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The Roar

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Buddy is now AFL's second-best player

21st June, 2014
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Expert
21st June, 2014
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2585 Reads

For several years now, Gary Ablett has been all but the unanimous choice as the AFL’s best player. But who is the next most potent footballer?

Not who has had the second best career, or who is having the second best season in 2014. Rather, if you had to pick one player to help you win a game of football tomorrow, who would he be?

Would you pick a midfield maestro capable of shaping the game over four quarters? Would you plump for a key forward who might tear the game apart by kicking a bag of goals?

Would you compromise and select a roaming half forward who can both set up the play and get on the end of attacking forays?

Would you go the conservative route and select a supreme tall defender who can consistently repel your opposition’s forward thrusts? Very few of us would go down that latter defence-first route. We’d pick a classy midfielder or forward who can win us a game.

Leading into this season, the leading candidates to be Ablett’s understudy as the best player in the competition were Collingwood playmaker Scott Pendlebury and Geelong kingpin Joel Selwood. Both players captain their sides in more than just title – they lead with not only words but with unrelenting endeavour and controlled aggression.

The difference between a very good player and an elite player is how frequently they influence games which are hanging in the balance. As we’ve seen at clubs like Richmond, if you don’t have a leader who consistently stands up under pressure and says, “come with me to victory”, you will falter when it really matters.

Pendlebury and Selwood regularly come to the fore at such crucial moments. In the case of the latter, even after having a very quiet game against Carlton two weeks ago, he didn’t wilt and coolly slotted the winning goal under immense pressure in the dying moments.

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Both players are capable of winning their own ball, using their strength and desperation to shift opponents and snare the pill. But they are equally dangerous if given time and space. Pendlebury is famously clinical by foot, while Selwood, too, has become an elite user of the ball.

They both have a ferocious defensive aspect to their game and demand similar efforts of their teammates. But what makes them so potent is that they can hurt you on the scoreboard, both through regularly sending the ball inside 50m and by splitting the sticks themselves.

It is almost impossible to pick between the pair. So maybe I won’t. Maybe instead I will bypass them and pick the man who, right now, is arguably as influential than Ablett.

That would be the man on the nine-year-deal at Sydney. Lance Franklin has booted 4 goals or more six times this season and also had a massive say in the Swans tight win against his old side Hawthorn, when he had 21 touches and 9 scoring shots.

Last round he literally beat top-of-the-ladder Port off his own boot, kicking Sydney’s last 5 goals to secure them a four-point victory.

But his input this season has extended well beyond just bombing goals himself. Franklin often leads well up outside the 50m arc before swivelling and looking to spot up a teammate. His return of 4.6 inside 50s per game comfortably outstrips the next best return among the AFL’s top 20 goalkickers – Collingwoood’s Travis Cloke, with 3.5 per match.

It is this dual ability to either set up the play or be the target inside 50m himself which is making him so valuable.

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I was one of the many people who questioned whether Franklin’s best footy may be behind him. On the evidence of recent weeks, he is as damaging as ever.

He’s the player I’d pick in my team after Ablett.

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