Footy’s Five best Forward Lines

Footy’s Five best Forward Lines

GuyWhoLikesSport

I’ve been thinking a lot about how forward lines have changed recently.

As footy has evolved it has moved away from alpha dog, power forwards in the mould of Franklin or Fevola. That’s not to say that we have none, we just have fewer.

In their place we have a wide array of second banana key forwards who are helped or hindered more by their midfield, delivery, and the non-key forward forwards.

The non-keys are just as important in the modern game, as well, given the emphasis on pressure, forward half turnover, and run.

Forward lines have gone the way of movie stars. They’re shrinking.

We used to have big burly guys like Brad Pitt, who carried a genuine physicality and menace with them (especially to Angelina as we’re finding out), but now we’re stuck with wispy Chalamet types.

There’s still space for the big guys, teams are just better at working around not having them.

Is this column just me asking what ever happened to Gary Cooper? The Strong, silent type.

Maybe, but I’m writing it anyway.

1. GWS Giants

GWS’ forward line is like Glen Powell. Reason to hope.

To hope that the future can at least slightly resemble the past, with movie stars who aren’t skinny 5’3 guys who wouldn’t bust a grape in a fruit fight and key forwards stars who can work in a decidedly modern forward line.

Their alpha is Jesse Hogan, who is playing career-best football and is currently sitting second in the Coleman medal race. He’s a straight-kicking, big-marking key forward with the fourth-best set shot rating among all forwards who have taken more than 30 shots.

Next to Hogan is a cavalcade of interesting second-banana key forward types that define most of the rest of the league.

Callum Brown is one of the better athletes in modern football and possibly my favourite active player, the way he moves is eye-catching.

I feel like Martha from Baby Reindeer with the amount that I have written about Brown, but I can’t help it (Sent from my iPhone).

Beyond Brown, there’s also Jake Ricciardi and Aaron Cadman who provide different elements to Brown and Hogan.

Then there’s the bevvy of smalls like Toby Greene, Brent Daniels, and Toby Bedford as well as newer additions like Harvey Thomas.

Greene, while not playing well, is clearly the best player in the forward line.

Among the group of smalls, Bedford is clearly the best pressure player while Daniels and Greene are the most creative.

Greene and Daniels are both in the top 5 for goal assists among players who played more than seven games.

Nobody in football kicks more goals than GWS and nobody is more efficient at turning their inside 50s into goals.

But it’s more than that.

They are so varied with every player so perfectly complementing his teammate, with two crown jewels in the form of Hogan and Greene.

2. Carlton

The Blues are less varied than GWS.

They’re basically defined by two players; Charlie Curnow and Harry McKay.

They are 1 and 2, respectively, for total shots in the league and are 1 and 4 in goals.

With the lull in form from Hawkins, this is the best key forward duo in footy and it isn’t close.

What they lack is the variation thereafter.

Tom De Koning has been an effective third forward, but they lack smalls on the level of Greene, Daniels or even Bedford given that Lachie Fogarty has barely played.

Cottrell is in and out of the forward line but should be permanently in it, Elijah Hollands doesn’t have enough skins on the wall but has played well this season, and nobody is mistaken Matt Owies or Corey “Tyler” Durdin for Toby Greene.

The Blues are top-heavy as a forward line a third of the way into the season, but the top is so heavy that they are the third heaviest goal-kicking team in the league and top in expected score.

Don’t get hipster with this, they have to be second.

3. Geelong

The two greatest curses in sports history are the Curse of the Bambino, then the one I put on Jeremy Cameron last week. I promise not to write about him again.

Tom Hawkins has also gone goalless over the last month and looks finally like his age has caught up with him, averaging his fewest shots since 2011 and his lowest score involvement percentage.

(The good news is Nathan Buckley has zero concerns. Zero? Not even one, Nathan?)

Why are they still this high?

They’re fourth in goals, fifth in goals per inside 50, and they’re one of only three teams who are top-6 in each of scores from stoppage, turnover, and the defensive half.

Newly minted stars like Ollie Henry and Gryan Miers and resurgent stars like Tyson Stengle largely pick up the slack for Geelong as older stars start to dwindle.

Geelong is ensuring that there will be no black hole when one of their stars explode (little Oppenheimer joke for the people).

The revolution is being televised in Geelong.

I do wonder if I have them too high given how much they struggled against Melbourne’s dominant defence, but in general I won’t let one bad game dominate my entire opinion of the best performed club over the first 7 rounds.

4. Sydney

By sheer weight of numbers, Sydney is probably second and maybe first.

They score heavily, shoot a lot, are efficient and have beaten the number-one team.

Why are they fourth?

In my view, their dominance is a product of part-time forwards and incredible delivery which props up a forward line of second and third bananas.

Players like Joel Amartey, Logan McDonald and Hayden McLean on a bad team are probably closer to giving you Anthony Caminiti output at the best of times, but on this Sydney team they all look excellent.

This is mostly a product of great delivery. Sydney, like Ariana Grande, loves to switch angles and find the optimal path to ecstasy (getting a high-quality shot).

They constantly change the angle of attack with quick ball movement by foot and all of a sudden a pocket has opened up for Joel Amartey to lead into.

They do have stay-at-home forwards like Tom Papley and especially Will Hayward who are elite at their game, but that’s not what their forward dominance is built on.

There’s a reason Sydney is the only club averaging over nine goal-kickers per game (9.6), everybody gets in on the goal-kicking action, not just the forwards.

Sydney is the best-scoring team in football, but they’re the fourth-best forward line.

5. Western Bulldogs

I don’t believe it either.

Truly, I don’t.

In hindsight I should have written a top-4, but that would have been kind of a weird number and I’ve already stolen enough from Bill Simmons.

The Bulldogs actually do have good personnel up forward on paper, Aaron Naughton has been a good player in the past.

Though his career-best goal kicking season in 2022 of 2.32 goals per game would be the tenth best goal-kicking season of Jeremy Cameron’s career, so it might be fair to ask how good of a forward is he really.

They also have keys like Jamarra Ugle-Hagan and the oncoming Sam Darcy who provide reason for optimism heading into the future.

Next to them, their only reliable small forward is Cody Weightman, but he has only played 7 games this season.

The Bulldogs are an Apple TV show.

Big names producing mediocre work.

Why are they fourth? Who else are you going to pick?

Brisbane who has to pick Eric Hipwood every week, who is the rare player who is almost an almost player Collingwood who famously won a premiership without a forward line and thought Lachie Shultz was the answer?

Melbourne who can’t win because they don’t have one?

Really, there are four good forward lines in the AFL, and they correspond to the four best teams.

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