Opinion
The top three game-players at Geelong are three of the only four players to reach the 300-game milestone at the Cats.
The fourth is John ‘Sam’ Newman, who struggled to exactly 300 games in 1980. If this season ever gets going, they should be joined by Joel Selwood as number five.
Four 300-game milestone achievers is a relatively low number for a club that can claim a history that goes back to the 1890s, and puts them well behind the present leader Hawthorn, who have eight. However, when the bar is lowered to 250, and then 200, Geelong are easily the clubhouse leaders with 18 and 40 respectively and you are left to ponder why this is so.
Another conundrum to ponder is the relative value of any awards a player may achieve along his long journey and the worth they add to his longevity. How do you rank a premiership, a best and fairest, a Brownlow, a Norm Smith Medal, All Australian selection or captaincy of the club in your achievements?
The three greatest game-players at Geelong – Corey Enright (332 games), Ian Nankervis (325 games) and Jimmy Bartel (305 games) – are all AFL top 100 game-players and have all received most of these accolades, but none all of them.
(AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Number one on the list, Corey Enright played in three premierships with teammate Jimmy Bartel in the win-a-year, skip-a-year sequence of 2007, 2009 and 2011 under coaches Mark Thompson (the first two) and Chris Scott (the last one). Ian Nankervis did not play in any (and perhaps played fewer games because of it).
Enright also won two best-and-fairest awards, whereas Ian Nankervis won three, and Jimmy Bartel none.
Enright was All Australian six times, Nankervis once and Bartel twice. However, Bartel won the Brownlow Medal (2007) and the Norm Smith Medal (2011) and both were premiership years!
The only one of the three to captain the club was Ian Nankervis, which he did for five years from 1978 to 1981, and then again in 1983. Another achievement for Nankervis was being equal leading club goal-kicker in 1975 with Larry Donohue.
This shows that they were all great players who maintained form and fitness for an extraordinary period of time.
Enright and Nankervis both started as 19-year-olds and played until after their 35th birthday, whereas Bartel started as an 18-year-old and retired at age 32.
Playing in different eras with different rules and different conditions makes it hard to single out any player as the best Cat of all time.
Should Gary Ablett Junior’s years away from the club be considered? Should Gary Ablett Senior’s wayward nature be excused? And what about current champ Joel Selwood, who possibly may have missed all of this year due to a situation over which he had no control?
I will leave it to others to decide, and just stick to the facts of who ranks in the top 100 game-players and goal-scorers of all time at the Geelong Football Club.
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