Leading player agent Liam Pickering has labelled Gary Ablett the greatest player of all time ahead of the little maestro's 300th game.
Pickering, who manages the dual Brownlow Medal winner, says Ablett's football CV is unrivalled and hence he has overtaken Wayne Carey and Gary Ablett Snr as the best player football has seen.
"I'll be seen as being biased. I believe he's the greatest player of all time," Pickering told ESPN.
"He was voted the best player by his peers across five years. No one's really got close to that.
"He's a phenomenal player who's clearly been the best midfielder I have ever seen.
"His overall body of work, what he's been able to do consistency-wise has just been unbelievable."
Pickering orchestrated Ablett's defection from Geelong to the Gold Coast in 2011 on a five-year deal believed to be valued at $9 million.
He says Ablett has elevated his standing in the game since he headed north.
"It's hard to compare, but for him to be able to do what he's done at the Gold Coast is exceptional," he said.
"People asked how he was going to go without [Jimmy] Bartel, [Cameron] Ling and [Joel] Corey and [James] Kelly and all these blokes around him. For him to continue where he left off at such a high level over the past seven seasons has been exceptional really."
Ablett, 33, will become the fourth player this season - and the 81st overall - to reach the 300-game milestone, but he will reach the milestone a week later than had been anticipated after he was withdrawn from the weekend team with a calf strain.
Players association refuses to comment on AFLX
The AFL's extraordinary pursuit into a Big Bash-style football format - to be known as AFLX - has been done without consultation with the players' union, the AFL Players' Association. League executives plan to trial a radical, fast-paced version of the game in September, featuring players from the 10 teams that miss out on the finals.
Teams of seven-a-side will take part in modified games on soccer pitches played in 10-minute quarters. There will be no centre bounces, and players will kick out from the square after goals.
But plans for the new-look game are -- strangely -- yet to be discussed with the players' union, even though it will require players to be available after round 23 -- nominally when their holidays start. The AFLPA refused to comment on Thursday when contacted by ESPN.
Clubs must adhere to strict conditions surrounding their players out-of-season.
Generally, they are not allowed to contact players during holidays, with the restrictions also preventing a player's use of club facilities to stay in shape.
The restructured game is designed to broaden the game's reach internationally, where soccer-shaped fields dominant public spaces.
Eagles quip that Swans should have 2005 flag revoked
There are quiet rumblings at West Coast Eagles headquarters surrounding Barry Hall's controversial revelation that he shouldn't have played in the 2005 Grand Final.
Hall said during his Hall of Fame acceptance speech on Tuesday night that he was lucky to escape a tribunal sanction for his preliminary final jab to St Kilda defender Matt Maguire.
Hall, well represented at the tribunal by a highly qualified QC, successfully contested the report by exploiting a loophole in the rules, freeing him to play in the following week's grand final in which he captained the Sydney side in Stuart Maxfield's absence.
The Swans, of course, defeated the Eagles by four points in that match -- a drought-breaking win that netted the club its first cup in 72 years.
Hall's confession has had Eagles figures quip to ESPN that the Swans should have the 2005 flag revoked -- echoing the chorus of fans who have argued that the Eagles should have their 2006 premiership annulled.
The Eagles sneaked home in a one-point victory against the Swans in that year's Grand Final, which has been labelled as tainted, given the subsequent drug scandals involving that premiership-winning playing group.
Roos hopping mad at MRP inconsistency
Similar rumblings are being heard down at Arden St, where North Melbourne officials are privately unhappy at the Match Review Panel this week for apparently not even assessing the sling tackle that stunned Jarrad Waite and forced him off the ground on Friday night.
The Kangaroos felt it was an almost identical tackle to that which controversially cost Waite a one-week suspension earlier in the year.
St Kilda's Nathan Brown pinned Waite's arms to his side during the tackle late in the game at Etihad Stadium on Friday, and slammed him to the turf, in the process banging the Kangaroos forward's head into the ground.
Waite did not move for several moments, appearing dazed, and then had to be helped off the ground by trainers. Yet the incident did not warrant a mention in the MRP's Monday report, even in the footnotes down the bottom - 'Other Incidents Assessed'.
In May, when the Roos produced their best performance of the season against ladder leaders Adelaide in Tasmania, Waite tackled Crows forward Tom Lynch in a very similar manner. But Lynch's head hit the turf as he attempted to kick -- while being held by Waite -- and he was taken from the field, later being diagnosed with concussion.
The MRP controversially chose to sanction Waite a one-match suspension -- much to the dismay of some commentators, and the likes of Shane Warne who Tweeted his disapproval.
The Roos were unhappy with that ruling in May -- and they are hopping mad at the panel's latest head-scratching piece of inconsistency.
Who is worthy of Hall of Fame induction?
The AFL's Hall of Fame induction dinner on Tuesday night was a wonderful celebration of the game, full of heart-warming stories and emotional acceptance speeches.
But, as always with these Hall of Fame or Team of the Century awards nights, the story is often as much about who missed out as who was included.
The Hall of Fame committee can select up to six members each year. Of those, at least two must have retired within 10 years of each induction ceremony. There must be at least one inductee selected from the category of administrator/umpire/media every two years.
So the accent is very much on the recent past rather than the ancient past, and that can lead to weird anomalies in the selections. But sometimes it's very hard to reconcile one player's induction ahead of another, given their respective records and standing in the game.
To pick a few examples: St Kilda's Nicky Winmar, who did as much for indigenous players' recognition in the AFL as anyone, is not in Hall of Fame, yet Michael O'Loughlin is. Of course, O'Loughlin is a 300-game premiership player and thoroughly deserving of selection yet Winmar's omission -- he retired in 1999 after 90 games with South Fremantle then 251 with the Saints and Bulldogs -- remains a source of puzzlement.
Carlton's Wayne Johnston is not a member yet Simon Goodwin is. Goodwin was a more-than-handy onballer for Adelaide in that golden era of the late 1990s, albeit a one-sided player who's kicking was unreliable, while Johnston won his nickname, the 'Dominator', for a series of dynamic big-game performances for the Blues in the 1970s and 80s that netted four premierships. Go figure.
Mark 'Bomber' Thompson is not yet a 'Famer' but Mark Bickley is. Bickley was a tough, no-frills half-back/back pocket for Adelaide, and skippered the Crows to the 1997 and 1998 flags. Thompson was a triple premiership player with Essendon in the 1980s and 90s, captaining the 1993 premiership team, and then became a dual premiership coach with Geelong. Again, puzzling.
Yet it works both ways, with non-Victorian states claiming they are woefully under-represented in the Hall of Fame.
And given that WA pair Bernie Naylor (1034 goals in 194 games with South Fremantle post WWII) and George Owens (a seven-time premiership player with East Perth after WWI, Sandover Medallist, five-time WAFL Grand Final umpire and 17-time WA state representative) have not yet got a guernsey, clearly WA fans have got an argument.
At this rate -- six nominations per year -- it'll be a good many years until all those players, coaches and administrators who deserve acknowledgement will actually receive their Hall of Fame gong.