AFL top 100: Star Blue leaps the barrier

Carlton are the club with the highest bar to entry into the top 100 goal kickers of all the 18 clubs.

Before this weekend they had only one current member on the elite list. They now have two.

Charlie Curnow, with five goals in Round 5 against the fast-finishing Port Adelaide, not only cleared the bar but rose to 97th on Carlton’s all-time top 100 goal kickers list, leaving in his wake five champion players of the past.

Sitting in the hot seat but in 99th position were Ross Ditchburn, Viv Valentine and Keith Warburton, all on 91 goals.

As a result of Curnow’s achievements, these three players from three different eras have now all slipped into the even more precarious spot of equal 100th.

(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

Equal 98th on 92 goals are Charlie McInnes, who was 19th man in the 1938 premiership in his first year and 19th man again in the 1945 premiership, and Brent Crosswell.

Not to be outdone, Harry McKay kicked three goals and took his total to 141 goals, passing on the way Paul Meldrum, Harvey Dunn and two 21st century champions Kade Simpson and Andrew Walker.

Meanwhile, Fremantle’s Matthew Taberner – who took a while to establish himself – was the star of the round with seven goals.

He claimed a big scalp. Tony Modra, in his three years (1999-2001) at Fremantle after his time at Adelaide, kicked 148 goals for the Dockers.

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And prior to Taberner’s bag on the weekend, he was the club’s 11th greatest goal kicker. Taberner would now be eyeing off a top-ten spot with teammate David ‘Barra’ Mundy only four goals ahead now.

At Collingwood, two pieces of trivia excited my small mind. Jordan de Goey scored four goals and moved ahead of former Magpie Craig Starcevich while playing against his son, Brandon Starcevich, at the Gabba.

Starcevich senior is also coach of Brisbane’s AFL women’s team.

The second (even more remote) piece of trivia is that in the round where Carlton’s Charlie McInnes’ goal-kicking ranking dropped, Collingwood’s Reef McInnes kicked his first (and second) goal in AFL football.

Other debutants to break their duck were Marcus Adams (Brisbane) and Finn Callaghan, who scored a goal in his first game for Greater Western Sydney.

Peter Ladhams scored his first goal since being at Sydney and Jeremy Finlayson scored his first goal at Port Adelaide.

Essendon, Port Adelaide and Brisbane all added a new recruit to their ranks with Ben Hobbs, Sam Hayes and Kai Lohmann all making their debut respectively.

At St Kilda, Jade Gresham celebrated his 100th game by kicking two goals to bring his tally to 107. He equalled the total of Fred Phillips, who played for the Saints from 1924 to 1933 and had the nickname ‘Flops’.

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

He suffered from a hair lip and the story was told of the time he captained a St Kilda side and merely grunted when tossing the coin.

The opposing captain was too embarrassed to question the call and let Phillips signal the direction his team was going to kick!

In the final game of the round on Monday, Hawthorn caused an upset by coming back and beating Geelong after leading.

This now traditional game featured four of the top 100 goal kickers of all time and all kicked at least two goals but were upstaged by Hawthorn’s Dylan Moore, who kicked four goals.

Tom Hawkins’ three goals took him to level with the great Bob Pratt, still Sydney/South Melbourne’s greatest goal scorer of all time.

Jeremy Cameron kicked his 50th goal for Geelong, Luke Breust kicked his 450th for Hawthorn and Mitch Lewis kicked three goals to sneak into the top 100 goal kickers at Hawthorn. 

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