Dermott Brereton: My favourite players to watch, then and now
Dermott Brereton idolised “Fabulous” Phil Carman and the Hawthorn legend can see comparisons between Charlie Curnow and the Collingwood best-and-fairest winner.
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An old cricket coach once said to me: “I would prefer to watch a classic 40 runs from
Greg Chappell rather than a fighting ton by his brother Ian”.
It took me a while to understand what my coach meant.
But when the penny dropped, it was all about the glorious joy of watching sportsman that create art.
For football fans it could be Lance Franklin veering onto his left leg and bombing a goal from outside 50.
Or it could be Dusty Martin landing a dirty big fend off before piercing the ball inside 50
and onto a teammate’s chest.
And, of course, every football follower just loves to see their team win.
But the one thing I love seeing above all else is a perfectly balanced overhead mark.
To see a player float with hang time, mark the ball and land back on his feet in a perfectly balanced state is footballing purity.
Since I watched my first game of local football as a seven-year-old at Bruce Park in Frankston, I was captivated by overhead marking.
As a kid I loved watching Royce Hart play.
He had an ability to float across the front of a pack and mark the ball while displaying hang time, courage and pure balance.
A half era later, I saw my idol “Fabulous” Phil Carman in his first season at Collingwood.
The thing that struck me about Phil was his rare balance even when fatigued.
He was an elite endurance athlete who could launch for a mark at the end of a gut-busting run backwards and forwards across the field and still maintain his balance on landing.
Of course a mark on the lead and an eventual goal reads the same in every scorebook.
But some are a little more agricultural than others.
Some forwards sprint to the drop of the ball and power through the mark — they don’t jump and float.
History will show that Peter Hudson was an all time great, kicking an equal record of
150 goals in one a seasons.
But to the football perfectionist or purist, Hudson was clunky to watch.
While he was one of the greatest players we have ever known, he did not have a style kids would aspire to. Not like Hart or Carman.
LOCKETT, DUNSTALL OR ABLETT?
There are other comparisons — Tony Lockett was all power, Jason Dunstall was a
process, but Gary Ablett Sr was art.
Lockett would lead out and if he didn’t mark it on his chest he would mark it in his
hands out front.
But because he was so big and powerful, he lacked a little subtlety in his hands.
More often than not he would mark on a second grab because his hands were so hard on the first touch.
But as we know he got the job done more than a thousand times.
Piggy Dunstall was all process. He had a blitz lead over 25m and a vice like grip to any ball that came in below his hairline.
He was one of those players that would pick the line of the ball, the drop, calculate the pace and then run through the action of taking the mark on the lead.
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Anyone that was anywhere near him for speed could not match him in a side-on test of strength.
Ablett was raw power and pure talent.
He could sprint away from his trailing defender and then spring for a mark as if he were playing kick-to-kick and totally free from fatigue.
I know Gazza jumped on people’s shoulders to take theatrical marks, but I he was at his most aesthetically pleasing when he had no need to jump on someone’s back.
Because when he did try for the screamer it would end up with him on the ground and unable to play on.
TODAY’S STARS
Of the current crop of players, Jeremy Cameron and Charlie Curnow are the best to watch.
Cameron takes his opponents on angled leads that allow him to jump at the footy.
He will always try and mark the ball in front of his chin — even when it comes in low he drops his body accordingly.
When it is over his head, he’ll leap to take the ball at face height.
He is having a wonderful season and it is evident that this season he is backing himself
to win the ball in the air much more than ever before.
The other player is another one of my current day favourites Charlie Curnow.
Like Carman, Curnow can drill run his opponent to exhaustion and then still launch at the ball, displaying hang time and balance.
Maybe some others might challenge him for running power, but they don’t launch like he does.
The others that do launch at the ball like Curnow does, don’t have the tank yet.
Aaron Naughton is wonderful to watch and when the play is un folding for him we have
clear evidence that he is going to be a star.
But he still needs to build his tank to the same level as Curnow.
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Originally published as Dermott Brereton: My favourite players to watch, then and now
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