With the names of our offensive and defensive trios already on the whiteboard, it is now time to list the men that link the two together โ the midfielders.
Due to their aerobic and ball winning capacities, modern midfielders receive plaudits and pay packets far beyond their part-time predecessors.
These players at the coalface are regularly seen as their club's blue-chip talent, with their output integral to securing victory.
Like the previous pair of catalogues, the same four rules for selection apply for our third and final list:
1. Three players must be selected from each club.
2. Even if they have played for multiple clubs, no player can be selected on the list of two teams.
3. All players must have played at least a portion of their careers from 1990 onwards.
4. Most importantly, no player can have played an in-season match with any of their colleagues during their time at their selected club.
To up the ante, we have also added a fifth point of criteria: aย ruckman must also be selected for each team.
For example, should Brodie Grundy be selected for Collingwood, then all of his midfield mates between 2013 and the present day become ineligible.
With all this in mind, here is our best stab.
Let us know how we have gone and which clubs you feel have fared best.
Collingwood
Darren Millane โ 1984-1991 (147 games)
Despite his career and life being tragically cut short at just 26, Darren Millane left a lasting legacy at the Collingwood Football Club.
In just 147 games in black and white, Millane made a name for himself on a wing at Victoria Park by winning the club's best and fairest award in 1987 and a league MVP in 1990.
It was in this latter season that Millane reached his peak, with an average of 25.3 disposals per game and a place in Collingwood's drought breaking Premiership side.
In June 1997, Millane was posthumously named in Collingwood's Team of the Century. Befittingly for the late great, it was on the wing.
Nathan Buckley โ 1994-2007 (260 games)
Those of you with sound powers of deduction would have figured something out by now โ Scott Pendlebury has missed selection.
As blasphemous as this may seem, it was necessary to fit both of the remaining two superstars in.
Although there is a debate worth having over who Collingwood's greatest modern mid is, we have chosen Nathan Buckley to fill the Pies' second slot.
With seven All-Australians, six Copeland trophies, a Rising star award, a Brownlow, a Norm Smith, a position in the Magpies' Team of the Century and a place in his club's and the game's Hall of Fame to his name, Despite never winning a flag like โPendles', Buckley's credentials are more than worthy of making our list.
Brodie Grundy โ 2013-Present (151 games)
Filling the third and final position on our list is one of Buckley's conventicle of contemporary Collingwood stars โ Brodie Grundy.
With incredible numbers recorded over a handful of seasons, Grundy is without doubt one of the game's premier ruckmen.
The man-bunned maestro's current peak came across the 2018 and 2019 seasons, in which he registered 2060 hit outs at an average of 41.2 per game and in turn became the sole player in league history to win north of 1000 contests in multiple years.
Grundy also averaged an obscene 21.29 disposals and 6.08 clearances across his 24 appearances in 2019.
Due to this statistical supremacy, nobody was surprised when Grundy won All-Australian honours and Collingwood's Copeland Trophy in both seasons.
Despite a lean year, by his standards, in 2020, betting on the South Australian tall to bounce back this year should come with short odds.
