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Besides GAblett...

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hench said:
Top 10 players of the entire time Aussie Rules has been played in this country?

Hell, you could say Ablett won't even make it. Then you have posters mentioning Scarlett, Enright and Burgoyne.
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The heckin'g mind boggles doesn't it. This thread has some excellent posts and at the same time is littered with complete and utter rubbish that lists players as per above.
 
Vdubs said:
That's the whole point though.
Joel Corey , for example, was bigger than the top ruckmen of the 60's, Farmer and Nicholls, taller anyway.
There is no way to compare the best then, IN THEIR POSITIONS, to the best now. Physically not a match, fitness not a match, tactics, everything is really incomparable. Only stats.
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You are missing my point. The average height for Australian men born in:
- the 1920's was 172.8cm
- the 1970's was 178.4cm
Census data says that average heights (and weights) are still increasing over the last 20 years. Better food choices, good pediatric medicine and better food availability means kids get bigger.

If Corey was born in the '30s and played against Farmer he might have been something like 187cm and 75kg, without the massive tank players now have from endurance training since they were 14. If Farmer had been raised in the 90's & 00's instead of a wartime foster home with a brush with polio he could have been a 194cm/100kg gamebreaker not a million miles away from Adam Goodes. Goodes did alright as a ruckman not too long ago in 2003 and I could easily see Farmer being better than Goodes in a similar role.

All the evidence points to Farmer being one of the most instinctive, skilled players in the history of the game. To say Joel Corey is comparable to him because he got plenty of veggies, vitamins and a few vaccinations is blinkered.
 
deflated said:
You are missing my point. The average height for Australian men born in:
- the 1920's was 172.8cm
- the 1970's was 178.4cm
Census data says that average heights (and weights) are still increasing over the last 20 years. Better food choices, good pediatric medicine and better food availability means kids get bigger.

If Corey was born in the '30s and played against Farmer he might have been something like 187cm and 75kg, without the massive tank players now have from endurance training since they were 14. If Farmer had been raised in the 90's & 00's instead of a wartime foster home with a brush with polio he could have been a 194cm/100kg gamebreaker not a million miles away from Adam Goodes. Goodes did alright as a ruckman not too long ago in 2003 and I could easily see Farmer being better than Goodes in a similar role.

All the evidence points to Farmer being one of the most instinctive, skilled players in the history of the game. To say Joel Corey is comparable to him because he got plenty of veggies, vitamins and a few vaccinations is blinkered.
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Agreed, but Polly should only be fairly compared to his peers, and to a few over the next decade or so. There is no comparison between a 1963 ruckman and a 2016 ruckman. What hope would Polly have against 211?
The very fact that we are bigger, faster, more trained, more skilled than our predecessors is to be applauded and expected.
It is ludicrous saying what would Polly be like today ....
He was awesome in his day, and gave us innovative football, but he would not get near the ball today, as he was then, so comparisons are by definition, futile.
 
Stan The Caddy said:
Pavlich is criminally under rated. He's been a better player than Goodes....
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Sorry, just came here to call bull***t. Win AA in three different positions and Brownlow in two, including ruckman, and then we'll listen. Although I do agree he's criminally underrated. Deserves much more praise, but not THAT much :p
 

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stew42 said:
Sorry, just came here to call bull***t. Win AA in three different positions and Brownlow in two, including ruckman, and then we'll listen. Although I do agree he's criminally underrated. Deserves much more praise, but not THAT much :p
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Ummm....
 
stew42 said:
Sorry, just came here to call bull***t. Win AA in three different positions and Brownlow in two, including ruckman, and then we'll listen. Although I do agree he's criminally underrated. Deserves much more praise, but not THAT much :p
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Goodes is a quality player but would choose the Pav if I had the choice of the two.
 
Nat Fyfe and Haydn Bunton are the only players in VFL/ AFL history to have played more than 25 games and averaged more than one brownlow vote per game. My money is on Nat joining the greats.
 
RUNVS said:
Goodes was always a little more dominant in each of the positions he played in compared to Pav.
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Highly debatable, my take

Back - Pav
Midfield - Goodes
Forward - Pav
Ruck - Goodes

Not the best comparison as Goodes never played a full season as a back and Pav never a full year in the Ruck.
 
RUNVS said:
Goodes was always a little more dominant in each of the positions he played in compared to Pav.
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He didn't have to play as a true KPF, he did play that loose position extremely well but Pav seems to command the ball and take the critical marks where as Goodes reminded me a lot more of a Paul Roos type player, which is a compliment in itself.
 
Vdubs said:
Agreed, but Polly should only be fairly compared to his peers, and to a few over the next decade or so. There is no comparison between a 1963 ruckman and a 2016 ruckman. What hope would Polly have against 211?
The very fact that we are bigger, faster, more trained, more skilled than our predecessors is to be applauded and expected.
It is ludicrous saying what would Polly be like today ....
He was awesome in his day, and gave us innovative football, but he would not get near the ball today, as he was then, so comparisons are by definition, futile.
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Spot on and in Polly's case he was better than all of his peers. I only saw him live when he returned to Captain Coach West Perth in 1968 until he retired at the end of the 1971 season but what a player he was even at the end of his career. During that time he was still the best ruckman and probably only Barry Cable would have rivalled him for best player.

As good as Stephen Michael, Cox, Sandi, Simon Madden, Goldie etc are or have been none IMO have been better.
 
Beer n Skittles said:
Seems pretty logical to me but most people wouldn't agree with you. Which is how we end up with half a dozen forwards from the same era somehow all considered to be amongst the best of all time
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Not sure I am with you.

The era of Dunstall / Lockett / Ablett was surely something phenomenally rare?

When then had Carey who was head and shoulders above his peers.

We now have Franklin who I feel is the same.

Time will tell if Hogan / Boyd / Cameron can repeat the Dunstall etc trio, but I doubt it.

It's the same way we don't talk about GAblett, Selwood, Pendles, Danger the same way we talk about Hird, Voss, Bucks and Roo...

Every now and then you get a set of players in similar positions who are all worthy of being referred to as the best of their generation.
 

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stew42 said:
Sorry, just came here to call bull***t. Win AA in three different positions and Brownlow in two, including ruckman, and then we'll listen. Although I do agree he's criminally underrated. Deserves much more praise, but not THAT much :p
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No need to apologise mate. There is nothing wrong with a different opinion.

No doubt that Goodes was the better ruckman, no doubt at all. But in any other position on the ground I'd take Pav. Goodes was a special player but I just think that Pav was a little bit better and was unfortunately drafted into not only a weaker team but a lower profile team which will ultimately hurt his legacy.
 
Stan The Caddy said:
No need to apologise mate. There is nothing wrong with a different opinion.

No doubt that Goodes was the better ruckman, no doubt at all. But in any other position on the ground I'd take Pav. Goodes was a special player but I just think that Pav was a little bit better and was unfortunately drafted into not only a weaker team but a lower profile team which will ultimately hurt his legacy.
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How does Fremantle have a lower profile than Sydney? Also as good as Pavlich was he never won a brownlow, even though he spent a lot of time in the midfield in his career.
 
Egga said:
Nat Fyfe and Haydn Bunton are the only players in VFL/ AFL history to have played more than 25 games and averaged more than one brownlow vote per game. My money is on Nat joining the greats.
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Newsflash mate. It is easier to have a better average number of votes now per game than ever.
9 games a round compared 6 makes a big difference to how the best players can attract the votes in a game.
You are going to have more quality players to compete against to get Brownlow votes when the talent is more concentrated into fewer number of clubs. It is why players that are good poll often over 30 votes to win. If Ross Glendinning, Gary Dempsey, Keith Greig, Malcolm Blight, Phil Carman, Bruce Abernethy, David Dench, Wayne Schimmelbsuch, the Krakouer brothers and Kym Hodgeman playing in the same game and for the same team, good luck seeing anyone poll 30 votes, no matter how good they are.

Nathan Fyfe is an excellent player but do not make the mistake of using Brownlow votes per game compared to eras of talent condensed into fewer clubs as a guide to where he should be rated.
 
People really do struggle with the concept of top ten of ALL TIME.

Ablett is not even top 10, and I am a big fan. He may make it if he tears it apart for another few seasons and then gets GC to a grand final or something, but I doubt that he's got that in him anymore.
 
Collins-Langford-Ayres said:
Not sure I am with you.

The era of Dunstall / Lockett / Ablett was surely something phenomenally rare?

When then had Carey who was head and shoulders above his peers.

We now have Franklin who I feel is the same.

Time will tell if Hogan / Boyd / Cameron can repeat the Dunstall etc trio, but I doubt it.

It's the same way we don't talk about GAblett, Selwood, Pendles, Danger the same way we talk about Hird, Voss, Bucks and Roo...

Every now and then you get a set of players in similar positions who are all worthy of being referred to as the best of their generation.
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Ablett is spoken about with Voss and co. Pendles is not far off.
 
crazywildhorse said:
People really do struggle with the concept of top ten of ALL TIME.

Ablett is not even top 10, and I am a big fan. He may make it if he tears it apart for another few seasons and then gets GC to a grand final or something, but I doubt that he's got that in him anymore.
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You must have very high standards... arguments could be made for him winning every Brownlow between 2007-2014, but he won 5 AFL MVP's in that time, so it sort of balances out.

His record is PHENOMENAL... no-one in history even comes close to that level of dominance. If that isn't worthy of top-10 status, then I'll be buggered if I know what is.

You got Cyril in your top-3 have you?
 

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crazywildhorse said:
People really do struggle with the concept of top ten of ALL TIME.

Ablett is not even top 10, and I am a big fan. He may make it if he tears it apart for another few seasons and then gets GC to a grand final or something, but I doubt that he's got that in him anymore.
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If he tears it apart for a few more seasons, he will have been the best player for over a decade. So out of 120 years of football, and Ablett has been considered the best in the league for 10 years (i.e. 1/12th of the history) and we still don't have him top 10?

If he gets a few more top seasons it wouldn't be a stretch to say he'll end up with close to 350+ games and 500+ goals, 3 Brownlows, 6 MVP's, 10+ All-Australians, and 7-8 B&F's (including 2 in flag years). If he gets Gold Coast to a GF he could have 3 flags too...and yet he'd still only 'may make it'???
 
SterlingArcher said:
If he tears it apart for a few more seasons, he will have been the best player for over a decade. So out of 120 years of football, and Ablett has been considered the best in the league for 10 years (i.e. 1/12th of the history) and we still don't have him top 10?

If he gets a few more top seasons it wouldn't be a stretch to say he'll end up with close to 350+ games and 500+ goals, 3 Brownlows, 6 MVP's, 10+ All-Australians, and 7-8 B&F's (including 2 in flag years). If he gets Gold Coast to a GF he could have 3 flags too...and yet he'd still only 'may make it'???
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Exactly! He has claims for THE BEST of all time... saying he is just borderline top-10 is a blatant early attempt at stupidest comment of 2016
 
Vdubs said:
That's the whole point though.
Joel Corey , for example, was bigger than the top ruckmen of the 60's, Farmer and Nicholls, taller anyway.
There is no way to compare the best then, IN THEIR POSITIONS, to the best now. Physically not a match, fitness not a match, tactics, everything is really incomparable. Only stats.
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Even stats are incomparable. Look at the disposal averages of the top players circa 2005-2006 to now. Only 4 players averaged 25+ disposals in 2005. In 2014, it was 34, in 2015 it was 37. Goals kicked js different too obviously - I refuse to believe that some of the forwards we have now wouldn't kick 100+ if gamestyles had remained the same as the 90's.
This is why I cringe when you see "young player is better than Judd/Hodge/Black etc at the same age". Cripps v Judd is a good one. Cripps does have better overall stats, but they aren't comparable due to the gamestyles of the eras they played in. Watching games tells me Cripps is a young star but Judd was something else, just because Cripps averages 'x' more disposals does not change that.
 
footyfan78 said:
Newsflash mate. It is easier to have a better average number of votes now per game than ever.
9 games a round compared 6 makes a big difference to how the best players can attract the votes in a game.
You are going to have more quality players to compete against to get Brownlow votes when the talent is more concentrated into fewer number of clubs. It is why players that are good poll often over 30 votes to win. If Ross Glendinning, Gary Dempsey, Keith Greig, Malcolm Blight, Phil Carman, Bruce Abernethy, David Dench, Wayne Schimmelbsuch, the Krakouer brothers and Kym Hodgeman playing in the same game and for the same team, good luck seeing anyone poll 30 votes, no matter how good they are.

Nathan Fyfe is an excellent player but do not make the mistake of using Brownlow votes per game compared to eras of talent condensed into fewer clubs as a guide to where he should be rated.
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Not a newsflash at all to be honest. What you are saying is obvious. But 16, 17, 18 teams have been around a long time and GAJ is the only person to come close and he is an exceptionally bloody good player. Many in this thread say he is entitled to join the list. Fyfe's brownlow record is outstanding given players tend to accumulate fewer votes at the beginning of a career and that the physical capabilities required to play AFL football today are a lot greater than in previous generations.
 

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