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Leigh Matthews, Kevin Sheedy, Kevin Bartlett and Wayne Carey all need to take a Bex and lie down. Footy is far from dead.
While there is no doubt that we have seen the on-field action over the last fifteen years move gradually away from full forwards to midfielders, we must remember this didn’t happen overnight.
And therefore the rolling maul should come as no surprise.
Of greatest alarm to these AFL greats and many more commentators of late has been the dire warning that we may never see someone players kick 100 goals again. But in all honesty should we really care?
I don’t think so.
In 2014 we are still seeing at least two teams a week kick 20-plus goals. And we must remember that to do so, requires quality delivery from the midfield.
Both Fraser Gehrig and David Neitz won Coleman medals in 2005 and 2002 respectively with scores of 74 goals and 75 goals. Almost ten years have passed and neither of these players could be described as powder kegs.
When we take a look at the Coleman medal winners through the 1960s and 1950s, we see there are very few who kicked over 80 goals a season.
Quite simply, in the words of Omar Little from HBO’s magnum opus The Wire, “the game’s changed yo”. And the game will change again.
I am sick and tired of these romanticists trying to deify a particular period of the game. No doubt it was great, but you can’t tell me Cyril Rioli’s antics or Patrick Dangerfield’s bash and crash is any less worthy of honour.
Despite of all these ebbs and flows, the fact of the matter remains that footy starts with the ruck man and then moves through the midfield. With a little luck the ball ends up with a forward booting the ball through those odd-looking posts.
Footy is not the sole plaything of some dashing forward, no matter how magical they are. There are 18 players listed on the field and each and every one has a role to play.
Long live footy.
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