Throughout the final years of the 1990s, AFL clubs across the land looked backward rather than forward, with selectors, historians and superstars converging to name their Teams of the 20th Century.
So, as we near the quarter-time mark of the 21st century, what better time to run the rule on which players are likely to feature when the selectors of tomorrow get together in several decades' time?
While every club has an array of deadset legends that can be called on, we here at Zero Hanger have employed the following rules of selection:
- Only statistics recorded and achievements accrued since the start of the 2000 AFL season will be acknowledged.
- All statistics and awards must have been accrued while playing for the club in question.
- Any player selected must have played at least 100 senior games for their respective club since the start of the 2000 AFL season.
Next up, we he to Arden Street to separate the the wheat from the Roos' chaff.
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3. Todd Goldstein (2008-2023)
1 x best and fairest (2015)
1 x All-Australian (2015)
315 games, 31.2 hitouts per game
Scan the ever-widening V/AFL history books and you will find that no player in the history of the competition with more hitouts than Goldstein.
Originally brought through the door with the 37th pick of the 2006 AFL Draft, Goldstein developed into an absolute dynamo at stoppages, becoming the first player with more than 1000 hitouts in a single season, a marker he beat during his sole All-Australian season in 2015.
While no longer a part of the Roos' huddle, Goldstein's name will be impossible to avoid mentioning when tomorrow's historians converge to update North's own annals.
