DARREN MONCRIEFF
Tuesday 20 September, 2011
IF it was your team, you would pick these footballers without hesitation, and last night Adam Goodes, Leon Davis and Lance Franklin were rewarded for their standout performances in the AFL this season.
The Indigenous trio have won selection in the AFL's honorary All Australian team.
Davis's Collingwood dominated the annual team with six Magpies selected.
Goodes and Franklin retained their places in the team after being selected last year.
Nyoongar footballer Davis has been reinvented as a rebounding half-back for his side this season and his statistics are a telling endorsement for his move to the backline.
This season, in 18 games, Davis has laid 62 tackles, repelled opposition raids 80 times, has got the ball inside his side's attacking 50m arc on 52 occasions and is averaging 15 kicks per game.
This was Davis's second All Australian selection following his call-up in 2009 as a forward.
Sydney's Adam Goodes is defying all known laws of age and productivity, especially in the brutal environment that is top-level AFL football.
Goodes played his 300th AFL game last Friday night and while the Swans champion and two-time Brownlow Medal winner's usual, prolific output was down in his side's semi-final loss to Hawthorn, he is displaying some of the best form of his career.
Goodes turned 30 this year and it's his consistency that's the talk of the town. Find another player of Goodes' calibre, at his age, upon whom his side's structure is heavily dependent upon, and you'd be doing well.
Goodes was previously selected in the All Australian team in his Brownlow Medal years, 2003 and 2006, and again in 2009.
The first Indigenous man to win the AFL's Coleman Medal, for the league's leading goalkicker, Lance Franklin straightens up the All Australian team at full-forward.
The Hawthorn spearhead won his second Coleman Medal this year with 71 goals in the home-and-away season.
Davis's Collingwood stands between Franklin's Hawks in Friday night's preliminary final.
REWARD FOR EFFORT: Collingwood's Leon Davis (left), Hawthorn's Lance Franklin and Sydney's Adam Goodes, 2011 All Australians.
All Australians
Half Back:
Leon Davis (Collingwood)
Previously selected 2009. 18 games in 2011. 283 kicks, 72 marks, 103 handballs, averaging 15.7 kicks, 4.0 marks, 5.7 handballs. Six Goals Eight Behinds. 62 Tackles. 21 Clearances, 52 Inside 50m, 80 Rebound 50m
Forwards:
Lance Franklin (Hawthorn)
Previously selected 2008, 2010. 19 games in 2011. 226 kicks, 118 marks, 139 handballs, averaging 11.9 kicks, 6.2 marks, 7.3 handballs. 71 Goals (first in the AFL) 54 Behinds. 59 Tackles. 15 Clearances, 53 Inside 50m, Seven Rebound 50m.
Adam Goodes (Sydney Swans)
Previously selected 2003, 2006, 2009. 22 games in 2011. 293 kicks, 138 marks (tenth in the AFL), 173 handballs, averaging 13.3 kicks, 6.3 marks, 7.9 handballs. 36 Goals 31 Behinds. 82 Tackles. 69 Clearances, 124 Inside 50m (second in the AFL), 12 Rebound 50m.
AboriginalFootball@westnet.com.au
Last Modified on 21/09/2011 15:32