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AFL top 100: How much does it really matter to the players?

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Roar Guru
16th November, 2022
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It is difficult to know what value an AFL footballer places on their inclusion in his club’s top 100 game players list – if they even know of the existence of the honour.

It’s a special achievement, but while in St Kilda’s case it’s a distinction held by only 6.1 per cent of the 1634 players who have donned a Saints jersey since the VFL started in 1897, how important is it to the six current St Kilda members of this elite group?

What importance would the only possible new entrant, Jade Gresham, place on joining them on the list, as he will do if he plays four more games for St Kilda?

What recognition would the milestone get from St Kilda fans and fans of other clubs with an interest in the historical achievements of modern-day players in an era when only a small number of players survive at one club for the requisite period of, in Gresham’s case, eight years?

In this century of higher professionalism, with more players, more games, more teams and better training and medical facilities, it is a paradox that Geelong will be able to admit the most players into the top 100, more than any of the seven original VFL start-up clubs still remaining and the three other old Victorian clubs.

Sam Menegola of the Cats celebrates kicking a goal

(Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)

Apart from the Western Bulldogs, Geelong is the only old club that can have four new members on the top 100 game players list, but it would take a great year of form and fitness from Sam Menegola to play the 18 games he needs to reach the game total required to join the elite.

As mentioned above, St Kilda has only one possible new entrant into the top 100 game players list, and the same applies to Hawthorn (James Sicily), North Melbourne (Jy Simpkin), Essendon (Darcy Parish) and Melbourne (Alex Neal-Bullen).

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Collingwood (Jordan de Goey and Will Hoskin-Elliott), Richmond (Toby Nankervis and Nathan Broad) and Sydney (Oliver Florent and Will Heywood) may all have two new top 100 players by the end of the year.

Carlton, who had only one top 100 player on the ground during 2022 (Patrick Cripps), will be boosted by three new ones and one returning from injury in 2023.

This is significant, as in recent times finalists and in particular premiers have been those clubs boasting somewhere between seven and ten quality players who have formed a core of experience by being part of one club for whatever period of time it takes to reach the upper echelon in the history of the club.

Taking into account retirements and other player movements, those established clubs with the most top 100 game players at the start of 2023 will be Richmond and Sydney (nine each), Melbourne (eight), and Geelong and the Western Bulldogs (seven apiece).

At the other end of the scale are those teams who struggled during 2022. Essendon and Hawthorn (have two each), and North Melbourne (three) had the fewest.

Three players were tantalisingly close to becoming club top 100 game players in 2023.

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Unfortunately Jarrod Brandon (Greater Western Sydney) and Kayne Turner (North Melbourne) were both deleted from their respective lists despite requiring only one game more to have bragging rights to being a member of the club’s elite, no matter how temporary.

Josh Dunkley (Western Bulldogs) also missed attaining top 100 games played status by one match, but that was by personal choice, as he was traded to Brisbane.

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