Opinion
I always look forward to the start of a new AFL season, not just to see how my team Collingwood will perform, but to see the emergence of the future stars of the game across all clubs and the ongoing performances of the current champions, no matter what colour jumper they wear.
As a keen statistical nut, I also celebrate the achievements of the elite: those players who have been around long enough and have been successful enough to be part of the history of whatever club or clubs they have represented.
For the AFL as a whole, this means playing nearly 300 games and/or kicking nearly 400 goals to make the lists of the top 100 players of all time, and the last few years have provided a number of achievers.
Four of last year’s AFL games elite retired, including Shaun Burgoyne (who became the fifth player to play 400 games and finished third on the all time games list), Eddie Betts (who played 350 games and kicked 640 goals while exciting the fans at Carlton and Adelaide), and two club stalwarts, Marc Murphy (Carlton) and Nathan Jones (Melbourne).
Jones missed out on Melbourne’s exciting and long overdue premiership win and failed to join David Neitz as the greatest game player for the Demons by only four games.
Despite the four retirements, there is still an impressive list of eight top 100 AFL game players playing on this year, headed up by Fremantle’s David ‘Barra’ Mundy, who currently sits in 15th place on the list with 354 games.
(Photo by Daniel Carson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
In his final game last year, he took over the number one position on the Dockers’ list from champion Matthew Pavlich, who retired in 2016.
If Mundy has a good year with form and fitness by the end of the season he could be ranked as high as eighth.
Equal second on the list of current players are Geelong’s Joel Selwood and Collingwood’s Scott Pendlebury.
The fact that they have both played 334 games highlights the vagaries of moving up the games played ladder.
Pendlebury’s season ended after Round 19 last year with a broken leg, while Selwood continued on for another seven weeks with the inclusion of three finals.
Again, good seasons could see these club leaders move up as high as 15th on the all-time games played list.
Five other players sit on the list with over 300 games to their credit, and four of the five are one-club players: Travis Boak (Port Adelaide – 306 games), Jack Riewoldt (Richmond – 305), Tom Hawkins (Geelong – 302 games) and Shannon Hurn (West Coast – 301). They all brought up their 300th game during 2021.
The other top 100 player, Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin, started 2021 on exactly 300 games and now sits on 318.
He started his career at Hawthorn and moved on to Sydney and is currently only five goals short of joining the other five top 100 goal scorers who have scored in excess of 1000 goals.
Four other players (providing their fitness and form hold out) are capable of becoming top 100 AFL players before the end of the 2022 season: Patrick Dangerfield (Adelaide and Geelong), Shane Edwards (Richmond), Josh Kennedy (Hawthorn and Sydney) and Josh Kennedy (Carlton and West Coast).
For the AFL top 100 goal scorers, only one (Eddie Betts) retired while nine continued on and are almost certain to be joined by Richmond’s Tom Lynch, who is only 14 goals away from joining the elite.
Eleven of today’s coaches and 18 of today’s umpires also are part of the AFL top 100 lists.
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