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Opinion Is Bont still our most important player?

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I believe he is our best player. Most important is more nuanced. He may still be, but our midfield is humming so can arguably cover him more than say Lobb.
He certainly hasn’t been our best player this year (or close to it) when he’s played but I view it as a very good thing.

Bont might still have another couple of elite seasons left in him but we certainly need to move past him carrying us. It’ll extend out his career by taking the load off him similar to how Pendlebury has been used in a variety of roles.
 
Bailey Dale has been our most important player this year.

Libba next.
 

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If he stays fit he’s going to be a problem. The Brisbane game was the biggest eye opener for me. Harris Andrews is probably the best best defender suited for a Darcy matchup and he wasn’t able to get close to Darcy’s highest point

I have doubts a guy that tall and agile is meant to play this game and I fear a bad injury will happen one day. Just praying to the footy gods that he gets a good run at it

Andrews a good match up but probably the best match up plays for the dogs in Rory.
 
Sam Darcy is our most important player. Let's face it, he can be the difference of winning a flag or not this year. Bont can be hard tagged and stopped but Sam really cant be stopped.
It'll be intriguing to see how he goes if we actually get that far. I can't remember when a key forward last put a decisive stamp on a grand final. Bags of 3 goals are common for KPFs but not so much 4 or more goals. The only times they have kicked 5 or more in the last 20 years has been in huge margins (8 goals or more) where the key forward contribution has been very handy but was not the difference between winning and losing.

Maybe Alastair Lynch kicking 4 in Brisbane's 9 point GF win over Colliiingwood in 2002. But that was over 20 years ago ... a different era.

Grand Finals typically have a good spread of goalkickers and it's often the smaller/medium sized players who come up with the most goals, like Stengle, Martin, Fritsch, etc.

Maybe it's just the way football is played these days. Buddy Franklin with 102 in 2008 is the only player to have kicked 100 goals in a season this century. Before that it was Tony Lockkett in 1998. And yet in the 31 years from 1968-1998 there were 21 years where the leading goalkkiicker had 100 or more. Sometiimes there were two centurions in the one year.

That said, I'd love to see Darcy bust open this year's GF.
 
It'll be intriguing to see how he goes if we actually get that far. I can't remember when a key forward last put a decisive stamp on a grand final. Bags of 3 goals are common for KPFs but not so much 4 or more goals. The only times they have kicked 5 or more in the last 20 years has been in huge margins (8 goals or more) where the key forward contribution has been very handy but was not the difference between winning and losing.

Maybe Alastair Lynch kicking 4 in Brisbane's 9 point GF win over Colliiingwood in 2002. But that was over 20 years ago ... a different era.

Grand Finals typically have a good spread of goalkickers and it's often the smaller/medium sized players who come up with the most goals, like Stengle, Martin, Fritsch, etc.

Maybe it's just the way football is played these days. Buddy Franklin with 102 in 2008 is the only player to have kicked 100 goals in a season this century. Before that it was Tony Lockkett in 1998. And yet in the 31 years from 1968-1998 there were 21 years where the leading goalkkiicker had 100 or more. Sometiimes there were two centurions in the one year.

That said, I'd love to see Darcy bust open this year's GF.
Tom Boyd 2016 would have been very close to the Norm Smith. 3 goals 2 is not huge though like your querying
 
Tom Boyd 2016 would have been very close to the Norm Smith. 3 goals 2 is not huge though like your querying
He also did a fair bit of the ruck work that day. Yes he was definitely unlucky not to get the NSM. But they tend just to look down the list and see who got the most kicks.

"JJ. 25 kicks. He'll do."
 
He also did a fair bit of the ruck work that day. Yes he was definitely unlucky not to get the NSM. But they tend just to look down the list and see who got the most kicks.

"JJ. 25 kicks. He'll do."
JJ, Picken and Toyd were all potentially deserving that glorious day. Bont too when you look back at how damaging his touches were.
 
In full flight he’s still our best. Not many players in the league can genuinely win a game off their own boot and he’s one of them.

In terms of importance I actually think it’s Dale, he’s the one I’d target if I were an opposition coach
 
In a post-Liam Jones world, Rory Lobb is far and away our most important player (which is very different to our best player). Our midfield functioned well without Bont and no longer relies on him getting 25+ touches and a goal or two.
Without Lobb, I reckon our we would have one of the worst tall defender set-ups in the league.
 

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In a post-Liam Jones world, Rory Lobb is far and away our most important player (which is very different to our best player). Our midfield functioned well without Bont and no longer relies on him getting 25+ touches and a goal or two.
Without Lobb, I reckon our we would have one of the worst tall defender set-ups in the league.
We won a flag with Roberts and Hamling and made another GF with Keath and Gards/Cordy
 

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Opinion Is Bont still our most important player?

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