Toast Name the 6 best half back flankers from your club that you have seen?

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From what ive seen:
1. Enright
-----daylight-----
2. Stewart
3. Hinkley
4. Mansfield
5. Milburn
6. Mackie

If i added another past the 6 it would have been Sando he only just missed out.
Duncan would have made this list if he played his whole career in the back half but he was mainly wing.
Didnt consider Scarlett or Taylor or Harley due to their classification as kpds.
 
ioppolo said:
In my years of following footy; Hurn, Wirrpanda, Sheppard, Schofield, Waters, Butler and Wellingham (2015)
I'm sure I'm missing some beauties from the 90s
Click to expand...
West Coast Eagles half back line from their 1992 and 1994 premiership team was one of the best.

HB... Guy McKenna... Glen Jakovich.... John Worsfold (c)


'Bluey' McKenna was one of the great half back flankers. He was a Hall of Fame defender who won 2 club champion awards 11 years apart and played his best footy in the years between. So beautifully balanced, so neatly skilled and so dependable for 12 years. He just slotted straight in as a teenager in his very first season and never looked back. Mick Malthouse didn't even have a "McKenna" magnet for his starting 18. McKenna's name was permanently engraved there.
 
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HairyO said:
Knights
Kennedy
Hodge
Birchall
Gibson
Sicily
Tuck/Mitchell (mids who played 100+ games off the half back)

Kind of 8... but who gets taken off the list ?
Click to expand...
Knights and Gibson played at centre half back. Bit of a stretch to include them as half back flankers.
Same with James Sicily. He looks like a half back flanker, but he plays at CHB.


Shaun Burgoyne.... champion (half back flank...back pocket... centre...ruck-rover)
Joel Smith............ gun half back.... (All Australian 2001, 2003)
Campbell Brown.... underrated footballer before injuries curtailed him. (All Australian 2008)
 
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Malifice said:
That I've personally seen?

1) Bruce Doull (so Carlton wins the thread)
2) Andrew McKay
3) Ang Christou
4) Kade Simpson
5) Sam Docherty
6) Matty Lappin
Click to expand...
Lappin was a forward pocket, wasn't he?

As Meteoric Rise said: Ken Hunter is a strange omission. He didn't play a lot of VFL games there. Ended up playing in the forward line for most of his Carlton career, but he probably deserves a Top 6 ranking based purely on his form in the back-to back 1981-82 premiership sides

I would have Mil Hanna in there as well. A bit of a versatile utility player... He was All Australian HB in 1992
Mil was a better footballer in my opinion than Ang Christou (who was more of a back pocket)
 
Going from 2000 onwards:

1. Michael Hibberd
2. Jordan Ridley
3. Adam Saad
4. Mason Redman
5. Bachar Houli
6. Conor McKenna

I don't really associate guys like Solomon or Mark Johnson as flankers. They're back pockets to me.
 
Hawks have had some rippers

1) Luke Hodge
2) Shaun Burgoyne
3) Grant Birchall
4) John Kennedy Jnr
5) Ian Bremner
6) Russell Greene

I'm going on being named in the position on a regular basis and left out guys like Michael Tuck who played the majority of their career in another position.
 
HTPunter said:
1. Glenn Archer
2. David King
3. John Blakey
4. Michael Firrito
5. Jess Sinclair

I refuse to name a 6th until I remember anyone else because none of Norths modern day HBF’ers deserve to be there (Atley, McDonald etc)
Leigh Colbert would be 4th I guess? But didn’t really count to me
Click to expand...

Byron Pickett ?

I used to love watching him play during his stint at North.
 
Back One Out said:
Knights and Gibson played at centre half back. Bit of a stretch to include them as half back flankers.
Same with James Sicily. He looks like a half back flanker, but he plays at CHB.


Shaun Burgoyne.... champion (half back flank...back pocket... centre...ruck-rover)
Joel Smith............ gun half back.... (All Australian 2001, 2003)
Campbell Brown.... underrated footballer before injuries curtailed him. (All Australian 2008)
Click to expand...

Knights played CHB, CHF, and also flanks forward and back. He is HBF in our team of the century so having him there is okay for me.

Gibbo played CHB but he was a far better HBF. His best work was when we got Lake and then Frawley because it cleared space for him to play more open.

Burgoyne could probably go with Tuck and Mitchell.

From the list I think Birchall is the most underrated. Phenomenal player.
 
BIGNEDKELLY said:
No-one has had a crack at the Pies yet...

Nick Daicos
Nathan Buckley
Gavin Brown
Heath Shaw
Scott Burns
James Clement
Click to expand...
Clement was more a 3rd tall who could play as a key defender
 
Upstart Swan said:
For the Swans: Rantall, Browning, Carroll, Malceski, Shaw, McVeigh.

I've probably forgotten somebody important
Click to expand...
Mark Bayes starred on the half back flank alongside the CHB, Denis Carroll. I watched him all those years: in cruise control, so laconic, such a beautiful long left foot kick - but I never realised how good he was until he became a mainstay in defence for the Big V. And the penny finally dropped... "Oh! He's a gun!" (That was the beauty of state of origin footy. It gave you a much greater appreciation of the solid, no-frills gun players from opposition clubs - all the really good players who didn't get as much attention as the big stars.)

Tadhg Kennelly

Jake Lloyd
 
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Back One Out said:
West Coast Eagles half back line from their 1992 and 1994 premiership team was one of the best.

HB... Guy McKenna... Glen Jakovich.... John Worsfold (c)


'Bluey' McKenna was one of the great half back flankers. He was a Hall of Fame defender who won 2 club champion awards 11 years apart and played his best footy in the years between. So beautifully balanced, so neatly skilled and so dependable for 12 years. He just slotted straight in as a teenager in his very first season and never looked back. Mick Malthouse didn't even have a "McKenna" magnet for his starting 18. McKenna's name was permanently engraved there.
Click to expand...

That was such an imposing HB line, its easy to forget how much bigger and stronger they were than a lot of players of the era and how imposing they were.
 
Meteoric Rise said:
If you saw Doull play then Ken Hunter is a shocking omission.
Click to expand...

Pure_Ownage said:
From what ive seen:
1. Enright
-----daylight-----
2. Stewart
3. Hinkley
4. Mansfield
5. Milburn
6. Mackie

If i added another past the 6 it would have been Sando he only just missed out.
Duncan would have made this list if he played his whole career in the back half but he was mainly wing.
Didnt consider Scarlett or Taylor or Harley due to their classification as kpds.
Click to expand...
would you classify Sanderson as more a flanker or a pocket or doesn't it really matter?
 
Spider Everitt
Daniel Chick
Zac Dawson
Shem Tatupu
Dayle Garlett
Tyrone Vickery

Proper half back flankers, the lot of them.
 
Meteoric Rise said:
Carlton - Ken Hunter, best half back in the comp for a while there.
Collingwood - Kevin Morris. easily the best Collingwood half back I have seen.
Essendon - Garry Foulds. Classic understated quality half back
Fitzroy - Kevin Murray. Legend.
Footscray - difficult to find. Ross Abbey played for Victoria. Brian Cordy was decent
Geelong - they've had a few. Not yet mentioned: Kevin Higgins, Bernard Toohey, Bruce Nankervis
Hawthorn - Ian Bremnar a decent half back in the 70's. Ray Jencke was a really good player. My favourite though was Bohdan Jaworskij, a North Adelaide legend.
Melbourne - Struggling here. Rod Grinter was very good and very tough. Peter Giles was underrated.
North Melbourne - Could not go past Gary "Crazy Horse" Cowton.
South Melbourne - John Rantall was a gun half back
St Kilda - Bit like the Dees and Dogs, not easy, but Robert Elphinstone was a very good
Click to expand...

St Kilda: Trevor Barker, David Grant
Sydney: Mark Bayes, Mark Browning
Melbourne: Brett Lovett, Stephen Icke [also North], Laurie Fowler
Footscray: Rohan Smith
Richmond: Laurie Fowler, Chris Newman, Brett Deledio (played some of his best footy there)
North Melb: Stephen Icke, John Law, Ross Smith
Hawthorn: David O'Halloran, David Polkinghorne, Rod Lester-Smith
Fitzroy: Grant Lawrie, Ross Thornton
Essendon: Glen Hawker, Ken Fletcher
Collingwood: Andrew Ireland, Ray Byrne, Phil Manassa
Carlton: David Rhys-Jones, Rod Austin
 
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Back One Out said:
St Kilda: Trevor Barker, David Grant
Sydney: Mark Bayes, Mark Browning
Melbourne: Brett Lovett, Stephen Icke [also North], Laurie Fowler
Footscray: Rohan Smith
Richmond: Laurie Fowler, Chris Newman, Brett Deledio (played some of his best footy there)
North Melb: Stephen Icke, John Law, Ross Smith
Hawthorn: David O'Halloran, David Polkinghorne, Rod Lester-Smith
Fitzroy: Grant Lawrie, Ross Thornton
Essendon: Glen Hawker, Ken Fletcher
Collingwood: Andrew Ireland, Ray Byrne,
Carlton: David Rhys-Jones, Rod Austin
Click to expand...


The main ones on your list I would identify as mainly half back flankers were: Grant, Bayes, Browning, Lovett, Rohan Smith, Newman, Law, Lester-Smith, Lawrie, and that is about it. Of the rest some were mainly back pockets, wingers or key position players.
 
Rusty Brookes said:
Hawks have had some rippers

1) Luke Hodge
2) Shaun Burgoyne
3) Grant Birchall
4) John Kennedy Jnr
5) Ian Bremner
6) Russell Greene

I'm going on being named in the position on a regular basis and left out guys like Michael Tuck who played the majority of their career in another position.
Click to expand...
Is Stratton a kpd or a flank?
 
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