Our Most Important Player

[pavsbootlace]

So, this article on AFL.com got me thinking. http://www.afl.com.au/news/2014-01-29/who-is-your-clubs-most-important-player

AFL.com reckon our most important player is Nathan Fyfe, and not without good reason. I suspect that Fyfey will soon learn to control his sometimes wayward disposal and cement his position as one of the absolute elite. If so, he will likely give the brownlow a good shake and probably win his second Doig medal confirming his status as our new best player.

But is our best player automatically our most important player? To me, it's the bloke we can least afford to lose. The least replaceable. The bloke whose absence leaves a gaping hole in our gameplan. In my opinion, that bloke is Luke McPharlin. He is the lynchpin our our defence and therefore the most crucial component of the Freo machine.

So, my question to you mob is... Who can we least afford to lose at the pointy end of the season? Who is the bloke (or blokes) who is most crucial to our premiership hopes in 2014?

I reckon...

1. Luke McPharlin
2. Matthew Pavlich
3. Nathan Fyfe

 

[Okinakashi]

So, my question to you mob is... Who can we least afford to lose at the pointy end of the season? Who is the bloke (or blokes) who is most crucial to our premiership hopes in 2014?

Dave Mundy.

We covered games with Luke Mc, Pav, Sandi and Fyfe all out for periods of time.

I also think the Crowley is hugely important.

 

[pavsbootlace]

Dave Mundy.

We covered games with Luke Mc, Pav, Sandi and Fyfe all out for periods of time.

I also think the Crowley is hugely important.

Good point re: Mundy. My argument is that the collective awesomeness of Fyfe, Mundy, Crowley, Barlow, Hill etc makes them each individually a little more expendable. The flipside is that there is more than one of them to lose.

Crowley is an interesting one. It's hard to judge because I don't believe he's missed a single game since Ross took over. His loss could change the structure of our midfield quite significantly.

 

[Darcy 2 Fyfe]

Luke as well. I get a bad feeling when he's out. That to me why the win down at Geelong was the best in our history. No Luke that day.

 

[TweeBeard]

Dave Mundy.

We covered games with Luke Mc, Pav, Sandi and Fyfe all out for periods of time.

I also think the Crowley is hugely important.

Yeah great call on Crowley. de Boer could probably cover the tagging role if Crowley missed for some reason but I doubt he would be as effective.

I agree with the OP regarding McPharlan though. His main replacement would be have to be Smith considering Silvagni is having a limited pre-season.

 

[Wizard]

Luke as well. I get a bad feeling when he's out. That to me why the win down at Geelong was the best in our history. No Luke that day.

The Geelong final? He played.
The final at the G the year before he did not.

 

[mattis117]

<-- Without a doubt it is this guy

V

 

[dockerfemme]

It has got to be Mundy. He has shown again and again he is a big game player. At the pointy end that is what you need.

 

[masai]

Zac Dawson ............................. he is definitely the missing link.

Seriously, his role is very under-rated.

 

[theGav56]

Toss up between McPharlin and Mundy for me.

Crowley may indeed be the best at what he does but we have others who can limit an opponent if required in Mzungu and de Boer or we can elect to go more head to head.

 

[freoextra]

All the comments lead me to the comfortable view that Fremantle is now one of the most even playing groups (and plays a style that does not require individual brilliance to win). The way we now deal with injury is one of the main reasons that I know (not hope) we will be very competitve again this year.

If pushed for an answer, as above, the loss of McPharlin might impact us the most (with Silvagni struggling), but depth is developing there as well.

 

[Silent Alarm]

Barlow isn't as athletically gifted and Fyfe's still young and so can't stay involved and influence everyone else to his level, so Mundy. I've always thought he was sorely underrated by our own lot. So it's endearing to see him big upped in this thread.

Lukey depletes the backline though and I think, for Johnson to have a good one and Dawson to do his role, McPharlin has to be hold it all in place. So probably him, actually. One third of the ground becomes just not good enough without him.

 

[Bender571]

Mundy's poise and skill in the GF was invaluable

I agree with the OP regarding McPharlan though. His main replacement would be have to be Smith considering Silvagni is having a limited pre-season.

You have assume everyone else is fully fit otherwise you could cay Sandilands is the most important because Griffin and Clarke are injured.

 

[TweeBeard]

You have assume everyone else is fully fit otherwise you could cay Sandilands is the most important because Griffin and Clarke are injured.

But everyone isn't fully fit so pretending they are isn't very practical.

 

[Freo_4eva]

In a huge final against the very best opposition... i would still say a bloke called Aaron Sandilands can be the difference between a win and a loss. Closely followed by McPharlin

 

[caterina]

I agree if Sandi is in peak form he will change the course of a game more than any other individual player. I will also say both MJ and Duffield are very important with their cool head disposal out of the backline, turnovers in the back half are absolute killers especially for relatively low scoring teams like ours.

 

[Bicco]

Tough question. Barlow gets hands on the ball first more than anyone in our team, Crowley allows that to happen by stopping the oppositions best doing the same and a firing Sandi really can't be stopped by anyone in the comp. So it's those three for me.

 

[Wigarus]

Pavlich and McPharlin are still our most important players. The stats are there we only beat 1 top 8 team last year without them.

We bat pretty deep in the midfield now and as much as Fyfe, Barlow, Mundy etc are all great players, we have others that are 70-80% as good to fill the gaps. Who knows, maybe this year with Gumby, Taberner, Vandeleur, Pearce, Apeness we can hope for a decent replacement but that is all speculation and hope at this stage. I think of that lot only Gumby is a likely replacement and even then how would he handle the main target position? I honestly think that Bradley would still be ahead of most if not all of the others if he gets fit.

Everyone gets wildly optimistic this time of the year. Taberner can't have put on that much size in 5 months to be the next Pavlich. It just doesn't happen.

Silvagni, Clarke, Taberner all played forward to replace Pav last year and they all failed miserably. As much as Tabs might have shown some promising signs, 2 goals from 4 games is hardly worth writing home about.

 

[Scatter]

I reckon S Hill is up there. Every opposition puts there number 1 stopper on him, because without it he tears them up. This stops Fyfe/Mundy/Barlow being tagged, or they get the #2 tagger.
He managed to get better at shaking the tag in 2013, and I reckon 2014 he will be AA.

 

[scon]

I reckon S Hill is up there. Every opposition puts there number 1 stopper on him, because without it he tears them up. This stops Fyfe/Mundy/Barlow being tagged, or they get the #2 tagger.
He managed to get better at shaking the tag in 2013, and I reckon 2014 he will be AA.

Never a truer word!!You are a superb judge Scatter.

 

[Freofalcon]

Hasn't been mentioned yet, and maybe not most important, but I'm going with Son Son. When he came back into the side in 2012, it was like the last piece of the puzzle falling into place.

 

[Fred Ziffel]

I reckon S Hill is up there. Every opposition puts there number 1 stopper on him, because without it he tears them up. This stops Fyfe/Mundy/Barlow being tagged, or they get the #2 tagger.
He managed to get better at shaking the tag in 2013, and I reckon 2014 he will be AA.

And that is why my vote goes to Danyle Pearce because it is his presence on the ground that has directly increased the potency of Stephen Hill.
I said when we signed Danyle that opposition teams will not be able to tag them both, and so it is.

 

[mightydockers]

And that is why my vote goes to Danyle Pearce because it is his presence on the ground that has directly increased the potency of Stephen Hill.
I said when we signed Danyle that opposition teams will not be able to tag them both, and so it is.

Big call. Hill still got the number 1 tag pretty much every game he played. If it wasn't Hill, it was Mundy or Fyfe. Only game I remember Pearce attracting the number 1 tag was against Port Adelaide, where I think Port let their emotions get the better of them.

For me, when Sandilands is on the field he is our most important. If Sandi dominates, we win.

 

[PintofPale]

Look at who replaces Pavlich, McPharlin, Fyfe, Mundy, or different ways we can structure up. We've got a plan B everywhere.

There's simply nothing else like Crowley on our list, or anywhere in the AFL. Head and shoulders above the others, and if he gets hurt we would feel the pain.

What a story.

 

[Patty_Moz]

I think for once in our history the fact is that we can cover just about everybody if they go but certain players can certainly add to our overall performance this is great.

On a personal note I think tagging is way over rated and most top teams don't even use a hard tagged these days. So for me our most important would be Mundy or Fyfe followed by the old lads Sandi, Pav, Macca.