Oppo Camp General AFL and other clubs discussion thread. **Opposition fans not welcome** Part 5

[Adelaide Hawk]

I don't think anyone underrated him at the time. Over time I feel that some of the luster and reverence was lost when he went home, at the time loyalty was probably a bigger thing than what it is now, if he finished his time with us he would have been an all time great of the club. We were blessed to be witness week in week out of some of the stuff he could do.
Went on to win Adelaide a GF off his own boot.

Correction ..... won TWO GFs for Adelaide off his own boot
Fud came to Hawthorn for all the right reasons, and he returned home, also for the right reasons. I was disappointed he left the Hawks but harbour no ill feeling towards him. IMHO, he was the best footballer in the AFL when he changed clubs. I'm just pleased we had him for the 5 seasons we did.

 

[Shot of Jaeger]

Always been my favourite footballer D.Jarman. Best kick I've witnessed and I don't think there's been a more skilful or more talented player, some have been his equal but none better.
Even loved watching him tear up those Grand Finals for Adelaide and i hate the S.A clubs.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

Why do the Hawks keep announcing contact extensions but keep the length a secret?

Sent from my CPH1979 using Tapatalk

Im guessing it will keep some of the trade/free agency talks out of the media

 

[Judd2Sewell]

I see a freak. I see a man thinking faster than everyone else. Not so sure he is moving faster though

What I'd give to have a player this skillful.

 

[A Cut Above]

I have followed the game since the mid-60s and would have to say I've never seen a more all-round skilled player than Jarman. As a matter of fact, I haven't seen anyone who came close. He was a product of an era when ball skills were the mark of a player. The way the game was played gave rise to the brilliant skills of Jarman. The adage was "If you can't kick, you can't play football". Such a pity we don't subscribe to that theory today.

Darren Jarman's also one of my absolute favorites, not so much for what he could do but the absolute ease with which he did it. Very Mark Waugh-esque in that he always seemed to be nonchalantly coasting along at 3/4 pace which made everything he did feel like such a pisstake.

One view I dispute is that there's few-if-any modern-day players who can approach his skill level. Admittedly his kicking on both sides of the body was as good as I've ever seen, but I wouldn't say his skills were light years ahead of someone like Hodge for instance.
The difference is Jarman played in an era when players actually had time & space to utilize their skills to the fullest and didn't need to be athletic freaks to break clear of stoppages. Of course Jarman was skilled enough to be successful in any era despite his modest athleticism and there's modern-day equivalents in the likes of Sam Mitchell, Pendlebury and Robbie Gray who are all quick minded & slow footed.

The reason "If you can't kick, you can't play football" doesn't hold up today is because modern sports science doesn't allow players to kick any better but does make them immensely faster, stronger & more enduring. In the 80s guys with great athleticism & poor skills couldn't get a game because the science & training of the period couldn't develop that athleticism enough to be worth having a guy who couldn't kick in the team.

Fast forward and now you have Nat Fyfe who can't kick either but is taller than the greatest 80s CHF, Dermott Brereton. Fyfe would rack up 50 touches & 5-10 goals a week if you teleported him back to 1989, I shudder at the likes of 74kg Darren Pritchard trying to match up on him and even a guy like Dipper who was the big-bodied-mid equivalent wouldn't have had the speed, athleticism, endurance, or raw power to go with him. I suspect players like Fyfe & Cripps would even monster the likes of Koutoufides, such is how far sports science has come in the past twenty years.

So maybe the best place to watch silky skills on the football field is now the amateur leagues because ask anyone who the #1 AFL player is and they'll probably name one of Fyfe, Danger, Martin, T.Mitchell or Cripps... who are all contested beasts with only Martin having elite kicking. That doesn't mean today's game won't give rise to the next Jarman -Whitfield goes alright for instance- but they're more likely to be playing on the HBF and won't have as many chances to impact the game or demonstrate their flair. Maybe that's one reason why we traded Ryan Burton.

 

[Beandip]

Darren Jarman's also one of my absolute favorites, not so much for what he could do but the absolute ease with which he did it. Very Mark Waugh-esque in that he always seemed to be nonchalantly coasting along at 3/4 pace which made everything he did feel like such a pisstake.

One view I dispute is that there's few-if-any modern-day players who can approach his skill level. Admittedly his kicking on both sides of the body was as good as I've ever seen, but I wouldn't say his skills were light years ahead of someone like Hodge for instance.
The difference is Jarman played in an era when players actually had time & space to utilize their skills to the fullest and didn't need to be athletic freaks to break clear of stoppages. Of course Jarman was skilled enough to be successful in any era despite his modest athleticism and there's modern-day equivalents in the likes of Sam Mitchell, Pendlebury and Robbie Gray who are all quick minded & slow footed.

The reason "If you can't kick, you can't play football" doesn't hold up today is because modern sports science doesn't allow players to kick any better but does make them immensely faster, stronger & more enduring. In the 80s guys with great athleticism & poor skills couldn't get a game because the science & training of the period couldn't develop that athleticism enough to be worth having a guy who couldn't kick in the team.

Fast forward and now you have Nat Fyfe who can't kick either but is taller than the greatest 80s CHF, Dermott Brereton. Fyfe would rack up 50 touches & 5-10 goals a week if you teleported him back to 1989, I shudder at the likes of 74kg Darren Pritchard trying to match up on him and even a guy like Dipper who was the big-bodied-mid equivalent wouldn't have had the speed, athleticism, endurance, or raw power to go with him. I suspect players like Fyfe & Cripps would even monster the likes of Koutoufides, such is how far sports science has come in the past twenty years.

So maybe the best place to watch silky skills on the football field is now the amateur leagues because ask anyone who the #1 AFL player is and they'll probably name one of Fyfe, Danger, Martin, T.Mitchell or Cripps... who are all contested beasts with only Martin having elite kicking. That doesn't mean today's game won't give rise to the next Jarman -Whitfield goes alright for instance- but they're more likely to be playing on the HBF and won't have as many chances to impact the game or demonstrate their flair. Maybe that's one reason why we traded Ryan Burton.

Interesting commentary, but I'm still yet to see a player run faster than a kick

 

[A Cut Above]

Interesting commentary, but I'm still yet to see a player run faster than a kick

For sure, Hawthorn's always been a club that's prioritized kicking skills and we have plenty of flags to show for it.

Unfortunately kicking accurately under pressure is extremely difficult and pressure is at an all-time high in the AFL right now. Which is why clubs will have trouble unseating Richmond with a kicking focused gameplan. GWS have one of the few lists with enough talent to do it but I can't see them beating Richmond on the MCG in September. Of course things can change pretty quickly in football.

 

[Bugs1977]

Darren Jarman's also one of my absolute favorites, not so much for what he could do but the absolute ease with which he did it. Very Mark Waugh-esque in that he always seemed to be nonchalantly coasting along at 3/4 pace which made everything he did feel like such a pisstake.

One view I dispute is that there's few-if-any modern-day players who can approach his skill level. Admittedly his kicking on both sides of the body was as good as I've ever seen, but I wouldn't say his skills were light years ahead of someone like Hodge for instance.
The difference is Jarman played in an era when players actually had time & space to utilize their skills to the fullest and didn't need to be athletic freaks to break clear of stoppages. Of course Jarman was skilled enough to be successful in any era despite his modest athleticism and there's modern-day equivalents in the likes of Sam Mitchell, Pendlebury and Robbie Gray who are all quick minded & slow footed.

The reason "If you can't kick, you can't play football" doesn't hold up today is because modern sports science doesn't allow players to kick any better but does make them immensely faster, stronger & more enduring. In the 80s guys with great athleticism & poor skills couldn't get a game because the science & training of the period couldn't develop that athleticism enough to be worth having a guy who couldn't kick in the team.

Fast forward and now you have Nat Fyfe who can't kick either but is taller than the greatest 80s CHF, Dermott Brereton. Fyfe would rack up 50 touches & 5-10 goals a week if you teleported him back to 1989, I shudder at the likes of 74kg Darren Pritchard trying to match up on him and even a guy like Dipper who was the big-bodied-mid equivalent wouldn't have had the speed, athleticism, endurance, or raw power to go with him. I suspect players like Fyfe & Cripps would even monster the likes of Koutoufides, such is how far sports science has come in the past twenty years.

So maybe the best place to watch silky skills on the football field is now the amateur leagues because ask anyone who the #1 AFL player is and they'll probably name one of Fyfe, Danger, Martin, T.Mitchell or Cripps... who are all contested beasts with only Martin having elite kicking. That doesn't mean today's game won't give rise to the next Jarman -Whitfield goes alright for instance- but they're more likely to be playing on the HBF and won't have as many chances to impact the game or demonstrate their flair. Maybe that's one reason why we traded Ryan Burton.

One thing I’ve always disliked is comparing eras in any sport. The games from the 80s to now is so different on and off the field so why even bother.

 

[Bugs1977]

For sure, Hawthorn's always been a club that's prioritized kicking skills and we have plenty of flags to show for it.

Unfortunately kicking accurately under pressure is extremely difficult and pressure is at an all-time high in the AFL right now. Which is why clubs will have trouble unseating Richmond with a kicking focused gameplan. GWS have one of the few lists with enough talent to do it but I can't see them beating Richmond on the MCG in September. Of course things can change pretty quickly in football.

Especially if Gil decides to change the rules again like he’d did with the 6-6-6 rule.

 

[grumbleguts]

Darren Jarman's also one of my absolute favorites, not so much for what he could do but the absolute ease with which he did it. Very Mark Waugh-esque in that he always seemed to be nonchalantly coasting along at 3/4 pace which made everything he did feel like such a pisstake.

One view I dispute is that there's few-if-any modern-day players who can approach his skill level. Admittedly his kicking on both sides of the body was as good as I've ever seen, but I wouldn't say his skills were light years ahead of someone like Hodge for instance.
The difference is Jarman played in an era when players actually had time & space to utilize their skills to the fullest and didn't need to be athletic freaks to break clear of stoppages. Of course Jarman was skilled enough to be successful in any era despite his modest athleticism and there's modern-day equivalents in the likes of Sam Mitchell, Pendlebury and Robbie Gray who are all quick minded & slow footed.

The reason "If you can't kick, you can't play football" doesn't hold up today is because modern sports science doesn't allow players to kick any better but does make them immensely faster, stronger & more enduring. In the 80s guys with great athleticism & poor skills couldn't get a game because the science & training of the period couldn't develop that athleticism enough to be worth having a guy who couldn't kick in the team.

Fast forward and now you have Nat Fyfe who can't kick either but is taller than the greatest 80s CHF, Dermott Brereton. Fyfe would rack up 50 touches & 5-10 goals a week if you teleported him back to 1989, I shudder at the likes of 74kg Darren Pritchard trying to match up on him and even a guy like Dipper who was the big-bodied-mid equivalent wouldn't have had the speed, athleticism, endurance, or raw power to go with him. I suspect players like Fyfe & Cripps would even monster the likes of Koutoufides, such is how far sports science has come in the past twenty years.

So maybe the best place to watch silky skills on the football field is now the amateur leagues because ask anyone who the #1 AFL player is and they'll probably name one of Fyfe, Danger, Martin, T.Mitchell or Cripps... who are all contested beasts with only Martin having elite kicking. That doesn't mean today's game won't give rise to the next Jarman -Whitfield goes alright for instance- but they're more likely to be playing on the HBF and won't have as many chances to impact the game or demonstrate their flair. Maybe that's one reason why we traded Ryan Burton.

If Fyfe played in the 80s he'd be sitting on the bench begging not to be made to go back out there.

 

[Pessimistic]

Dusty would the the closest current player to jarman surely

 

[TylerDurden]

Dusty would the the closest current player to jarman surely

No where near as skilled as Jars. Dusty uses brute force and power. Never thought he was the cleanest kick going around.

 

[cryptor]

If Fyfe played in the 80s he'd be sitting on the bench begging not to be made to go back out there.

Unlikely. Fyfe at 192cm/96kg would've been bigger than a lot of KPP of the 80's. And with his fitness he'd be running rings around just about everyone. Sure, some rough nuts would try and intimidate him by lining him up, but Fyfe isn't soft. He's already done some snipe worthy stuff in modern day football so no doubt he'd actually feel quite at home playing in the 80's where he'd be able to throw his weight around even more.

 

[Pessimistic]

Unlikely. Fyfe at 192cm/96kg would've been bigger than a lot of KPP of the 80's. And with his fitness he'd be running rings around just about everyone. Sure, some rough nuts would try and intimidate him by lining him up, but Fyfe isn't soft. He's already done some snipe worthy stuff in modern day football so no doubt he'd actually feel quite at home playing in the 80's where he'd be able to throw his weight around even more.

All this talk about how to fix footy congestion seems to ignore the fact that extreme violence in previous decades cut it out. You no more want to sit on the ball than on a live and armed hand grenade

 

[A Cut Above]

Unlikely. Fyfe at 192cm/96kg would've been bigger than a lot of KPP of the 80's. And with his fitness he'd be running rings around just about everyone. Sure, some rough nuts would try and intimidate him by lining him up, but Fyfe isn't soft. He's already done some snipe worthy stuff in modern day football so no doubt he'd actually feel quite at home playing in the 80's where he'd be able to throw his weight around even more.

Exactly. Fyfe is a beast and already a thug by modern-day footballer standards, he's reported two or three times a year. He is bigger, stronger, and faster than John Worsfold and frankly you'd have to be pretty naive to think he wouldn't use that physicality to take out his opponents in an era when that was allowed.

All this talk about how to fix footy congestion seems to ignore the fact that extreme violence in previous decades cut it out. You no more want to sit on the ball than on a live and armed hand grenade

Modern era congestion wasn't possible in the 80s because players lacked the fitness to sustain it. The only time you'd see it was in the first 15 minutes of big finals & GFs, after that the players were gassed and couldn't keep up closing down space fast enough. Now they have the fitness to sustain it the whole game.

Dusty would the the closest current player to jarman surely

The chap in your avatar reminds me of Jarman a tad, he has that same ability to make the impossible look easy and glides across the turf.

 

[Beandip]

Unlikely. Fyfe at 192cm/96kg would've been bigger than a lot of KPP of the 80's. And with his fitness he'd be running rings around just about everyone. Sure, some rough nuts would try and intimidate him by lining him up, but Fyfe isn't soft. He's already done some snipe worthy stuff in modern day football so no doubt he'd actually feel quite at home playing in the 80's where he'd be able to throw his weight around even more.

It raises the question that if Fyfe (or others similar like Cripps) had played in those days, all his junior football, and eventual AFL football, probably would have been trained as a KPP so he may never have been asked to develop the fitness, and would have just been a brute key-forward, without the finishing skills of a Plugger/Dunstall. This is one of the factors that makes the cross-generational comparisons so difficult.

 

[cryptor]

It raises the question that if Fyfe (or others similar like Cripps) had played in those days, all his junior football, and eventual AFL football, probably would have been trained as a KPP so he may never have been asked to develop the fitness, and would have just been a brute key-forward, without the finishing skills of a Plugger/Dunstall. This is one of the factors that makes the cross-generational comparisons so difficult.

You're right. These comparisons are difficult to make.

I reckon if Fyfe grew up back in that era and was the size he is today (likely without the fitness based on training in those days) then he'd have been a very dominant KPF.

If instead modern day Fyfe was transported back in time to line up in a team in the mid 1980's (without any questions about where this bloke came from) then we'd be opening the footy history books and seeing his name appear under the title of Greatest Player of All-Time for regularly collecting 30+ disposals and kicking 5 goals a game.

And that's not meant to be a Fyfe love-in post. There's a whole bunch of modern players who would also dominate back then and it's purely based on how the size of player, fitness capabilities and quality of skill has improved. In 30 years time the same comparisons are likely going to stand up in comparison to today's players.

 

[Mississippi]

I see a freak. I see a man thinking faster than everyone else. Not so sure he is moving faster though

Jeez that was good QuierB. He looked pretty quick to me when he needed to be.
But what was really noticeable from that extended highlights package was the number of pinpoint passes onto Dunstall‘s leading chest.
Dunstall had the best supply line in AFL history with the likes of Jarman, Pritchard, Platten, Morrissey and a host of others.

Would love to see another 11 minute highlight package of the other no. 11.
Buckenara!!

 

[A Cut Above]

It raises the question that if Fyfe (or others similar like Cripps) had played in those days, all his junior football, and eventual AFL football, probably would have been trained as a KPP so he may never have been asked to develop the fitness, and would have just been a brute key-forward, without the finishing skills of a Plugger/Dunstall. This is one of the factors that makes the cross-generational comparisons so difficult.

No doubt about it. Jeansy would've loved having Dermie following the football all game but it simply wasn't possible for a player of that size & weight to build the tank needed be an onballer with 1980s sports science. So for sure Fyfe & Cripps would've been KPPs had they played back then and you're right that cross-generational comparisons are problematic and ultimately can't be taken too seriously.

 

[Dewnior]

Dusty would the the closest current player to jarman surely

GAJ in his prime (minus the selfish and self-entitled aspects to his game) would be the closest to Jarman skill wise

 

[Brant]

No doubt about it. Jeansy would've loved having Dermie following the football all game but it simply wasn't possible for a player of that size & weight to build the tank needed be an onballer with 1980s sports science. So for sure Fyfe & Cripps would've been KPPs had they played back then and you're right that cross-generational comparisons are problematic and ultimately can't be taken too seriously.

I reckon the science existed - it was the culture & professionalism, the game plan, the lack of focus on recovery & maybe the need for secondary (or primary) employment that affected a player's capacity to play like they do now. Also, the game kinda required more bulk/muscle to protect against the brutality of the game of that era. With less physicality in today's game but a greater focus on endurance, the bodies have changed.



*could call it science, I guess - I know what you mean.

 

[Bugs1977]

Jeez that was good QuierB. He looked pretty quick to me when he needed to be.
But what was really noticeable from that extended highlights package was the number of pinpoint passes onto Dunstall‘s leading chest.
Dunstall had the best supply line in AFL history with the likes of Jarman, Pritchard, Platten, Morrissey and a host of others.

Would love to see another 11 minute highlight package of the other no. 11.
Buckenara!!

The only Bucky highlight you ever need to watch is this one. I was about 10 years old and remember running up and down my street in Blackburn overcome with joy screaming we did it. We were 25 or so points down in the 4th but came home with a wet sail.

 

[Dewnior]

The only Bucky highlight you ever need to watch is this one. I was about 10 years old and remember running up and down my street in Blackburn overcome with joy screaming we did it. We were 25 or so points down in the 4th but came home with a wet sail.

Shame we couldn't back it up the following week

 

[TylerDurden]

Shame we couldn't back it up the following week

Had spent the tickets. Didn't cope with the hot weather that day either. Was there as an 10 year old with some Dons fans. They obviously loved it

 

[Dewnior]

Had spent the tickets. Didn't cope with the hot weather that day either. Was there as an 10 year old with some Dons fans. They obviously loved it

Yes, the Prelim was our GF (like the Giants this year but at least we turned up to play).

You were lucky. I went to the game with a mate who was a Blues supporter