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Dustin Martin is different. In an era of clean cuts and jagged jawlines, he’s a raw, rugged footballing tour de force. His 2016 season to date has thrust him into the conversation as to who are the absolute best players in the competition.
It was against Essendon, sure, but Martin’s Round 17 line is something to behold. His 22 contested possessions are the fourth most in a game this year, behind Patrick Dangerfield’s 23 earned in Round 12 against North Melbourne, and the 25 Gary Ablett won in Round 14 and Lachie Neale won in Round 7.
His 14 clearances are such a mind-bogglingly high number that not even football-Hercules Patrick Dangerfield has accumulated in a single game. His 43 disposals was more than one in 10 of the Tigers’ total touches, and 20 of those disposals were in the forward half of the ground, with Martin involved in eight of Richmond’s scores – a high number for a midfielder.
The numbers tell part of the story. Martin was likely the difference between Richmond slumping to a horrible defeat to a team set to end the year with one of the worst percentages of all time.
Yet it wasn’t a three-vote game, according to the ABC Footballer of the Year Award voter, who shall remain anonymous in this piece.
It marked the continuation of a trend which has followed Martin throughout his seven-year career, but one that has accelerated meaningfully this year: Richmond’s No.4 is really, really good at playing football.
Martin has quietly moved into the top five for average disposals per game this season, breaching the 30 mark over the weekend. He is second in the league in kicks per game, and with close to 13 contested possessions per game on average he’s now in the top echelons of that category, too. Martin is also second in the league for clangers (4.5 per game), although when adjusted for the number of disposals he drops about 100 places from “catastrophic” to merely “bad”.
He’s not kicking as many goals as in recent years, with just 8.7 registered on the scoreboard this season. Martin had been a member of the 20/1 club since his second season, and it looks like his membership will top out at five-year “silver” status for now. Martin’s tackling rate (3.8 per game) is also on the low end for a midfielder, although he’s hardly passive in the clinches.
A player frequently criticised for getting cheap touches, Martin is inside the top 20 for metres gained per game this season, ranked No.1 at Richmond who have, as a collective, found moving forward a difficult task this season. Some 41 per cent of his touches have come in the forward half of the ground, again something of a miracle given the clubs’ struggles.
One of the most impressive features of Martin’s statistical report card this season is the way he’s been able to blend inside with outside – a critique of his game in recent years has been a tendency to work on the outside. Of the 16 players that have averaged more clearances per game than Martin this season, just three have more metres gained per game – Patrick Dangerfield, Dylan Shiel and Gary Ablett.
Ablett has a couple of Brownlow Medals, Dangerfield will almost certainly join him as a medalist this year, and Shiel is at the very least on the verge of joining the League’s top 10.
But there is much that these impressive-looking numbers can’t illustrate.
Like an NFL running back, Martin has no fear and spares no favours when it comes to congested situations. He balks and bullocks his way though tight situations like a larger, less nimble Sam Mitchell, and throws off tackles like a less high-contact-inclined Joel Selwood (Martin earns 0.8 free kicks per game to Selwood’s 3.1, and both concede 1.8).
His fend is legendary, as is his ability to switch direction on a whim. Few players are able to create space like he can, and those that have the ability tend to use it to flick the ball to a team mate on the outside. Martin does that, but he also makes things happen on his own. Martin is deadly inside 50 – a combination of power, poise and pomp that makes him a unique proposition.
Wrote a little thing about Dustin Martin for tomorrow. Bought back memories of this little piece of brilliance #AFL pic.twitter.com/dhnCfvt9L3
— Ryan Buckland (@RyanBuckland7) July 20, 2016
More Dustin Martin goodness #AFL pic.twitter.com/aMKmPFcZon
— Ryan Buckland (@RyanBuckland7) July 20, 2016
And just because you asked, one more Dustin Martin gif #AFL pic.twitter.com/92zAAMzWS3
— Ryan Buckland (@RyanBuckland7) July 20, 2016
That’s where the clangers can come in – for every perfectly-executed 50 metre cross-body kick to advantage, there’s a wrong-footed shank that ends up nine rows back. At his best, Martin is a one-man football offence. At his worst, he’s a turnover merchant. Even then, his rate of clangers per possession has come down for the past two years, and when adjusted for free kicks against (which in the AFL’s bizarre statistical lexicon count as clangers), he’s not in the top 300 players in the league. As ever in the AFL, the narrative hasn’t kept up with reality.
There are very few players in the game today that play like they’re powered by their personality. Martin, by his very public actions, comes across as brash, confident individual, and that’s how he plays his football. In the managed, “credit to the boys” era, where the clinical efficiency demanded by coaches spills off the field and into the media, Martin is refreshingly different.
This isn’t passing judgement on Martin’s personal life, because frankly that is none of my business. But the paparazzi stories have, undoubtedly, bled into his professional persona. He’s the anti-hero of the AFL’s comic book world, the lone Deadpool in a sea of Captain Americas.
I had Martin in at No.6 on my Roar AFL Top 50 coming into this year, a ranking that at the time was my point of difference over the rest of the panel. He ended up settling in 19th spot, albeit I was the only selector that had him higher than that. Ahead of him in my estimations were Nat Fyfe, Dangerfield, Lance Franklin, Gary Ablett and Scott Pendlebury. Two thirds of the way into the season, I’m comfortable lopping one of those guys off – sorry, GAJ – to get Martin into the 2016 pantheon.
Dustin Martin is 25 years old – right about the age AFL players tend to hit their straps. To add to a series of tidy numbers, Martin has played 147 of Richmond’s 151 games since he was taken at pick three in 2009. If all goes well, he’ll reach AFL life membership before the end of the year – after seven seasons, people.
This might not be Richmond’s year, and it probably won’t be Richmond’s year in 2017 either. But in Martin, Tiger fans have another of the game’s elite players in their midst.
But in my view, it’s time he was recognised as one of the game’s elite beyond Tigerland. Martin is blossoming into a top five player in the AFL, and we should lap up the stylings of a player entering his prime years as a footballing force.