Training 10/1/2018 What really happened

It wasn’t long ago that Scarlett was the greatest full back of all time.
The football community like to make these daft calls to sell news papers and further promote the game.
Once Rance retires Lever will be GOAT.

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Seriously sick of the conversation.
He’s not in the conversation of top three of the last 30 years.
And if we’re talking defenders rather than full backs, probably not even top ten.

If you want to compare him to someone, then start with Talia and Johnson.

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There were few stopagges, little tackling and over possession was rare. The skill level and pressure across the board was nowhere near what it is today. Each era has stuff to recommend it but there are those who will focus on the negatives regardless.

Two points.
It’s difficult for someone who is not an “old timer” to talk about footy they never saw, so who did you expect to talk about the old days?
Secondly 1995 is the old days?
!Seriously young whippersnapper, you’re just asking for a storm of Grampa Simpson Blitz anecdotes.

3rd point:
Sitting there watching the second half of that final slip away after being 5 goals up was not much less painful than '99 against FC.

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When SOS was named FB of the Century (another AFL fop to FCFC) I posted that he wasn’t even FCFC’s best full back let alone the VFL/AFL’s best.

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Crazy that people put Rance up there with the likes of Langford,Fletcher,SOS,Scarlet etc like you said Rance isn’t cloe to be being GOAT.

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Until he is stopped being allowed to hold jumpers, scrag opponents illegally all whilst being an Umpires love child then I will never give Rance any kudos.

Every other defender in the league gets pinned for things that umpires won’t even bat an eyelid at when Rance does the exact same thing.

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Scarlett was significantly better than Rance

I’m probably going to get killed after saying this but I think Rance has already proven a better defender than Fletcher. Fletcher was a rare type of player who was a star most of career and had extraordinary longevity but at the end of the day Fletch was only All-Australian twice in 20 years. I do believe Scarlett was a better defender than Rance is too.

To be fair, he never played on anyone. What did he do other than stop six more goals a game (from his opponent, or others) than the “real” defenders?

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Depends on how you rate AA selection.
It used to be worth a lot, but that was a loooooong time ago.

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Fletcher was criminally underrated by the AA selectors.

He was the best ‘third tall’ in the game for 10+ years, long before they started acknowledging that as a role.

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Yeah, look, I think it’s best if you just hand back in your blitz membership now & go quietly.

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I agree that Fletch was criminally underrated and should have got more AA. While Rance is overrated, if we’re talking pure key position FB then he wins. The beauty with Fletch was not simply his ability as a KPP but that he could do it all - tall, small, KP, 3rd tall, intercepting rebound defender with a deadly long kick.

Yeah, I’m not sure you can even compare Rance to Fletch over one-on-one’s.
It’s a good era to be a backman.

Who Johnson?

Any random bloke named Johnson.

Fletcher won the best and fairest in 2000, arguably the greatest season a side has ever played. That is a good indication of just how great he was, particularly given Lloyd kicked 100 goals that year.

As others have said Fletcher did not get much love from selectors or afl.

He redefined attacking defender, and could set up an attack in an instant with a perfect 60m pass .Lets not forget his go go gadget arms that saved numerous goals.

Rance is a gun, but like Silvagni before him gets away with scragging like you would not believe, which any other defender would be pinged for.

In his younger days fletch beat the best FFs it was only later in his career he went to the 3rd tall role and played on smalls.

IMHO Fletch is the greatest FB of all time, he stopped some of the best FFs in history. He was a pioneer of being an attacking defender using his sublime kicking to set up plays long before the role was really defined. He had a versatility only modern players can match. And he was almost never beaten one on one.

He has them all on almost every front.

  • Reading the play
  • defending one on one
  • ability to spoil from anywhere
  • attacking

The only area I think any could challenge is his intercept marking, he was ok but it’s where Rance really has it over a lot of players.

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