Team of the 21st Century

[Dr Awkward]

Almost 1/5th through the century, which players do you think would make it so far?

I reckon Ablett, Franklin, Judd would all be in.

Then maybes: Hodge, Goodes, Scarlett, Dangerfield, Rance, Fyfe

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

Need to clarify whether players whose careers overlapped (Buckley, Hird, Voss, both Harveys, Crawford, Ricciuto, Carey, Koutoufides, Fletcher, Lloyd...) would have everything in their careers up to 31/12/1999 disregarded, or whether it would warrant consideration. Do you also give precedence to a player who has already retired, or someone who is still going and could easily add accolades to their CV.

I think Scarlett and Ablett are walk ups from Geelong. A few others in the mix (Enright and Dangerfield), Selwood and everyone else probably wouldn't be cracking this team.

Assuming it is just based on their work between 1/1/2000 and 12/5/2019, I'll get the ball rolling off the top of my head (always risky):

B: Matthew Scarlett, Alex Rance, Corey Enright
HB: Luke Hodge, Brian Lake, Andrew McLeod
C: Adam Goodes, Scott Pendlebury, Jason Akermanis
HF: Lance Franklin, Nick Riewoldt, Dane Swan
F: Matthew Pavlich, Josh J Kennedy, Eddie Betts
R: Dean Cox, Chris Judd, Gary Ablett
I/C: Josh P Kennedy, Sam Mitchell, Simon Black, Patrick Dangerfield

Brent Harvey, Jeremy McGovern, Ben Cousins, Jack Riewoldt, Selwood, Nat Fyfe, Trent Cotchin, Josh Gibson and the late 90s crew (Hird, Lloyd, R Harvey, Voss, Buckley, Ricciuto, West, B Johnson etc.) probably come to mind as the most stiff, but I'm sure I've missed a few.

 

[AG]

This is a hard one. I'd say a criteria of at least 100 games in the century to qualify.

For the Swans Franklin is a lock. Goodes and Kennedy the only others close. Hall was good but behind too many key forwards.

I think MC Extra Dollop has the right back 6 off the top of my head. Hard to argue with any of that.

The midfield and forward line is hard. Locks for me in those positions are Cox, Ablett, Judd, Franklin, N.Riewoldt and Betts. Probably Pavlich as well.

 

[Gunf]

Pick HFF as HFF not mids... Mids should be C R and maybe 2 on bench no more

 

[Walt Kowalski]

B: Corey Enright - Matthew Scarlett - Luke Hodge
HB: Bob Murphy - Alex Rance - Andrew McLeod
C: Matthew Richardson - Michael Voss - Jimmy Bartel
HF: Jason Akermanis - Warren Tredrea- Lance Franklin
F: Eddie Betts - Nick Riewoldt - Nathan Brown

R: Dean Cox - Chris Judd -Gary Ablett

I/C: Nat Fyfe - Aaron Sandilands - Patrick Dangerfield - Matthew Pavlich



All made at least one All Australian side in the time frame (since 2000) and all are selected in the position they played

 

[HairyO]

Need to clarify whether players whose careers overlapped (Buckley, Hird, Voss, both Harveys, Crawford, Ricciuto, Carey, Koutoufides, Fletcher, Lloyd...) would have everything in their careers up to 31/12/1999 disregarded, or whether it would warrant consideration. Do you also give precedence to a player who has already retired, or someone who is still going and could easily add accolades to their CV.

I think Scarlett and Ablett are walk ups from Geelong. A few others in the mix (Enright and Dangerfield), Selwood and everyone else probably wouldn't be cracking this team.

Assuming it is just based on their work between 1/1/2000 and 12/5/2019, I'll get the ball rolling off the top of my head (always risky):

B: Matthew Scarlett, Alex Rance, Corey Enright
HB: Luke Hodge, Brian Lake, Andrew McLeod
C: Adam Goodes, Scott Pendlebury, Jason Akermanis
HF: Lance Franklin, Nick Riewoldt, Dane Swan
F: Matthew Pavlich, Josh J Kennedy, Eddie Betts
R: Dean Cox, Chris Judd, Gary Ablett
I/C: Josh P Kennedy, Sam Mitchell, Simon Black, Patrick Dangerfield

Brent Harvey, Jeremy McGovern, Ben Cousins, Jack Riewoldt, Selwood, Nat Fyfe, Trent Cotchin, Josh Gibson and the late 90s crew (Hird, Lloyd, R Harvey, Voss, Buckley, Ricciuto, West, B Johnson etc.) probably come to mind as the most stiff, but I'm sure I've missed a few.

If youre only having 1 small forward on your entire list it would be Breust, not Betts.

If you want to drop 1 of the 4 tall forwards or the midfielder at HFF then it would be Betts and Breust.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

If youre only having 1 small forward on your entire list it would be Breust, not Betts.

Why? Betts has made more All Australian teams and kicked many more goals, all in the period that's being considered. I'm not saying Breust isn't worthy of discussion, but to act like Betts doesn't even have a claim to the spot over him is just wrong, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[AG]

Aker, Betts and Steve Johnson deserve a small forward spot before Breust. Even Cyril imo.

 

[Monkey King]

B: Corey Enright - Brian Lake - Matthew Scarlett
HB: Luke Hodge - Alex Rance - Andrew McLeod
C: Adam Goodes - Michael Voss - Scott Pendlebury
HF: Stevie J - Nick Riewoldt - Lance Franklin
F: Eddie Betts - Brendan Fevola - Jason Akermanis

R: Dean Cox - Chris Judd - Gary Ablett

I/C: Nat Fyfe - Patrick Dangerfield - Matthew Richardson - Matthew Pavlich


Sorry Sam Mitchell. Spot on the bench was taken by Dangerfield for more pace.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

Pick HFF as HFF not mids... Mids should be C R and maybe 2 on bench no more

As far as I'm concerned there isn't another dedicated half forward flanker who deserves a spot ahead of the midfielders in my team who have kicked heaps of goals and have even played a lot of their career in the forward line. I'm not putting someone like Rioli, Chapman, Steve or Brad Johnson or Breust in at the expense of someone like Dangerfield, Akermanis or Swan.

 

[HairyO]

Why? Betts has made more All Australian teams and kicked many more goals, all in the period that's being considered. I'm not saying Breust isn't worthy of discussion, but to act like Betts doesn't even have a claim to the spot over him is just wrong, as far as I'm concerned.

Only small forward to have kicked 30 goals a year or more every year.

Averages slightly more goals than Betts. More tackles which apparently is important. And more possessions.

If you are going on longevity (because Betts has more of something) lets have Burgoyne there.

 

[Baird]

best 18 using one player per team:

Shaw (GWS), McPharlin, Murphy
Hodge (HAW), Rance, McVeigh
Pendlebury, Ablett (GC), Black
Gray, Riewoldt, B. Harvey
Lloyd, Neitz, Betts (ADE)
Cox, Judd (Carl), Dangerfield (Geel)

 

[Nuggets73]

Using the 100 game criteria

B: Corey Enright - Matthew Scarlett - Luke Hodge
HB: Nathan Buckley - Alex Rance - Andrew McLeod
C: Adam Goodes - Michael Voss - Simon Black
HF: Stevie J - Lance Franklin - James Hird
F: Eddie Betts - Matthew Lloyd - Jason Akermanis
R: Dean Cox - Chris Judd -Gary Ablett
I/C: Jimmy Bartel, Nick Riewoldt, Matthew Richardson, Mark Ricciuto

 

[Underarm]

Need to clarify whether players whose careers overlapped (Buckley, Hird, Voss, both Harveys, Crawford, Ricciuto, Carey, Koutoufides, Fletcher, Lloyd...) would have everything in their careers up to 31/12/1999 disregarded, or whether it would warrant consideration. Do you also give precedence to a player who has already retired, or someone who is still going and could easily add accolades to their CV.

I think Scarlett and Ablett are walk ups from Geelong. A few others in the mix (Enright and Dangerfield), Selwood and everyone else probably wouldn't be cracking this team.

Assuming it is just based on their work between 1/1/2000 and 12/5/2019, I'll get the ball rolling off the top of my head (always risky):

B: Matthew Scarlett, Alex Rance, Corey Enright
HB: Luke Hodge, Brian Lake, Andrew McLeod
C: Adam Goodes, Scott Pendlebury, Jason Akermanis
HF: Lance Franklin, Nick Riewoldt, Dane Swan
F: Matthew Pavlich, Josh J Kennedy, Eddie Betts
R: Dean Cox, Chris Judd, Gary Ablett
I/C: Josh P Kennedy, Sam Mitchell, Simon Black, Patrick Dangerfield

Brent Harvey, Jeremy McGovern, Ben Cousins, Jack Riewoldt, Selwood, Nat Fyfe, Trent Cotchin, Josh Gibson and the late 90s crew (Hird, Lloyd, R Harvey, Voss, Buckley, Ricciuto, West, B Johnson etc.) probably come to mind as the most stiff, but I'm sure I've missed a few.

Too tall in the forward line, especially if you have Goodes on the wing.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

Too tall in the forward line, especially if you have Goodes on the wing.

So swap Pavlich with Dangerfield. Why is Goodes' height an issue on the wing? His speed, agility, endurance and explosiveness were all off the charts.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a ceremonial team and an exercise to recognise something close to the best 22 players from the past 20 years in something resembling a functional 22. If you want to pick a tagger, a dedicated negating back pocket, a defensive forward and whatever else in your team, have at it.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

Only small forward to have kicked 30 goals a year or more every year.

Averages slightly more goals than Betts. More tackles which apparently is important. And more possessions.

If you are going on longevity (because Betts has more of something) lets have Burgoyne there.

Fine, they're worthy of consideration. I happen to prefer Betts as the signature dedicated small forward of this century. From the tone of your original post, the inference was that any reasonable person would have to pick Breust over Betts and I don't believe that to be the case.

 

[HairyO]

Fine, they're worthy of consideration. I happen to prefer Betts as the signature dedicated small forward of this century. From the tone of your original post, the inference was that any reasonable person would have to pick Breust over Betts and I don't believe that to be the case.

It was my opinion.

Really my point was there were 4 talls, a midfielder and a small forward in that poster's 6.

I was saying there should be 2 small forwards. Betts and Breust.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

It was my opinion.

Really my point was there were 4 talls, a midfielder and a small forward in that poster's 6.

I was saying there should be 2 small forwards. Betts and Breust.

All good. I respectfully disagree, especially considering three of those tall forwards were no strangers to a dedicated midfield position.

And as I've mentioned earlier, I'd place more of a priority on getting as close to the best 20-25 players of the past 20 years into a team that looks semi-reasonable structurally rather than worrying about getting every role filled and selecting lesser 'specialist' players over (what I consider to be) far superior players who were primarily midfielders but could be deployed in a variety of roles.

I'm not dropping someone like Pavlich for team balance when there isn't a game being played. If that makes the team a bit top heavy, so be it.

 

[HairyO]

All good. I respectfully disagree, especially considering three of those tall forwards were no strangers to a dedicated midfield position.

And as I've mentioned earlier, I'd place more of a priority on getting as close to the best 20-25 players of the past 20 years into a team that looks semi-reasonable structurally rather than worrying about getting every role filled and selecting lesser 'specialist' players over (what I consider to be) far superior players who were primarily midfielders but could be deployed in a variety of roles.

I'm not dropping someone like Pavlich for team balance when there isn't a game being played. If that makes the team a bit top heavy, so be it.

Which team plays 4 tall forwards on the ground at the same time ?

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

Which team plays 4 tall forwards on the ground at the same time ?

A ceremonial team which will never actually take the field together? Should Hawthorn have chosen between Dunstall and Hudson and Langford and Moore in its TOTC?

 

[Pykie]

Need to clarify whether players whose careers overlapped (Buckley, Hird, Voss, both Harveys, Crawford, Ricciuto, Carey, Koutoufides, Fletcher, Lloyd...) would have everything in their careers up to 31/12/1999 disregarded, or whether it would warrant consideration. Do you also give precedence to a player who has already retired, or someone who is still going and could easily add accolades to their CV.

I think Scarlett and Ablett are walk ups from Geelong. A few others in the mix (Enright and Dangerfield), Selwood and everyone else probably wouldn't be cracking this team.

Assuming it is just based on their work between 1/1/2000 and 12/5/2019, I'll get the ball rolling off the top of my head (always risky):

B: Matthew Scarlett, Alex Rance, Corey Enright
HB: Luke Hodge, Brian Lake, Andrew McLeod
C: Adam Goodes, Scott Pendlebury, Jason Akermanis
HF: Lance Franklin, Nick Riewoldt, Dane Swan
F: Matthew Pavlich, Josh J Kennedy, Eddie Betts
R: Dean Cox, Chris Judd, Gary Ablett
I/C: Josh P Kennedy, Sam Mitchell, Simon Black, Patrick Dangerfield

Brent Harvey, Jeremy McGovern, Ben Cousins, Jack Riewoldt, Selwood, Nat Fyfe, Trent Cotchin, Josh Gibson and the late 90s crew (Hird, Lloyd, R Harvey, Voss, Buckley, Ricciuto, West, B Johnson etc.) probably come to mind as the most stiff, but I'm sure I've missed a few.

The majority of Simon Black's major achievements were after 2000.

You can't possibly have Pendlebury over him.

Pendlebury is essentially "Black-lite".

He'd be the first picked in the midfield after Ablett and Judd.

It's debatable if Pendlebury even gets in over guys like Swan, Fyfe, Dangerfield, Mitchell, Martin or Bartel.

Then there's Goodes, Buckley, Ruccuito and Cousins who all won Brownlows this century.

Daniel Kerr is another who finished 2nd or 3rd in 3 brownlow's in a stacked era.


Someone not mentioned so far is Fraser Gherig, he was probably almost more dominant than J.Kennedy, they have similar goals per game statistics, but in my opinion, Gherig was much more unstoppable during his peak period than Kennedy.

Gherig obviously didn't have the tenure during the 2000+ that Kennedy has had, as he played a chunk in defence pre-2000. They have the same amount of Colemans though.

Fevola was arguably a better FF than Kennedy as well.

Franklin and Riewoldt are locks.

Then there's Tredrea, J.Brown below him and the likes of Fevola, Kennedy, Gherig, J.Riewoldt etc.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

The majority of Simon Black's major achievements were after 2000.

You can't possibly have Pendlebury over him.

Pendlebury is essentially "Black-lite".

He'd be the first picked in the midfield after Ablett and Judd.

They're both in the team...who really cares?

It's debatable if Pendlebury even gets in over guys like Swan, Fyfe, Dangerfield, Mitchell, Martin or Bartel.

Then there's Goodes, Buckley, Ruccuito and Cousins who all won Brownlows this century.

Daniel Kerr is another.

Several of these players are also in my team. Others played roughly half the games over the period that Pendlebury has and others just aren't in his class (all due respect to Bartel...and Kerr, please. You don't get into company like this based on what you could have been. Martin's in danger of going down that path too: out of this world for a couple of years, nothing special for the rest).

 

[jackenny]

B: Matthew Scarlett, Alex Rance, Corey Enright
HB: Luke Hodge, Brian Lake, Andrew McLeod
C: Adam Goodes, Michael Voss, Jason Akermanis
HF: Lance Franklin, Nick Riewoldt, Luke Breust
F: Stephen Milne, Brendan Fevola, Eddie Betts
R: Dean Cox, Chris Judd, Gary Ablett
I/C: Josh P Kennedy, Sam Mitchell, Simon Black, Ben Cousins

I am surprised people are putting Josh J Kennedy ahead of Jack Reiwoldt. Reiwoldt is younger, has played more games, and has kicked more goals. Even then, Fevola kicked more goals than both and played his last game at twenty-nine years of age. He was an utter monster. So was Hall, but Fevola was something else. Breust, Betts, and Milne are the best three small forwards of this century (closely followed by Steve Johnson) and it's difficult to split them - bare in mind Breust is 4 years younger than Betts, and he's on track to end his career with just as many goals as Betts and Milne... was very tempted to put Steve Johnson ahead of Breust, but I have a gut feeling that Breust's reliability will see him have more goals by the end of his career (speculatively).

 

[Dr Awkward]

This is a hard one. I'd say a criteria of at least 100 games in the century to qualify.

Yeah that's not a bad criteria. I would think guys that did a lot of their best work prior to 2000 like Hird, Buckley, Voss and even McLeod wouldn't qualify

 

[HurleyHepsHird]

Need to clarify whether players whose careers overlapped (Buckley, Hird, Voss, both Harveys, Crawford, Ricciuto, Carey, Koutoufides, Fletcher, Lloyd...) would have everything in their careers up to 31/12/1999 disregarded, or whether it would warrant consideration. Do you also give precedence to a player who has already retired, or someone who is still going and could easily add accolades to their CV.

I think Scarlett and Ablett are walk ups from Geelong. A few others in the mix (Enright and Dangerfield), Selwood and everyone else probably wouldn't be cracking this team.

Assuming it is just based on their work between 1/1/2000 and 12/5/2019, I'll get the ball rolling off the top of my head (always risky):

B: Matthew Scarlett, Alex Rance, Corey Enright
HB: Luke Hodge, Brian Lake, Andrew McLeod
C: Adam Goodes, Scott Pendlebury, Jason Akermanis
HF: Lance Franklin, Nick Riewoldt, Dane Swan
F: Matthew Pavlich, Josh J Kennedy, Eddie Betts
R: Dean Cox, Chris Judd, Gary Ablett
I/C: Josh P Kennedy, Sam Mitchell, Simon Black, Patrick Dangerfield

Brent Harvey, Jeremy McGovern, Ben Cousins, Jack Riewoldt, Selwood, Nat Fyfe, Trent Cotchin, Josh Gibson and the late 90s crew (Hird, Lloyd, R Harvey, Voss, Buckley, Ricciuto, West, B Johnson etc.) probably come to mind as the most stiff, but I'm sure I've missed a few.

I'd have Cousins in over Pendles.

A Brownlow, flag and 6 AA (4 in the 21st century) and 4 club champion awards (this century).