Bontempelli remains on the podium for the unofficial title of the game’s best player, which really should be like the golf rankings, which are done over two or three years, rather than one.
The remaining automatics in the 23 are Carlton’s Charlie Curnow, the competition’s premier key forward again thus far this year (the equal leader in the Coleman Medal to round 12), while Adelaide’s lightning-quick match winner Izak Rankine is selected alongside centre half-forward Curnow on a forward flank. Swan Nick Blakey, a potent running defender and weapon in the AFL’s best team, is another whose selection should be uncontroversial.
Of the remaining 15 picked in my team, six could be considered usual suspects or A-plus performers who are recognised guns: Defenders Tom Stewart and Harris Andrews, midfielder and sometimes forward Christian Petracca, Blues skipper Patrick Cripps, Port’s dynamo Zak Butters and Essendon’s architect and ultra-professional Zach Merrett. The latter has been named as sub in this team, on the basis that he’s the next midfielder.
Stewart has been tagged this year and curbed to some extent, but remains better than his counterparts at rival clubs in that role of interception machine and set-up defender. Andrews has been excellent in an up-and-down Lions outfit and has the edge – to this stage – over his usual competitors, Darcy Moore, Jeremy McGovern, Jacob Weitering and May.
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Petracca is picked at high half-forward, Butters is a midfielder on the bench and Cripps was selected, in one of the close calls, over Gold Coast bull Matt Rowell, the Carlton captain having taken on the younger inside mid and prevailed head-to-head; further, Cripps has exerted dominance in the key moments for the Blues.
Eight undisputed, six that are familiar figures and proven A-plus players, which leaves another nine upstarts or less-familiar footballers, who have elevated their performances. A few of them will raise eyebrows and I do not expect all nine to be in the All-Australian team at season’s end.
The upstarts are: Freo defenders Jordan Clark (back pocket) and Luke Ryan (half-back flank), Gold Coast key back Sam Collins (centre half-back), Hawthorn’s sharp small forward Dylan Moore (forward pocket), Geelong’s wing/half-back/midfielder Max Holmes (wing), Sydney’s ballistic mid Chad Warner (interchange), the remarkably improved West Coast forward Jake Waterman (forward pocket), Essendon’s undersold version of Waterman in Kyle Langford (interchange) and then the prodigal son of key forwards, Hogan.
Of that group, only Ryan has made All-Australian before, in 2020. Warner’s selection is hardly contentious, given his impact in Sydney’s victories lately.
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Waterman was viewed as slightly ahead of Langford. Both are capable of playing as a peripheral tall or medium forward, rather than as a pack-crashing key forward; the former’s ascension, aged 26, has been astounding.
Fans will find fault, doubtless, and have their favourites whose form arguably warranted a place in the 23.
McKay, Rowell and Fremantle’s Caleb Serong were unfortunate to miss this hypothetical team, as were key backs Alex Pearce (Fremantle), McGovern and to a lesser extent Moore. Carlton’s Sam Walsh was injured for the early rounds and is gaining ground.
It is a team divided between perennial performers at the elite level, and those who’ve discovered the best version of themselves, headed by Hogan and Waterman, whose seasons bring to mind the homily attributed to the novelist George Eliot: “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”