A New Golden Age of Key Forwards

A New Golden Age of Key Forwards

GuyWhoLikesSport

Watching Riley Thilthorpe physically define The Showdown on Saturday night, I thought back to 40 Year-Old-Virgin.

Before its 2005 release, the biggest comedies invariably involved A listers in their primes ā€“ Ā Adam Sandler or Ben Stiller Ā ā€“ paired with legends like Jack Nicholson or Robert De Niro.

The question at the time was simple: where is the next generation?

It arrived with The 40-Year-Old-Virgin.

Steve Carell had just started on The Office so he was on a rocket ship, but that film had the following then relatively fresh faces involved in it: Kevin Hart, Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Kat Dennings, Jonah Hill, Mindy Kaling, and Stormy Daniels.

The next 20 years of comedy starsā€”and countless late-night monologuesā€”came from that film.

This season is the key forwardā€™s 40-Year Old Virgin moment.

Iā€™m not talking about the Logan Morris typesā€”those agile, key forwards who reflect where the gameā€™s headed – Iā€™m talking about the big men.

The blokes that could have appeared next to Arnie in Predator and not looked out of place.

The guys that get Jonathon Brown excited.

Heading into the year, I feared they were dying out.

As I saw it, we entered the year with two generations of key forwards.

After them we had a group that seemed more emblematic of the end of something than the start.

Generation One: The Elders (29+).

This group took the torch from Buddy Franklin, Tom Hawkins, and Jack Riewoldt, who themselves followed Matthew Richardson, Nick Riewoldt, and Jono Brown.

Now? Just two names: Jesse Hogan and Jeremy Cameron.

Generation Two: In their prime (25-29)

Charlie Curnow, Harry McKay, Nick Larkey, Ben King, Aaron Naughton, Jake Waterman, and Darcy Fogarty.

Heading into the year, the only bona fide superstar at the level of Cameron or Hogan was Charlie Curnow, and he had two offseason surgeries.

Generation Three: Where are you? (Under 25)

Coming into the year there was just one guy that you knew would be good ā€“ Josh Treacy.

Other than him, it was full of projects.

The projects were the gangly but talented Sam Darcy, the oft-injured Riley Thilthorpe, as well as Aaron Cadman, Jacob van Rooyen, and Jed Walter among a few others.

This year, Generations Two and Three have taken big steps.

In Gen Two, King is leading the Coleman and has emerged as a genuine star.

Fogarty has become one of the leagueā€™s best link-up forwardsā€”a Tex Walker clone who kills you with his kicking either for goal or around the ground.

The real excitement, though, is Gen Three.

Like Paul Bremer said when the U.S. captured Saddam Hussein, ladies and gentlemen we got [them].

With Sam Darcy and Riley Thilthorpe, we have the guys to take key forward play into the next decade.

Among all key forwards, they are the two highest rated in the AFL, both top-5 in score involvements and top-10 in goal per game average.

These guys impact scoring in an uncommon way.

Theyā€™re so good, they might force defences to change.

Forward lines in general have gone the way of movie stars and generally gotten smaller. Thereā€™s a lot more Chalamets than Glenn Powells around.

St. Kilda, currently built around Mitchito Owens at 191cm, is the most extreme example and theyā€™re getting by.

Defences, other than Fremantle, have pretty much followed suit so they donā€™t get destroyed by chaotic entries and ground balls inside 50.

Thilthorpe and Darcy can punish that.

In The Showdown, Thilthorpe ragdolled defenders who were frankly too small and too weak for him time and again.

He was like Sonny beating up Carlo.

Adelaide in general was excellent at that on Saturday night. With Fogarty, Thilthorpe, and Walker there isnā€™t a defence in footy that can match up.

Every time they entered 50, they knew they would have a mismatch with whoever Lachie Jones was forced to play on.

They were like the kid with the magnifying glass burning an ant. Jones was the ant.

What happened in The Showdown will happen more often when there are forwards that can punish smaller defenders.

Given how small defences have become over the last 5 years, the idea that Logan Morris is the new archetype feels misguided.

If defences are getting smaller, go bigger and punish them.

GWS and Hogan did it on Sunday arvo against a smaller Geelong defence.

If Iā€™m right and thatā€™s how footy goes ā€“ good.

The big key forward is what makes our game go.

Footy is better with star key forwards.

Crowds get louder and the energy lifts when heā€™s around the ball.

When you have one of ā€œthose guysā€, you feel like youā€™re in every game as a fan because one guy that can get so hot that he wins a game on his own.
But theyā€™re also a flawed species. So many of them struggle with their kicking.

You see this brilliant juxtaposition of a chest-puffed-out alpha dog who has just ragdolled some poor bastard half his size to take a mark.

Then that same guyā€™s entire demeanour changes once heā€™s done half of his job and he is just as nervous as everyone else for how his kick is going to go.

As a fan, no player is easier to relate to than a key forwardā€”they’re so human.

It will be good to have more of them.