Scottie's Favourite 18

In much the same vein as some other posters on various forums, I will be selecting my favourite eighteen players (+4 on the bench), with the added bit of spice of selecting only one player from each side in lieu of the actual draft being finished. It also means that I avoid having eighteen Dogs players!

They won't be the best players or even that memorable, but they have, for whatever reason, been one of my favourite players at that club.

Without further ado:

Geelong: Glenn Kilpatrick

Career Games: 146 (Essendon 26, Geelong 120)
Career Goals: 35 (Essendon 4, Geelong 31)
Career Finals: 3 (0-3)
Honours: Magarey Medal (1995), Runner-up Geelong B&F (1997)

In one of the more embarrassing admissions in recent history, I actually carry a picture of Kilpatrick around in my wallet...

Well, not so much a picture as a 2002 AFL trading card, which for some reason was in my wallet during an exam a few years back, and has become a sort of good luck charm ever since.

Why pick a serviceable midfielder in a team of high quality midfielders to (a) feature in the team and (b) appear in my wallet. A mixture of luck, his nickname and actual footy talent. In my younger days, the nickname "Oysters" Kilpatrick was still hilarious to me, even before I knew what the joke meant. Add in the fact he had red hair and was a pretty good player, he is a worthy addition to this most prestigious of sides.

But it is mainly that he's my good luck charm.

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It is, fair to say, hard to find videos of Oysters on Youtube. The two I could find were this and an hour-long video of the Magarey Medal, where he was a joint winner.

Unlucky: Peter Riccardi; Ronnie Burns; David Spriggs; Barry Stoneham

 

Also, I've made a rule that I'll only pick players from clubs I associate them with. So, for example, I didn't even know Kilpatrick played for Essendon, so couldn't use the Dons for him to sneak another Cat in.

Not sure what I'll do with GWS and GC, but I think it'd be nicer to pick a player who I closely associate with the club as opposed to their old (i.e. a Brogan, Cornes type). It is an interesting discussion whether GAJ is a Cat or a Sun, but to me he's still a Cat.

 

Dan Lonergan FTW

 

Selection 2

Port Adelaide: Michael Wilson

Career Games: 192
Career Goals: 51
State of Origin: 1 game, 1 goal
Career Finals: 10 (6-4)
Honours: Norwich Rising Star (1997), SANFL Premiership (1995, 1996), AFL Premiership (2004)

One of the first football sticker albums I ever got was the 1998 one, and it was a horror revelation in the Scottie household in the early 2000s when I found out that Mother Scottie threw out my sticker albums from 1997 and 1998.

At the start of sticker albums back then there'd be the honours page, with the Brownlow Medalist (or Medalists, in the case of the 1997 album), the Norm Smith Medalist (Andrew McLeod, with a rank spiky N*SYNC hairdo in both years) and the Rising Star winner, etc. They would be all shiny and shit, and for some reason I remember the one with Wilson well.

He was a very good player over a number of years for Port, and was, of course, cruelled by injuries. If you look back at the list of Norwich/NAB Rising Star winners, he probably looks a little bit out of place, but it was a testament to his ability that he was kept on the list for more than ten seasons and didn't manage to crack the 200 game mark.

Looking back at his record, he played throughout a long period of Port Adelaide success, in an era where the team were labelled chokers for their season dominance, which only once translated to Premiership glory. He was in the end lucky enough to miss out on the 2007 mauling, after snapping his Achilles in the preliminary final.

Wilson was a wonderful player when he wasn't held together by matchsticks and a UHU gluestick, but is mostly selected because he reminds me of a time when I could pay $1 for a packet of footy stickers down at the Birkdale St newsagent.

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Unlucky: Che Cockatoo-Collins, Stuart Dew, Scott Cummings

 

Take the erection jokes to Cribb's thread.

 

You are making it hard for me here.

 

Sydney: Matthew Nicks

Career Games: 175
Career Goals: 125
State of Origin: Nil
Career Finals: 3-5
Honours: Umm...

So I was going to be really boring here and pick Adam Goodes, who I really like a lot, but remembered this guy - a serviceable veteran for Sydney, who was unlucky enough to have a stress fracture in the year the Swans finally won the flag. That ended his career - Sydney were 4-5 at that stage of the year, yet still managed to come back to finish third and pip the Eagles for the flag.

My memory of Nicks the player isn't strong - I had to trawl through the archives to find out whether he was a forward flanker or a back flanker. I think he ended up playing his best footy as a back flanker.

The reason he was my favourite Swans player wasn't because he was a wonderful player - this is probably the first time you've remembered him since retirement (unless you are a Port supporter). No, along with little known St Kilda player Brett Knowles, he shared the same birthday as me. And for childhood Scottie, that was enough.

Good luck finding videos of him in action, so lets go with a vaguely impressive photograph!



Unlucky: Adam Goodes, Michael O'Loughlin, Jason Saddington

 

While trawling the Sydney board on BigFooty, I did come across this great threat about a great Tiger - http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/nick-daffy-is-gonna-be-a-good-pick-up-for-the-swans.22971/ .

Will he feature as my favourite Tigers player?!

No.