Has to be North surely, and it will be for quite some years. Swallow, Ziebell, Cunnington, Adams and Wellsy to a lesser extent. Get around the Meat Grinder.
Is it the person who extracts the ball or the person who kicks the ball out of the contest that gets attributed the clearance though? Tell me.
Josh P Kennedy is probably the best for clearances from the little that I've seen, the bloke's a dead-set gun.
It's often the outside runners who get credited with it. Clearances aren't a measure of a good inside midfield brigade. In the most holistic way of saying it (it's not like this in terms of positions nowadays and fluidity) the ruck rover receives the tap and feeds it to the rover who kicks it out of the pack. The rover gets the clearance even though the ruck rover did the job and did the more inside role. Hard ball gets and contested possessions are a far better measure for inside mids - not clearances.
2012 contested possessions 1 - Sydney 151.4 2 - Adelaide 148.5 3 - Collingwood 146.3 4 - Richmond 145.7 5 - Hawthorn 145.4 6 - Fremantle 145.4 7 - Geelong 144.0 8 - Essendon 143.0 9 - Carlton 142.3 10 - Bulldogs 142.3 11 - West Coast 140.8 12 - Brisbane 140.3 13 - North 138.1 14 - StKilda 137.0 15 - Port 135.7 16 - Melb 134.1 17 - GWS 133.6 18 - GC 132.0 North 3rd in league for uncontested possessions behind Hawthorn and Richmond ftr
I'm not saying inside mids don't get clearances. I'm saying getting clearances doesn't make you an inside mid