Put your draft hat on

[Quicky]

Swan started his career on the half back flank, with the likes of Lonie, R Shaw and Lokan holding him out. It's nice to reinvent history though.

Macaffer would have been competing against Lockyer, Medhurst, Davis, Didak and Thomas in rotation for a position as a small forward, and eventually he was able to displace Lockyer/Medhurst. Whereas Swan worked his way into the midfield via his role on the half back flank.

Apples and oranges, but to suggest Macaffer had it any easier than Swan is laughable.

Swans first AFL games were on the half forward flank.

 

[Tarkyn_24]

Swans first AFL games were on the half forward flank.

Yeah, I realised that after I posted, but my enduring memory of him early would be at the latter stages of his first 30 games, around 2005, when he was playing predominantly half back flank.

Although it's way off the point, I always found it quite easy to slot Swan into Collingwood's team on my old AFL 2004 game on a half forward flank. Besides Davis (who missed R13 -> PF in 2003 anyway because of poor form) and Didak there weren't many other obvious walk-up small forward selections. Holland was capable but had already started the transformation to a tagger by 2003 and our other options were players like Andy Williams and Jarrod Molloy. Not slouches by any stretch of the imagination but not particularly fantastic competition for spots either.

 

[Scodog10]

Be that as it may, it doesn't particularly mean anything as Dane was recruited as a midfielder and for all the nockers at the time he was still earning 25-30 possessions per game in the VFL as a midfielder.

He was never a flanker at either end and the only reason he was ever placed there was the same as Danny Stanley. In that his form was to good to be ignored in the reserves, but there was no real place for him in the seniors in the midfield so he was shunted aside to peripheral positions.

Also of all the players you mentioned that Brent was competing for a spot with the only one that was true competition as a medium link up forward (for that was and is his role, he's not a small forward) was Medhurst. Low and behold when Medhurst went down with an ankle injury in 2010 who should come in and take his place for the rest of the season? Brent Macaffer of course.... Alas we're getting away from the topic of the thread so I won't take it any further from here.

 

[Tarkyn_24]

Also of all the players you mentioned that Brent was competing for a spot with the only one that was true competition as a medium link up forward (for that was and is his role, he's not a small forward) was Medhurst. Low and behold when Medhurst went down with an ankle injury in 2010 who should come in and take his place for the rest of the season? Brent Macaffer of course.... Alas we're getting away from the topic of the thread so I won't take it any further from here.

Be that as it may, that wasn't even a role in our forwardline before we recruited Medhurst. I'm sure Collingwood have no objections to playing a 3 tall 3 small split like they did in 2005 with T Cloke/Rocca/Tarrant, or the 2-4 split of '06 with Cloke/Rocca. The medium role generally replaced one of the smalls from our 2-4 system that functioned prior to Medhurst joining Collingwood. Also note it was Lockyer, and not Medhurst, who Macaffer initially replaced in the team (going off the top of my head here but pretty sure I'm right) for ANZAC Day 2010.