks and really poor defence at times.
- McLeod's 2 x Smith winning efforts. My memory of these is not great, other than I can recall him seeming unstoppable in at least one of them, and that performance in particular is probably right up there with the best we have seen.
An equally interesting question imo would be who has played the best defensive game in a Grand Final in the Norm Smith Medal era. We don't notice these guys as much, and tend to talk about the attacking players. Harris Andrews dominance of Shannon Neale in 2025 was basically total. Similarly Lake over Tippett in 2014. Hodge in 2008 obviously would be up with the best if not the actual best. I would be interested to look at some other performances people nominate for best defensive GF performances. Shanahan in 1997 is probably not one of them.
- one single player achieved a player rating above 28.6 in any of the 9 finals in the 2025 finals series - Dangerfield in the PF, and he was only just above Dusty's Grand Final average.
- there were only 23 individual performances rated above Dusty's Grand Final average in 216 matches is 2025. I am pretty sure no individual player rated above 28.6 more than once for the season.
- so in 2025 in all matches one in every 432 individual player matches was rated above Dusty's Grand Final AVERAGE.
His 2020 entry imo was one you couldn't argue anybody has ever topped with total confidence. To kick 4 goals with difficult kicks where he had to beat one or more opponents in contests just to get those shots in just 80% normal game time, was alone worthy of BOG honours, easily. But combined with a healthy midfielder's disposal output, it was just an amazing performance.
His 2017 entry has no love on this thread but was an extremely high calibre performance even against the high bar set on this thread. 29 disposals, 22 contested, 2.2 and 2 assists, 9 score involvements and 3 score launches. He won a lot of contests and that ended up on the scoreboard for the Tigers, it was a truly great display.
In 2019 he also turned in a great performance in what was a very easy victory, with 4 goals and two assists, where the opposition team only scored 3 goals in total.
Grand total: 43 of 45 Norm Smith Medal votes, 28 of 30 coaches votes, highest rated player comfortably in all 3 Grand Finals. He rated an average of around 6 points ahead of the second highest rated player in the 3 Grand Finals, and that is a huge margin. His dominance was as near to complete as you could just about ever get.
So collectively his Grand Finals are on another level compared to anybody else. But I do think there have been individual Grand Final performances at or around a similar level.
- Matera 1992
- Shuey 2018
- Petracca 2021
Those I find tougher to rate for various reasons:
- Bartlett 1980, he put on a clinic, but didn't meet much resistance. To be fair he did it 3 finals in succession where he kicked one in every four goals scored by Richmond and its opponents in that final series. That seemed insane for a half forward at the time and it still does now, but he almost never had an opponent anywhere near him as he was kicking all these goals(mostly because they were left in his dust.)
- Ablett 1989, as has been said had a magic run in his last 3 finals. But in the Grand Final his 9 goals were from 42 kicked by both teams in the match. His finals series record of 27 goals were from 145 goals scored in those games, so he scored 18.6% of the goals in those matches where Bartlett for eg in the 1980 finals series scored over 24% of the total goals scored. Ablett's great 1989 GF performance netted him 21% of the goals in that game, similar to Dusty's 21% of goals in the 2020 GF - playing more in the midfield.
- Jarman's 2 goal scoring sprees Grand Finals. He scored 1 in 5 of the goals scored in those Grand Finals. I find these performances difficult to rate against other Grand Finals. He was undoubtedly brilliant, but I thought he possibly benefitted from some soft free kicks and really poor defence at times.
- McLeod's 2 x Smith winning efforts. My memory of these is not great, other than I can recall him seeming unstoppable in at least one of them, and that performance in particular is probably right up there with the best we have seen.
An equally interesting question imo would be who has played the best defensive game in a Grand Final in the Norm Smith Medal era. We don't notice these guys as much, and tend to talk about the attacking players. Harris Andrews dominance of Shannon Neale in 2025 was basically total. Similarly Lake over Tippett in 2014. Hodge in 2008 obviously would be up with the best if not the actual best. I would be interested to look at some other performances people nominate for best defensive GF performances. Shanahan in 1997 is probably not one of them.
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I'd actually rank Bartlett's 1980 far higher than most. If not for one simple fact - he was 33 years old, which alone makes it pretty phenomenal. It's tough enough to play one great final deep into your 30s (as we saw this year), Bartlett played three indisputably great finals in a row. The first two were also against the teams that finished 1st and 2nd, so it's as far from beating up on weak opposition as you can get.
The other ones that get overlooked are Petracca in 2021, and Simon Black in 2003. Love to know how their games don't compare all of a sudden.
Otherwise, after much consideration, I'll reluctantly pick a player from my team as the best performance I've seen. Remarkable how that happens.
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Ablett's 1989 GF display has a clear case to being the best performance in a Grand Final in the Norm Smith era. It was an amazing performance against quality opposition(especially after Maginness was moved off him and Langford onto him at HT, ) and an extremely high calibre opponent team. It would have rated off the charts under the player ratings system, I have little doubt about that. There is no shame in rating this the best Grand Final performance ever, plenty do.
I didn't list Black's 2003 performance as I literally didn't see it, was out of the country, and have never watched the game in full. Petracca in 2021 was an amazing performance as well, again arguably as good as anything we have seen.
Bartlett's finals series in 1980 has never been approached in the modern era as far as goals kicked by a forward who wasn't the primary attacking target, or goals kicked as a function of total goals in those matches. Everything just seemed to line up perfectly for him and his eye was in, kicking 21.7 in the 3 matches. For comparison and to show how dominant Ablett was in winning shots at goal in the 1989 finals series, in his last 3 finals where he totally dominated, he kicked 24.13.
It just comes down to what factors of performance each person rates, and certain context issues when trying to split all of these best of the best Grand Final performances. But it isn't so tough to tell which ones are in the argument.
Yep the guy who totally dominated 64 minutes on the clock naturally wouldn't have touched the ball if the other 16 minutes were played to take the match to a normal length.
So we are going to rewrite history and pretend he should have finished with 7 goals shall we
Call it quits at 5 masterpiece contested snap goals.
Dustin Martin apologises profusely for 198 game Premiership player and 21 final veteran Jake Kolodjashnij being the Cat spud he pushed out of the way with one arm while dropping the ball from one hand and kicking a clutch Grand Final goal over his head from 25m while running away from his target. He realises how amateurish that made him look. How embarrassing for Dusty.
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A. Copium, for the cat masses.
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Cherki
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With the way he was bending your mob over? Unlikely
