AFL Top 100: Goalkicking highlights Round 4 (Part 3)

Hawthorn’s Jarrad Roughead kicked three goals in the Hawks’ demolition of Melbourne and – as a result – moved into the Top 50 goal kickers of all time.

Along the way he passed John Coleman and Eddie Betts and is now 49th on the list. With Eddie Betts injured, he currently represents the main threat to Jack Riewoldt for second position (behind Lance Franklin) of the current players.

Josh Kennedy’s return on Sunday night added some spice to the battle of the forwards but he currently sits in 53rd position, 13 goals behind #50 Eddie Betts. With Lance Franklin (#9), Jack Riewoldt (#47) Jarrad Roughead (#49), Eddie Betts (#50) and Josh Kennedy (#53), the AFL is well served by quality forwards at the moment.

In particular with Tom Hawkins (#79) and Mark LeCras (#90) also in the mix, the league can boast that seven current day goal scorers are in the best 100 of all time (if goals scored is the sole criteria).

(AAP Image/Dave Hunt)

At Geelong, Daniel Menzel’s five goals took him past current teammate Mitch Duncan while Jordan Cunico kicked his first and second AFL goals in his second game.

Their opponents (St Kilda) could only boast one significant goal kicking milestone in the game: Rowan Marshall kicked his first goal in game number three.

For Essendon, this year’s recruit Jake Stringer kicked four goals. Orazio Fantasia kicked one to remain on track to join the elite Top 100 by the end of the season.

Gun forward Joe Daniher, who has had a relatively quiet start to the season, managed two goals and snuck up to within one goal of former captain Jack Clarke.

Clarke was a centre man who made his debut on his 17th birthday and served the club (and the league) with distinction from 1951 to 1967, winning two club best and fairests.

He coached the club for three years (1968 – 1970) and played in two premierships (1962 and 1965). His brother Ron Clarke was an outstanding distance runner.

Port Adelaide’s experienced recruit, Jack Watts (from Melbourne) added three goals to his tally for his new club to make the total seven goals in his four games played so far. Sam Gray’s one goal was enough to take him to equal 42nd place on the club’s all time goal kicking list with Adam Kingsley and Damon White.

Justin Westoff kicked only one goal on the weekend, but that took him to only six goals behind Port Adelaide’s #2 goal kicker, Jay Schultz but he remains a very long way behind the club’s best goal kicker of all time, Warren Tredrea.

The Hawthorn/Melbourne game was a fizzer for Melbourne in more ways than one. Only one of the club’s three Top 100 goal scorers managed to kick a goal and that was Jesse Hogan.

It meant that the battle between the three current day players in the Top 100 tightened up just a little bit more! The three players (Jeff Garlett, Nathan Jones and Jesse Hogan) now lie 59th,60th and equal 61st (with Percy Tulloh) respectively.

Garlett is one goal ahead of Jones who is three goals ahead of Hogan.

For Hawthorn, only the two goals to Isaac Smith caused any changes on the goal kicking list. Those two goals took him past Alan Goad and Trent Croad and made him equal with Robert DiPierdomenico on the list.

The Hawks – with many significant goal scorers on the list will be missing the services of Rioli, Puopolo and Burgoyne for a number of weeks.

The depth of their goal kicking list is shown by the fact that they still have the services of four other 100+ goal kickers: Roughead, Breust, Gunston and Smith.