St Kilda's fab five

[aussierulesrules]

Sam Fisher well and truly belongs in this company, IMO. His extremely low profile does him no favours in this regard, but if he wouldn't be in our all-time best 22 I would be amazed.

Just for starters he won 2 of our 4 B&F's in the years we made the finals under Ross Lyon, while none of Goddard, Dal or Joey won a B&F at our club in their 30 or so combined years here. In the 7 seasons between 2006 and 2012 the only ones to win our B&F were Roo, Lenny and Fisher, which says a lot.

Sams finals record in particular is exceptional, averaging 25 possies per final, a fair effort when you consider he would have played plenty of those finals at CHB. His performances against Collingwood in finals in particular have been phenomenal. He'd possibly be my first picked to play in a backline for a final out of everyone I've seen play in the last 20 years.

Was clearly our 3rd best in the drawn GF in 2010, behind Goddard and Hayes, IMO, then had 16 possies the following week in the replay, but did his hammy before half time (I don't think he played any of the 2nd half- if he did he did it with a bung hammy). Was relatively quiet in the 2009 GF against Geelong, but that was his only other final where he got under 19 possies, an amazing effort for someone who played many of those games in a key position.

Here is his finals record over the years, starting all the way back in 2005, his first full season at senior level:

2005
QF v Adelaide- 18 kicks, 8 marks, 22 disposals

2006
EF v Melb- 19 disposals, 6 marks

2008
QF v Geelong- 31 disposals, 8 marks
SF v Collingwood- 20 kicks, 17 marks, 27 disposals
PF v Hawthorn- 17 kicks, 11 marks, 22 disposals

2009
QF v Collingwood- 25 kicks, 16 marks, 42 disposals
PF v Western Bulldogs- 22 kicks, 7 marks, 30 disposals
GF v Geelong- 15 disposals, 4 marks, 4 tackles

2010
QF v Geelong- 26 disposals, 7 marks
PF v Western Bulldogs- 17 kicks, 8 marks, 23 disposals
GF v Collingwood- 22 kicks, 8 marks (5 contested!), 25 disposals
GF2 v Collingwood- 16 disposals, 7 marks (possibly in just a half of footy- did hammy before half time)

2011
EF v Sydney- 21 disposals, 7 marks

In his 12 completed finals he averages 25 possessions and 9 marks per game, with a shitload of those marks being intercepting ones. (Enright, for instance, was averaging 19 possies and 4 marks per final, Gibson 14.5 disposals and 5 marks, when I worked out their stats prior to the 2013 season).

There would be very few in the comp, if anyone, in any position, who has a better record in finals than him for their position. In fact, he averages 6 more possessions and almost two more marks per game in finals than he averages for his career in general.

He just got the job done at an extremely high level week after week, year after year and of course at his best was getting regularly tagged, despite playing across HB, because he was just about impassable back there if left to his own devices and then gave us so much drive. Gave us a reminder of just how good he is in the last game of our season this year, when, at 33yo, he had 28 possies in just 66% game time.

So underrated it's not funny.

 

[aussierulesrules]

How the saints did not win a flag with their group I do not know

Our list for the 2004 and 2005 seasons was comfortably better and particularly deeper, IMO.

2004:
Riewoldt was at his pre-knee absolute best in 2004, winning the AFLPA award, taking the most marks ever in a season and kicking 67 goals
Gehrig kicking 100 goals for the season at FF
Luke Ball easily at his peak, pre all the OP- Came 2nd in our B&F in 2004, at 20yo, then won it the next year, at 21yo, both prelim years. Was equal to Selwood at the same age, IMO.
Lenny Hayes playing ripping footy
Robert Harvey and Aussie Jones still playing top notch footy, with both finishing top 7 in our B&F that year
Milne kicking 46 from the pocket

Everyone talks about how good GWS's forward line could be a few years time, but ours looked like this in 2004!:
HF: Hamill Riewoldt Guerra
F: Koschitzke Gehrig Milne

Top 7 in our B&F that year read like this:
1. Nick Riewoldt- 163
2. Luke Ball- 140
3. Lenny Hayes- 135
4. Nick Dal Santo- 133
5. Austinn Jones- 130
6. Fraser Gehrig- 125
7. Robert Harvey- 119

Unfortunately, it was the first year we'd played finals since 1998 and the following year we got crunched big-time by injuries (yet still led the 2005 prelim at 3/4 time, before being overrun in the last quarter, after sustaining yet more injuries in that game).

 

[timtamWB]

Voted for Riewoldt, but it's easy to forget how good Goddard was back in 2010 when he averaged 131 in supercoach (more than Ablett and Swan).

1. Riewoldt
2. Goddard
3. Hayes
4. Dal Santo
5. Montagna

Nobody's forgetting that, it's just Riewoldt is so far ahead of the rest, then Hayes has been far more consistent for a lot longer at a high level.

 

[Ant_]

Incidentally, if Montagna and Dal Santo are in the mix then Milne should be as well. The guy kicked 574 goals over a 12 year career as a small forward.

Agree I'd have Milne above Dal Santo and Montagna

 

[Tragic sainter]

Riewoldt>Hayes>fisher the rest don't come close

 

[saintkildaman]

Riewoldt

Hayes

Milne
Goddard

Fisher
Dal Santo
Ball
Montagna

 

[aussierulesrules]

After Roo and Hayes, I find it very hard to split Fisher and Goddard, but then again, BJ only had the two really outstanding seasons with us (mostly because he had a knee reco in 2007, just when he was starting to really hit his straps and then struggled with a hip injury for all of 2011), while Fisher also had at least a couple of outstanding seasons and like Goddard (and Lenny and Roo- except in GF's) was huge for us in finals, but also played to a higher level more consistently than BJ did in his other years, so I'd probably have to give Fisher the nod at 3, as much as I loved BJ and didn't begrudge him leaving at all.

Dal and Milne also very close to that mix, with Dal having come top 3 in two Brownlows, from memory, so he'd probably be at 5, with maybe Milne at 6, but his relatively poor finals record costs him.

Joey has been ultra-consistent with a heap of high B&F finishes in a row, but didn't reach the heights of those others mentioned as much and Bally was outstanding at 20 and 21yo, prior to his OP and so-on, but then really struggled to reach those heights again until he got to Collingwood and got his body in half-decent shape again, so he'd be rounding out that bunch.

Had he had an injury free run throughout his career, I expect Ball would have won multiple B&F's with us by now and would probably be either at 2 or 3 in these rankings and would likely still have 2 or 3 more good years in him. His injuries alone (making him almost a "cripple" in footy terms and robbing him of his once elite pace and top-notch kicking- at the 2001 draft camp Ball recorded an elite (top 3) 2.85sec 20m sprint and came 8th in the beep test and 3rd in the 3km time trial!) probably cost us at least one premiership (the really bad and numerous injuries to Koschitzke, MaGuire, Penny and X Clarke probably cost us more than one).