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Opinion
Melbourne fans, this season has seen a second Demons player join the AFL top 100 game players list.
Nathan Jones joined this elite list early in the current season and has since gone on to pass the 300 game mark, becoming the second-greatest game player of all time at Melbourne behind champion goalkicker and long term captain David Neitz. Jones played in the first seven games of the season and bought up his 100th win at the club. Since then an injury kept him out and he has played in the VFL since returning. Five more AFL games will see him equal Neitz and six would make him the doyen of Melbourne.
For Todd Goldstein, the workhorse at North Melbourne, it is a case of a bridge too far. Despite starting the season as the 11th-greatest game player at North Melbourne and playing every game so far this year, Goldstein will finish the year still as the 11th-greatest game player at the club. He started the year on 251 games but the next targets, David Dench and Michael Firrito, who share equal ninth place on the list on 275 games required him to play 24 games in a 22-game home-and-away season which could only have been achieved if the Kangaroos played at least two finals, and that will not happen this year.
At Port Adelaide, Travis Boak is still playing top football and is sneaking up on the 300-game mark. If he gets there, he will equal Kane Cornes as the number one game player for the Power. Meanwhile, Robbie Gray, the fifth-greatest game player at the club, is sneaking up on 250 games and would be hoping to move to fourth place ahead of Warren Tredrea. The equal tenth-greatest game player, Hamish Hartlett, was dropped this week.
Are Richmond just teasing us, or is there a chink in their armor and this year’s tilt at the premiership is going to be more challenging? At the start of the year, the Tigers still boasted eight of their top 100 game players of all time and this has now been increased to nine.
Kane Lambert played the first six games of this year but injury means he won’t be seen again for some time and will sit with ex-players Maurie Sheahan and Mick Malthouse in the hot seat in equal 100th place on the Tigers’ list of the greatest 100 game players of all time. The twist in the tail is this: Kamdyn McIntosh (who has played ten games this year) is only three games behind Lambert and has a very real chance of passing their total of games and causing all three hot seat players to vanish from the list forever.
Lambert should recover and regain a place in the top 100, but if he doesn’t he will join ex-Tiger Ty Vickery as one of the shortest occupants of a top 100 games played lists ever.
No such fate will happen to Jack Riewoldt and Shane Edwards (both top ten) or Trent Cotchin and Dustin Martin (both top 20). One thing is for sure, both Maurie Sheahan and Mick Malthouse’s days on the top 100 list are numbered. Sheahan was born on Christmas Eve in 1905 and was a champion fullback at the Tigers, playing in four grand finals for two premierships during his career from 1929 to 1936. He died aged 50. Mike Malthouse, of course, became more famous for coaching more games of AFL/VFL football than anyone over a coaching career at four different clubs.
After five years as a player at St Kilda he moved to Richmond and played another eight years there for a total career of 99 wins, whereas he won 406 games as a coach.
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