I’m 29 years old, born in 1996.
My first real football memory, as a Richmond fan, is Richo kicking 10 against the Dogs in 2004.
That’s closely followed by Richo getting pinged for the newly introduced hands in the back to rob us of a Dreamtime win in yet another shit season.
Based on that, I reckon my football consciousness started in around 2005.
In that 20 years, Nathan Fyfe is the single best contested player I have ever seen, and I am sad to know that I’ll never see him in the heart of the contest again.
In his pomp, he was a bull and every opposition team was a china shop, he was a game wrecker.
His numbers bear that out, even with numerous seasons severely impacted by injury, Fyfe had 11 consecutive seasons (2011-21) where he averaged at least 12 contested possessions per season, including two with over 17.
For six consecutive years (2014-19), he was over 14 per game.
Only two players are doing that this season.
He of course had other strings to his bow, a brilliant overhead mark for one thing, but this was a player who made his money in the trenches.
I’ll never forget the 2015 game between Fremantle and Adelaide, which, really, was the battle between Fyfe and Dangerfield.
They went at each other in the guts. It was a best on best battle. They combined for 78 disposals, 55 contested, and two goals.
It was footy’s version of the diner scene in Heat.
In the end, Fyfe got Dangerfield boxed in.
He had 40, got the three votes, and Freo won the game.
He was clearly better in a high-stakes game than Patty Dangerfield, think about how good that player is.
Then there was the look.
Fyfe was pretty, but not necessarily rugged like most AFL players.
He was a paradox: beautiful but playing an ugly game.
Imagine if Achilles was dropped into the French mud of World War 1.
He reminds me of Brad Pitt in that sense, the common refrain for Pitt is that he’s a character actor in a leading man’s body.
Fyfe is the same, his face said eye catching key forward or running half back.
His game said dog-fight.
He was as grimy as any player I can remember. That peaked in 2015 when he famously played a preliminary final with a broken leg.
In the end, his nine-year run from 2011 to 2019 was one of the hottest runs of inside footy I’ve ever seen.
But one day it just stopped.
I can count on one hand the players that approached his level: Buddy, Ablett, Dusty, and Dangerfield is probably the list.
None of them had shorter post-primes than Fyfe.
Injuries played a role.
After his second Brownlow until 2023, he never played more than 15 games.
In 2024, when he played he averaged a meagre nine contested possessions, starting many games as the sub.
But he was also a man fit for a certain time.
Like Kendall Roy, he was a cog built to fit one machine and that machine was the heavy contest era of the mid-2010s pioneered by Ross Lyon.
Footy has moved on.
Part of the reason only two players are averaging over 14 contested possessions a game is because the game now is about movement and spread.
Fyfe’s skillset is valuable, but it’s instructive that Matt Rowell – another midfield bull – is having the best year of his career when he’s added the outside and disposal skills that Fyfe never did.
If you zoom out and look the bigger picture, consider the modern discussion around Michael Voss.
What’s the problem with Carlton? They’re too reliant on contest and don’t do anything else.
The premiership metrics tell us that contest and clearance don’t matter like they used to.
Fyfe just wasn’t able to move with the times.
If we look back to the Dangerfield game in 2015, we can identify numerous changes in Dangerfield’s game to the point that now, he’s essentially a key forward.
That was also true of Gary Ablett, who kicked 34 goals as a permanent forward at Geelong in 2019.
Dustin Martin did a similar thing, slowly playing less midfield time as he aged and becoming a brilliant half-forward in his twilight.
His legendary peers did it, but Fyfe never could.
Obviously, he wasn’t as explosive as the other four, especially Dangerfield, but I always felt that he could have been an old fashioned key forward like Jack Gunston with better overhead marking.
Instead, Fyfe kept raging at the embers of his past glory as the best contest player I’ve ever seen.
He was a traditionalist in a modern world.
Simply, he was perfect for a game that no longer exists.
I’m glad I saw him at a time where he could be king.