- Nov 17, 2011
- 2,753
- 10,127
- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
This question was mentioned in the recent article from The Mongrel Punt and I thought it was interesting enough to deserve its own thread. Higgins was obviously our last All Australian in 2018, but there's a good 10-15 players who could possibly be our next player named.
A few options:
Aaron Hall
Played some great footy from round 7 onwards with 30.7 disposals and 115 supercoach points a game. Lost out on a lot of cheap touches too with Ziebell taking the majority of the kick-ins. A whole season of this form might be too hard for the AA selectors to ignore.
Jy Simpkin
Was in basically every AA team before his injury in 2020, and then had a back half of 2021 that was a lot stronger and led to his first Syd Barker medal. He took a while to get going last year, but from round 9 onwards averaged 28.4 touches and 5.9 clearances. Only Jack Steele, Christian Petracca, Jackson Macrae, Rory Laird, Clayton Oliver and Darcy Parish averaged both of those numbers for the whole season and 5 of those 6 were named All Australian.
Ben McKay
He arguably had an AA quality year last year but needs his reputation to catch up to his performance. He likely needs to add intercepting to his game to get wider recognition, but the talent is undeniably there.
Tarryn Thomas
Only Sam Walsh had a better year in 2021 according to AFL Player Ratings of all 22 and under players, which is more impressive when you realize that age group also includes players who are a year older than Thomas. From round 9 onwards he averaged 20.5 touches and 1.2 goals. The only players to have had more than 20 touches and 1 goal over the full season were Marcus Bontempelli, Christian Petracca and Jordan De Goey, and none of those kicked as many goals as Tarryn Thomas.
Interested in hearing who others think it could be, as there's a lot of really good contenders.
A few options:
Aaron Hall
Played some great footy from round 7 onwards with 30.7 disposals and 115 supercoach points a game. Lost out on a lot of cheap touches too with Ziebell taking the majority of the kick-ins. A whole season of this form might be too hard for the AA selectors to ignore.
Jy Simpkin
Was in basically every AA team before his injury in 2020, and then had a back half of 2021 that was a lot stronger and led to his first Syd Barker medal. He took a while to get going last year, but from round 9 onwards averaged 28.4 touches and 5.9 clearances. Only Jack Steele, Christian Petracca, Jackson Macrae, Rory Laird, Clayton Oliver and Darcy Parish averaged both of those numbers for the whole season and 5 of those 6 were named All Australian.
Ben McKay
He arguably had an AA quality year last year but needs his reputation to catch up to his performance. He likely needs to add intercepting to his game to get wider recognition, but the talent is undeniably there.
Tarryn Thomas
Only Sam Walsh had a better year in 2021 according to AFL Player Ratings of all 22 and under players, which is more impressive when you realize that age group also includes players who are a year older than Thomas. From round 9 onwards he averaged 20.5 touches and 1.2 goals. The only players to have had more than 20 touches and 1 goal over the full season were Marcus Bontempelli, Christian Petracca and Jordan De Goey, and none of those kicked as many goals as Tarryn Thomas.
Interested in hearing who others think it could be, as there's a lot of really good contenders.
