Alex Rance is the best defender in the game right now but is he the best full-back of all-time?
RICHMOND star Alex Rance is the best defender in the game right now and is on track for All-Australian honours again but where does he rank among the best full-backs of all-time? HAVE YOUR SAY
Jon Ralph
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THE SURPRISE wasn’t that Richmond lost another nailbiter this weekend — that’s just what the Tigers do.
It was that the big bloke in the number 18 jumper didn’t get Richmond out of jail again.
Alex Rance had done all he could to haul Richmond over the line as the game’s defining moment arrived.
IS ALEX RANCE THE BEST FULL-BACK OF ALL-TIME? HAVE YOUR SAY BELOW
Yet instead of Rance’s booming spoil it was GWS tall Phil Davis whose punch over the back of the pack eventually found Jeremy Cameron.
So yet against Richmond’s torturous road through this AFL season overshadowed a truly great game from the game’s best full-back.
Barring injury he will be an All-Australian for the fourth year in a row in a career that is becoming truly phenomenal.
He is clearly the best defender in the game but is he the best full-back ever?
This year, like many before, he has showcased his entire arsenal of defensive abilities.
He ranks first in spoils for defenders, second in intercept marks (to Jake Lever, often zoning off inferior opponents), has the most intercept possessions and the second-best kick rating.
It is the full package, enough for Essendon great Dustin Fletcher to believe he is up there as the best defender of all-time.
“I have got no doubt. He is well and truly in the conversation. He is that player you just love watching and he has an impact on games,’’ he told the Herald Sun on Tuesday.
“If he’s not there yet he is heading in the right direction to be in the top couple.
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“From what he has already done so far, he is a great. Watching him he has got that closing speed to go with his man and spoil.
“But he is usually the first to follow up as well. When I show vision of kids that I coach it’s not just his first effort spoiling, it’s that he is the first one back on the ball to make an impact on the play.
“A lot of the time you see full-backs who want to punch it and get it out of the area and get ready to do it again.”
Fletcher knows a bit about longevity as a 400-gamer but says Rance’s period of excellence qualifies him as a true great.
It’s not a term to throw about lightly.
Steven Silvagni is full-back in the Team of the Century, with North Melbourne’s David Dench and Carlton’s Geoff Southby in the conversation.
Collingwood’s Jack Regan was known as the “Prince of Full-backs”, while Matthew Scarlett’s six All-Australian trophies speak for themselves.
Richmond great Kevin Bartlett, a long-time Hall of Fame selector, says Rance only needs longevity to be up with those players.
“He is an extraordinary full-back,” Bartlett said. “I haven’t seen better at Richmond. He has this marvellous ability to beat his man and then beat everyone else’s man too.
“He has this ability to defend and attack virtually at the same time, because he never waits for his man to initiate the move.
“He has only played 150 games but if you think about Silvagni and Dench and Southby and Scarlett, he is on a course to be alongside those players.”
Only a handful of current players can claim to be the best ever in their position.
Corey Enright retired last year as perhaps the greatest small defender and Lance Franklin is at least in the conversation as the best mobile tall forward.
Rance might be gone by the time his contract expires in 2019, so amid the wailing and desolation Richmond fans should enjoy him while they can.
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