One great finals game is all it can take see your name etched amongst the greatest to pull on the boots.
Max Gawnโs performance last Friday against Geelong is one of these performances. Honestly, I was shocked he didnโt crack the double ton on Supercoach.
19 disposals, five goals, six tackles 33 hit-outs and five clearances is a stat line any ruckman would give their left leg for.
'Big Maxyโs prelim' performance left me pondering some of the greatest acts seen over the last 50 years.
Excluding Grand Finals and brilliant quarters such as Nick Davis โCome to Savisโ and Anthony Koutoufidies' efforts in '99, I have narrowed down a top 10 of individual games that will go down in the annals of Australian rules history.
5. Andrew McLeod - 1998 Preliminary Final
19 disposals, 13 kicks, four marks, six handballs, three clearances and 7.0
There were shades of the Dogs' 2016 and 2021 campaigns in this one, as the Adelaide Crows were squeezed out of the top four by Melbourne and Sydney dropping late games to North Melbourne.
Up until 1998, no side had won a Premiership from outside the top four and Adelaide started off disastrously, losing their first final to Melbourne by 48-points at the MCG.
A Semi Final trip to Sydney was next, and the Crows beat the Swans by 27-points, before the reigning Norm Smith Medalist, Andrew McLeod, put on a clinic in the Preliminary Final at the MCG.
Dragging his tagger Tony Liberatore forward, McLeod had 19 disposals and kicked seven goals. The following week, the Crows - who had been on the road for the last five weeks - knocked off the wasteful North in the Grand Final to be the first side in history to win the flag without a double-chance.
