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AFL top 100: Round 4 selection highlights

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Roar Guru
7th April, 2022
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I have often opined on how injury or illness, loss of form or suspension can impact on a player’s achievements over his footy career in terms of games played and goals scored.

And Round 4 sets out beautifully what can happen if any of those circumstances occur.

In a round of AFL where surprisingly few players can reach traditional milestones, it appears that only two of five are likely to do so.

Daniel Rich will become the fourth Brisbane Lion to play 250 games, but as the Lions and Bears game tallies are included together, he becomes the eighth Brisbane player to reach the milestone as Michael Voss, Marcus Ashcroft, Nigel Lappin and Darryl White all have a combined total at the two teams of over 250 games.

At the other end of the scale, Jack Petruccelle will play his 50th game for the Eagles. Two others will have to wait until they are over injuries to achieve their respective milestones: Kyle Langford (Essendon) to reach 100 games and Tarryn Thomas (North Melbourne) to reach 50 games.

As for the other player on 99 games, it is difficult to predict when (if ever) he will bring up the 100-game milestone.

Dean Kent played his 36th game for the Saints in their loss to Collingwood in Round 1, after 63 games at Melbourne. His stats in that game were poor with only four disposals and he was omitted for Round 2.

Although not on the injury list, he didn’t appear to be in the Sandringham side either, so can be assumed to not be close to AFL selection.

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The decision by Geelong to rest Joel Selwood with the hope that it will extend his career is an interesting one and changes again the dynamics between Scott Pendlebury and Selwood: two champions of their respective clubs.

Scott Pendlebury of the Magpies celebrates a win

(Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Pendlebury started the 2021 season a comfortable six games ahead of Selwood and both were resilient champions and moved up the AFL top 100 game players list until Round 19 when Pendlebury broke his leg, and played no more games for the season.

Selwood went on to play out the season, including three finals, so by year’s end they were equal on 334 games.

This year they have both played the first three games so remain level on 337 games but it is reasonable to assume that by playing this week Pendlebury will regain his game leadership over Selwood as both close in on Andrew McLeod, number 23 on the games list.

In Round 4, only one of the top eight teams meets a fellow top-eight opponent. This means that for six teams it is an opportunity to put more space between them and the following pack, and this seems to apply to Melbourne, Sydney, Collingwood and Carlton, who are all short-priced favourites with the punters to win.

Not so with Freo, who are just favoured to win, and Hawthorn, who appear likely to start as underdogs against the Saints.

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The one game between two top eight teams has Geelong favoured to topple the undefeated Brisbane Lions.

It should be a high-scoring affair as these are the only two teams to have scored more than 300 points in the first three rounds.

With Brisbane averaging 111 points per game and Geelong 106, it highlights even more the woeful goal averages of West Coast Eagles at 62 points per game and North Melbourne, averaging 60 points per game.

Let’s hope that there are more close, exciting games this weekend, and one or two upsets will ensure the final eight is still on the radar for most if not all clubs.

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