Current Geelong spearhead Tom Hawkins has played the same number of games for the club (208) as former champion Doug Wade, but he has kicked 399 fewer goals.
Does that mean Wade was a much better player? Not necessarily, but it highlights the ever-evolving nature of the game and the fact that Wade was much more of a focal point for the team in an era of high-scoring goal-kickers.
To compare champions of different generations is always fraught with danger, but there is no doubt that Hawkins is held in the same high esteem as Wade by Geelong supporters – before Wade moved on to continue his career at North Melbourne and amass a career goal total of 1057, which has him sitting fourth on the all-time goal-kicking list.
This is despite Wade kicking goals with only 52 per cent of his scoring shots compared to 64 per cent by Hawkins.
The differences in performance between these two champions highlight the folly of comparing players across the different generations, but it goes against the evidence that shows that ten current-day goal-kickers appear in the top ten goal-kickers lists compared with only three current-day game players.
(AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
One such example, Lance Franklin (Sydney), is in tenth position on the AFL top ten list. He would appear on Hawthorn’s current-day top ten list if still at the club.
Two of the other club top tens include Josh Kennedy (West Coast) and Eddie Betts (Adelaide), who also started their careers at other teams and so would be further up the list if they were able to count these goals.
The other top ten players include Taylor Walker (Adelaide), Josh Jenkins (Adelaide), Jarryd Roughead (Hawthorn), Jack Riewoldt (Richmond), Mark LeCras (West Coast) and Jack Darling (West Coast), who have scored their goals at one club and highlight the fact that current-day players are still more likely to challenge past goal-kicking records than they are to challenge games played records.
The current game players in the top ten at their clubs are Kade Simpson (Carlton, number six), Nathan Jones (Melbourne, number nine) and Jarryd McVeigh (Sydney, number four), and none are likely to climb higher than number three on the club list unless they can extend their careers beyond 2018.
By contrast I confidently predict that Josh Kennedy will have taken over the number one goal-kicker mantle at the West Coast Eagles by Round 3.
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