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AFL top 100: Round 11 highlights

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Roar Guru
27th May, 2022
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The pundits have decreed that Round 11 is almost a foregone conclusion, with six teams listed at prohibitive odds to win, and the other three matches all having warm favourites.

Home ground advantage (including the legendary home records of Geelong and Brisbane) is no doubt a factor as the only two away teams favoured are Western Bulldogs against the hapless Eagles and the high-flying Blues against Collingwood (where there is no home ground advantage).

There must be a HGA at the SCG according to the punters as, despite missing the no longer dominant but still effective Josh Kennedy, Sydney are warm favourites, and this is despite the contest being the closest-ever between two opponents in the 126 years of VFL/AFL football.

In ten rounds so far, Richmond have outscored Sydney by an average of 4.2 points per round, but their defence has leaked 3.7 extra points per round, and this differential of .7 points means that their percentages are only 0.019 per cent different and both have won six games.

The injury to Josh Kennedy is expected to take 8-10 weeks to heal, with the veteran suffering tendon damage to the hamstring against Carlton last Friday night. He’s now in a race to return by season’s end and with limited time to prove himself, he is unlikely to be offered a further 12-month contract for next year.

Unfortunately, this will mean he is denied a place in the AFL’s top 100 game players of all time – an honour that he would have richly deserved.

With Patrick Dangerfield also now a few weeks away from clinching a place in this elite group, it may now fall to Richmond’s Shane Edwards to gazump Dangerfield and raise the bar to entry sufficiently to delay Danger’s entry into the August group until even later into the 2022 season.

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Edwards is currently only two games behind Dangerfield and appears to be fit and in form and would now appear to be the first of only two new entrants into the group as the other 3 possibles (two Josh Kennedys and Todd Goldstein) will run out of time and games to make the ‘cut’. This is particularly true of the Eagles’ Josh Kennedy and Goldstein, neither of whom will have the benefit of finals adding to their tally this year.

One of the original clubs, Collingwood, should add a new top 100 game player to their list this weekend when ex- Hampton Rovers and Sandringham under-18s player Brayden Maynard takes the field against Carlton on Sunday. Maynard’s forthright and feisty style at half back has served him well in his 146 games to date, and game 147 will see him share the ‘hot seat’ at number 100 with Charlie Laxton and Darren Millane.

Laxton (1912-1921 Collingwood Districts rover) was a solid contributor who fed the ball well to Dick Lee with delightful stab passes. Like Maynard, he sometimes has a fiery temper. He played in premierships in 1917 and 1919 and losing grand finals in 1915 and 1918.

Millane’s tragic death in a car accident at the age of 26 stunned the football world in October 1991. At the time he was at his peak as a footballer and only a year earlier he had ben at the forefront of Collingwood’s 1990 flag win.

North Melbourne champion Jack Ziebell will become the 12th Kangaroo and the 267th AFL player of all time to play 250 games when North Melbourne takes on St Kilda this weekend, whilst dual club players Jake Melksham (Essendon/Melbourne) and Aaron Hall (Gold Coast/North Melbourne) play their 200th and 150th games respectively.

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