Seriously, seriously under-rated player.
Although obviously not by the much missed @RioliLloydgoal
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They could have (as one of my former coaches instructed us to do in a training drill) “run out in pairs of three”.
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I think you have to assume heights and weights get, somehow, standardised.
So a 190cm ruckman from the 60s is probably stretched out to 200cm in today’s money.
And a 190cm CHB/CHF from the 80s is, say, 195 today.
To do this best ever comparison, you’ve obviously already got the time machine cranking, so what’s a few cm of height between friends?
Otherwise you’ll have the very very stupid conclusion that everyone now is better than everyone in history.
I’ve always thought Dunstall would be better than Lockett in modern footy.
He tackled in the 80s and 90s, when it was basically optional for key forwards.
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In his first game, perhaps.
But wim’s point is that the great players aren’t great by fluke, and come out of the womb fully formed - they train and they learn and they adapt.
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I agree with all of that. But that was then and this is now, and i think the game is more entertaining now and at a higher standard.
I would love to see those guys under the current system though.
I think it’s a no brainer that many champions of the past would still be champions today, albeit some in different positions, given modern training and so on. Also vice versa.
The part that gets me is the number of older people, especially media types, who dismiss out of hand the idea that a current player could be the greatest player. There’s part of it which is perfectly reasonable, there are more past players, it was probably one of them. There’s part of it which is just old people preferring the past (which I fully get and fall into). But there’s also part of it which is exposure. Think about how many people have seen 300 of Ablett Jr’s 340 odd games vs how many saw say 200 of Ablett Sr’s. Not highlights, or the write up in the paper, or radio coverage, but actually watched the game. Think about the games you’ve seen of Jr where he got 30 and a couple of goals for the suns, but he wasn’t really that great, and compare it to the “another dominant 8 goal performance from Ablett today” and thirty seconds of the most outrageous things he did on the nightly wrap up. I have definitely not seen enough of Sr to compare the two, but I’ve seen so much of most modern players it’s impossible for me to reconcile them with the image of these players of the past who get talked about as if they had half a bad quarter a year.
Ditto for the game in general. I watch pretty much every game, every Sunday afternoon slog between 17th and 18th, every boring flogging that gets handed out, every game that could have been good until the rain rolled in. It’s really hard to say that football overall now is good, especially when my team sure hasn’t been for ages. Was it ever otherwise? I don’t know. There’s style differences for sure, but was the bottom two toiling away in the wet ever good?
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What makes a champion is their ability to be better than everyone else at that time. Players like Coleman, Barassi and Hudson would rise above the pack without doubt. Shame I couldn’t see Coleman do that. My father was was a diehard Richmond man who loved Captain Blood and Mopsy Fraser, who would struggle now with replays, but he said Coleman was the best he ever saw.
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I’d be interested to know of the people that have seen both, how many would rate Jr over Sr.
I might be wrong, but I don’t think it would be many.
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Which was kind of my round about point, I think. Everything is different, the best would still be good, they’d just be different
(Interestingly, watching the 1950 GF highlights the other week, I felt I could see how Hutchinson and Reynolds would “translate”, when compared to others on the ground.)
Ablett Senior could do some very freaky things and when he was on was impossible to beat, like in the 1989 GF, where he won the Norm Smith, but Geelong lost.
So I would actually take Junior first, as not only a match winner, but he was there when he was needed, and performed at the highest for much longer, and won two flags.
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They are completely different players.
If I had to rate them I’d lean towards Jr. But it’s hard. If he hadn’t gone to GCS and Geel had 2 more flags it would be easier.
Ablett Sr, on his day, was a freak show, and would probably win the discussion. But Ablett Jr did it week in week out for much longer. Ablett Sr prime FF years were 91-93. Even 89, where his 27 goal finals series drives the memories, was actually a 60 goal H&A season, which was heavily skewed by 1 bag of 14, and then not many times where he kicked >5.
Freak for sure though.
Jnr for me.
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Hmmm… you might as well ask who was the better, Timmy or Jobe…
The two Gary Abletts are/were two very different players. Senior was the most spectacular player I’ve seen (and I’ve been watching footy for nearly 50 years). But if I was to choose one to play for my life, I’d choose Junior. He’s much more reliable.
As to the two Watsons - Tim had lot of great team-mates: TD, Simon Madden, Roger Merrett, Vanda, Daisy Williams, Longy, etc. Jobe often seemed to be carrying the side alone. Jobe was not as spectacular as his dad, but more blue collar, if you get my drift.
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Timmy, without a doubt.
Disclaimer. He once came into the milk Bar at the end of my street when I was about 9 years old, and he may have been the closest thing I’ve ever seen to an actual superhero.
Ablett Jnr is the GOAT.
Judd didn’t do it for long enough
Tim was a class above Jobe - Tim could do everything Jobe could do and was a better kick, had more pace and was more effective forward.
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With no premier league, the West Ham site I go on has been showing old games from the 70s and 80s. Mud, water and characters playing attacking football. Looks the same when you watch old Bomber games.
As for the modern game elite sportsmen playing on manicured grounds to a well drilled routine. Too sanitized I reckon with no characters and a lot less players in both sports that will last in the memory.
Thats an old farkers view anyway 
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