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.
4. Jeff Farmer - 2000 Preliminary Final
16 disposals, 13 kicks, four marks, three handballs, four tackles and 8.1
Despite playing in the millennium year's finals series with a broken rib, the 'Wizard', Jeffery Farmer, was on a rampage in 2000 after finishing the home-and-away season with 65 goals.
Farmer, taught opponent and future Norm Smith Medalist Byron Pickett a lesson in mercurial goal-kicking, on his way to five majors at half-time. The deadeyed goalsneak then kicked his eighth and final goal in the last quarter - a period that also saw Craig Sholl kick four-goals in his last quarter of footy.