Peter bosustow won goal and Mark of the year . Poor Nick has a lot of work to do
Even Cripps has been better this year and he isn't in the conversation of being the GOAT.
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Player Watch Nick Daicos - Can he be the GOAT?
- Thread starter Fadge
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Even Cripps has been better this year and he isn't in the conversation of being the GOAT.
sr36
TheBrownDog
Who do people think is currently the GOAT?
BringFevBack2021
Norm Smith Medallist
- May 9, 2021
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This is a really good question and I argued with old heads in here about this
I think they were ultimately right in saying it’s defined by eras
I’ve settled on:
Lethal
Carey
Ablett Sr
Ablett Jr
- Thread starter
- #8,304
Lethal and Ablett Snr are the standard go to GOATs, with Lethal pipping Ablett Snr.
Next rung is generally Carey and Lockett.
Great idea for a thread....
sr36
TheBrownDog
That's who I'd go with for those eras too - except wouldn't include Gaz Sr - the most incredible of them all, but not the consistency for enough of his career in my opinion.
I'm not here to diminish Daicos: he's had a spectacular start to his career and will go down as one of the best players of his generation.
One thing to consider though:
Comparing raw Brownlow/Coaches vote counts between different eras is misguided. There has been inflation in seasonal tallies for stars over the past 8 or so years, just like there was if you compare the stars of 2008-2014 to the ones from 1992 to 2003.
Daicos may well end up with coaches votes counts higher than any Ablett Junior season this year, just like 2023. I'm not sure how many people actually think Daicos has had two better seasons than anything Ablett produced.
Best to compare raw tallies with players in their prime during the same seasons. Otherwise actual award wins and top 3/5/10 finishes in each award are a better guide if you want to compare say Ablett and Daicos. Just like it would've been the case if you were comparing Ablett to Williams, Buckley or Hird (for awards that existed in both eras).
One thing to consider though:
Comparing raw Brownlow/Coaches vote counts between different eras is misguided. There has been inflation in seasonal tallies for stars over the past 8 or so years, just like there was if you compare the stars of 2008-2014 to the ones from 1992 to 2003.
Daicos may well end up with coaches votes counts higher than any Ablett Junior season this year, just like 2023. I'm not sure how many people actually think Daicos has had two better seasons than anything Ablett produced.
Best to compare raw tallies with players in their prime during the same seasons. Otherwise actual award wins and top 3/5/10 finishes in each award are a better guide if you want to compare say Ablett and Daicos. Just like it would've been the case if you were comparing Ablett to Williams, Buckley or Hird (for awards that existed in both eras).
Not the consistency?
Ablett Senior made the VFL team of the year (before AA existed) and All Australian team 8 times - all in his preferred position - and had one other season at least as good. That's 9 seasons where he was the best player in his position (half forward earlier on, full forward later). You're a really hard marker if you don't count that as consistent.
- Mar 25, 2019
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Ablett Jr is the GOAT for me. He's basically Nicky if he had some bollocks and triple the strength
sr36
TheBrownDog
I mean game to game. Gaz's best was the best we'll ever see, but he had games where he just didn't seem particularly interested.
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Lmao been done to death Fudgey, GAJ started slow and ended up one of the best ever. Nicky has started well but his proclivity for squibbing contests and general lack of strength will always hold him back from being one of the best ever
Like a lot of players this century.
Ablett got the Longmire-Heeney treatment early on. Leading Teams (or anyone) could've given him the push from 2004 (50+ goals/assists and serious X factor through midfield when he rotated there). Thompson saw him as a small forward in an era where we lacked firepower but had a number of solid enough midfielders who couldn't go forward. Once he realised we could simply stack the midfield with 6 great rotations and run every team off its feet Ablett's true potential was unlocked.
So while you can say Daicos' first few seasons had Ablett's covered, it is difficult to compare different roles. He was a very good small forward until the coaches decided to move him elsewhere.
- Thread starter
- #8,313
All good, but you can only compare actual output, not 'what ifs'.
GAJ put a pretty handy CV together between 2007 and 2014, so Daicos still has it all to do to be in the same conversation as him, but he's off to a pretty good start.
- Thread starter
- #8,314
Whatever perceived 'lack of strength' GOATcos has is more than compensated for which his speed and evasiveness.
Refer to Exhibit A and Exhibit B - the winner and runner-up for the 2024 Goal of the Year.
And that is excluding the sealer in game 1 against your mob earlier in the season.
- Mar 25, 2019
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GAJ had a few pretty handy goal of the year contenders too if you'd forgotten. He also happened to be just flat out a far more rounded player than Nicky given his ability to win the ball in tight and break through tags on a regular basis (something Nicky has been shown to struggle with)
It's always going to be a tricky one to assess.
The vote inflation I mentioned means there's a very good chance Daicos will end up with more Brownlow/coaches votes. So, fair or not, I think at the least we're going to need to see Daicos match or surpass winning one of the "big 3" awards (Player MVP, Brownlow, Coaches Votes Award) 5 times. Let's face it, Ablett's excellence through that period deserved 4 or 5 Brownlows more in line with his Leigh Matthews Trophy haul, than the 2 he ended up with.
I also think if Ablett wasn't in one of the worst sides in VFL/AFL history that he would've won one of the "Big 3" in 2011. In 2010 he had one of his best years statistically but for whatever reason his vote tallies came out lower than expected. Summarising, all 8 of those seasons he was arguably the best player in the league - at least top 3. His 2010-2012 seasons for instance were as good as 2007-2009 even though they were far less decorated.
6 BnFs is also a fair haul. Yes he benefits on this metric from being in a poor Gold Coast side, but given he was the best player in the league, would it have mattered who was playing alongside him? In other words his 6 BnFs would've basically been a guarantee regardless.
Then of course there's the 8 AAs, but I'm fairly confident with Daicos' strong start he can match or better that.
If Daicos puts together 6+ BnFs, 8+ AAs, 5+ seasons winning one of the "Big 3" awards (including a few where he wins at least 2 of them), 400+ goals, 250+ goal assists, 8000+ disposals, tops the all time Brownlow/coaches votes overall tally (given vote inflation) and a handful of excellent finals series then he is batting at the Ablett table. We won't have any idea if we is on track towards this for at least a few more seasons, no matter the head start.
- Thread starter
- #8,317
Yep, agree with a of that. That's why we can't be binary about how many awards are won/not won - as we both know, you can put together a season that would sweep the Brownlow, MVP and Coaches Award in 9 out of 10 years, but because another player has an 'unprecedented' season in the same year, or because you get injured and miss the last 3 games, you walk away with nothing.
- Thread starter
- #8,318
Tell me a player who has copped more attention from the opposition this year than Nick Daicos, and I'll shake you and get you to wake up...
And yet he's still in the mix for every individual award that is on offer (except the MVP - Reckon Cripps wins that).
Yep exactly. There will never be a perfect way to measure who was the absolute best, especially when comparing between different eras. Fun to at least put cases forward though. It's exciting to think about what Daicos and co from this generation will achieve by the end of their careers, given how many players get off to electric starts these days.
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Breaking news - Good midfielder gets tagged by opposition teams frequently...
What is this 1915??? Been happening forever and a day.
Cripps, Bont, Heeney, Merrett, Neale etc put up with the same attention as Nicky does and still perform, don't see anyone making the claim that that makes them the GOAT
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- #8,321
None of them have copped the same amount of attention as Daicos has this year.
None.
And all of them are prone to quiet days when copping a hard tag.
All of them.
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Do you have some sort of measure for this? Or just your imagination?
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Ablett snr
- Thread starter
- #8,324
How do you measure it, aside from watching a lot of footy?
The other thing is.... what do the five players you've listed above have in common?
I'll help you out....
All are mature players in years 10 or 11 if their careers.
sr36
TheBrownDog
Nick is obviously not at GAJ's peak yet. And agree with you on the tags front. But I don't in terms of winning the ball in tight. Nick doesn't do it through strength and aggression like the macho folk want, but in his first year as a full time mid he's won a heap of clearances at the foot of the ruckmen - as inside a place to win the ball as it gets. It has him 3rd in the league for clearances - only 12 behind Cripps. 40 more than GAJ got in any year of his career.
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