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Opinion
At first glance, Round 3 didn’t appear to be a round of AFL football to get excited about.
Sure, there is the Sunday clash between two undefeated teams, Carlton and Hawthorn, and it will be interesting to see how “real” the form shown by Hawthorn in the first two rounds is.
Apart from that, and the two derbies scheduled for the weekend – which feature teams that have only won one game between them – may excite the crowds located in Adelaide and Perth but not many others.
Even current season form appears not to be important, with only two games considered by the punter likely to be close: Thursday night’s encounter between Western Bulldogs and Sydney, and the clash between Richmond and St Kilda at Marvel Stadium whilst two undefeated teams (Hawthorn and Collingwood) are expected to be soundly beaten by Carlton and Geelong respectively, and two teams yet to win a game (Western Bulldogs and Port Adelaide) will start favourites against Sydney and Adelaide respectively.
Even the traditional milestone games (if they occur) do not inspire much celebration. Whilst they are important and show that these players have reached a tally of games not achieved by the average footballer (47), no player is achieving a milestone of more than 100 games and the two players on 99 games: Kyle Langford (Essendon) and Dean Kent (St Kilda) are either injured or not sure of selection.
Of the four players due to play their 50th game Tarryn Thomas (North Melbourne) and Branden Starcevich (Brisbane) are still at their original clubs whilst Zac Landon (West Coast) and Jack Schrimshaw (Hawthorn) started their careers at the Giants and Suns respectively. Chad Wingard will play his 50th game at Hawthorn, showing he has been a good pick up for the Hawks.
On the traditional games ladder (the Top 100) however, the story is different with three of the more famous Brownlow Medallists having their rank on their club’s Top 100 game players list disturbed by current players at the club.
At the Western Bulldogs, the most senior current player, Jack Macrae will not only match the games tallies of Stephen Macpherson and the recently retired Easton Wood, but also the tally achieved by John Schultz, the 1960 Brownlow Medallist.
Their opponents, Sydney will see Luke Parker pass the game total of Grand Final hero, Leo Barry and also one of the Swans greatest players of all time, triple Brownlow Medallist Bob Skilton. Meanwhile over in the West Jack Darling should leave on the rung below the injured Andrew Gaff and join instead Ben Cousins on 238 games.
Both Melbourne and Adelaide will welcome new Top 100 game players to the club’s elite: Christian Petracca will be the first on a possible number of new entrants to the Melbourne list in 2022 and at Adelaide, Darcy Fogarty will earn his seat at the Top 100 table.
Also at Melbourne, Max Gawn will equal the game total of Stephen Tingay. Other past players who will have their games totals matched this weekend include: Mark Johnson (Essendon) by Dyson Heppell, Matthew Bishop (Port Adelaide – by Darcy Byrne-Jones, Devon Smith (GWS) by Jacob Hopper, Geelong champion goal kicker Doug Wade by Cameron Guthrie, Alan Duncan (Carlton) by Patrick Cripps, John Kennedy Jr by Luke Breust, Alan Morrow (St Kilda) by Sebastian Ross and Scott Thornton (Fremantle) by Luke Ryan.
One who won’t quite make the Top 100 list at his club is Branden Starcevich. His 50 games would be enough if the games played by former players at the Brisbane Bears were not counted, but they are, so he will need to wait until later in the season to be a Top 100 Brisbane game player!
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