Greatest Essendon Team of Alll

Football Discussion Stargazer Memorial EFC History Board
21

I’m not even going to attempt this. It’d be a nightmare and I’d inevitably leave out guys that I have never seen play that absolutely deserve a spot.

However, if there’s one thing I’d like to see on this kind of team, it’s Norm McDonald named in some capacity.

First indigenous player for EFC
First indigenous player to reach 100 VFL games
2 X premiership player
Crichton medallist
Indigenous team of the century

One of the most significant players in EFC history. If he doesn’t deserve a place, I’m not sure who does.

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22

What a modern outlook on things…Lloyd to FF because he kicked more goals???

Just a few quotes from Coleman’s wiki page to give you a bit more detail so you can reconsider your decision:

Coleman has the second-highest goal average in the history of the VFL/AFL.

Coleman kicked 537 goals in just 98 appearances, at an average of 5.48 goals per game.

In 1996 he was one of 12 inaugural Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees bestowed Legend status.

He is the only player amongst them to have played less than 100 games at senior level.

People moved from one end of the ground to the other just so they could watch him up close.

And finally, he was voted Number 2 on the list of all time Champions of Essendon

Lloyd ahead of Coleman…what a farking joke

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23

Well… let’s have a bit of a think about it.

Coleman started at the age of 21 and played 98 games.

Lloyd was pretty quiet in his first couple of seasons but started to come into form in 1997 at the age of 20

In the four seasons between 1997 and 2000, Lloyd

  • played 90 games
  • kicked 609 goals
  • at an average of 6.76 goals per game
  • won a premiership
  • made three All Australian teams

Not a bad run

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24

I’m not arguing about Lloyd’s overall ability…he’s just not in the same conversation as Coleman.

Coleman played in an age where he got belted on a regular basis…Lloyd played in an era where forwards were quite protected compared to Coleman’s era.

Coleman won 2 premierships

As previously stated by @redbull, Coleman has the goal kicking award named after him.

But I’m happy for us to agree to disagree

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25

Yeah don’t disagree with any of that, just think that Lloyd’s career, particularly early on, was underrated and up there with any of the full forwards in history. While Lloydy didn’t have to deal with the same level of physicality, the last 6-7 years of his career were played in a really challenging tactical era where there was lots of flooding and blocking and forward lines were super crowded.

I think you could play Coleman in a pocket and he’d still sit on blokes heads whereas Lloyd was the quintessential full forward who played his best footy leading out from the goal square.

Squeezing them both in is a good problem to have!

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26

Does @ivan realise this best 22 thread exists?

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27

Fletcher, Salmon, Mercuri and the underrated Merv Neagle worth considering.

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28

Yes indeed — but you’d have to drop either Barry Davis or Hal Lambert for Norm. Bye-bye Barry ?

29

Not necessarily. Could always drop one of the interchange guys. Hell, we could even just add a med-sub these days!

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30

Geez, that’s bonkers numbers.

Wow.

You could push that timeframe forward one year, (98-01) and it’d be even more ridiculous.

I’d still put Coleman at Full Forward, but that’s a great reminder just how criminally underrated Lloyd’s career is.

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31

When you watched Graham Moss you saw someone who was the best ruckman the game had seen in quite a while by a significant margin. When the Brownlow was a ruckman’s award he finished top 5 or thereabouts in the Brownlow in each his four seasons (?) at EFC. His 13/13/13 and 5 goals against Melbourne at the G was like watching Max Gawn’s third quarter in the Prelim for an entire match.

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32

No.
He didn’t.
And you’re certainly not going to make Stats Team of the Century.

Unless you can make 63, 70, 87 & 109 add up to 609.
And for reference his best was 2001 at 5 goals a game.

Edit; a reference. Don’t know where your numbers came from
https://afltables.com/afl/stats/players/M/Matthew_Lloyd0.html

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33

good research, I did feel it was high but gave it a like.

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2006 could have been a good season if he didn’t get injured. And he likely would have got to 1000

34

Hehe indeed… weird, I just pumped the AFL tables data into excel, must have ■■■■■■ up

35

You could argue that Lloyd kicked goals in the golden era for forwards. Unfair comparing forwards from different era’s. There is no way any of the forwards from the 80’s and 90’s would have kicked as many goals these days. Buddy is an example of this.

Game is far more defensive these days. They are all still great players, but you can’t compare.

36

I did think that 6.76 goals a game was a bit insane, but I trust Andrewb.

Look where that trust got me.

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37

So averaged 150 goals a season in those 4 years?!
:laughing: ok!

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38

He lied to us through stats!

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39

It is an utter travesty that the antiquated and way too sensitive word filter on this forum censors the name of our greatest ever player.

Come in Admin….time to cut such PC rubbish. I think if it’s ok for the F word and the C word to be used on standard TV shows we can all live with the D word

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40

Some people are still very triggered by the Joe *aniher word.