Cameron is among the next best players, but until he has an impact in a big game, until he turns up in finals (or even yesterday at the MCG) he will be marked harder.

There is yet a strong and persuasive argument, mounted weekly, that Gary Ablett – who is one of the best to have ever played the game – remains ahead of Cameron and others and is in the best three players. Not only is he one of the oldest few in the competition he is still one of the best few, even if age is making him testy.

For the past five years the best player title in the AFL has been fairly clear and has alternated between Dusty Martin, Patty Dangerfield and Nat Fyfe. For a period last year Josh Kelly was playing as well as anyone and Max Gawn was as influential as any player. This year the pecking order has not been so clear, but Cripps and Grundy must be considered the best two.

Dangerfield has not had quite the profound impact he had last year or before. His teammate Tim Kelly has been excellent but is seldom tagged.

Fyfe is not yet commanding games as he did in his pomp. He came back well from injury last year. This year he is still wearing an elbow guard so some consideration must be given for that but he is not the presence he has been.

Martin has had a flat, sporadically good, start to the season. He has been serviceable without yet playing consistently to his own standards.

Cripps is the slow burn. It has taken time to appreciate how good he is. This year he is being appreciated.

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Maybe it is because the players around him are improving but on Saturday he lifted his team out of the misery of last week and carried them on his back. He was superb. He had Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury playing on him for large parts of the second half and in particular most of the last quarter. Pendlebury has been in tremendous form this year. Cripps was better.

Cripps isn’t just clean around the packs, allowing teammates to run forward of the contest to receive the handball and run, but he also pushes forward. His running this year looks better, he looks to cover more ground more easily than even last year. He is strong overhead and so can out-mark most taggers. He also pushes forward – the goal on Saturday was the classic team-lifting captain’s goal.

Like Josh Kennedy before him, his sheer size makes him very hard to shift around the ball. Cripps is listed as 195cm and 92kg and yet plays in the midfield. To put that in perspective Jarryd Roughead and Tex Walker are shorter than him.

He is taller than Wayne Carey and Matthew Pavlich. He is a key position size playing a midfielder’s role. Onballers used to be Caleb Daniel’s size, now they are Carey’s.

Grundy is the same. He is 203cm and so a good ruckman’s size but he runs like a midfielder. Both players play their roles in ways that belie their body shapes.

A (fair) criticism of Grundy previously was that he did not take enough marks for a player of his size. He has improved that in his game in he past 12 months. He took a few on Saturday coming from the back of the pack, including one forward and finished with two goals.

He thoroughly beat Kreuzer in the hit-outs (48 to 22) which said something of what Cripps could do at ground level, and what the injury to Taylor Adams and the continued absence of Brayden Sier meant for Collingwood in not having first possession players at Grundy’s feet.

Last year the All-Australian selectors could not split Gawn and Grundy, this year there is no debate.

The interesting thing about the best player conversations is that seldom if ever does the first pick in the draft deliver a club the player who proves to be the best in the competition. Grundy was pick 18. Cripps was 13. Cameron was a GWS priority pick and Ablett an era ago was father son.

Dangerfield was pick 10, Fyfe was a second-round pick when he was taken at pick 20, while Martin was selection 3.

Luke Hodge and Nick Riewoldt were the last players to have been regarded for periods of their career the best player in the AFL.

Ablett’s two in a row?

Having not been reported once in more than 328 decorated games Gary Ablett could make it two reports in two weeks.

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Ablett’s late hit on North’s Sam Wright looked similar to the hit he was reported for last week. Last week the tribunal cleared him.

So how do Match Review Officer Michael Christian (pictured) and footy manager Steve Hocking (who signs off on every report) view his hit this week? Do they take a cue from the tribunal last week in looking at Ablett’s hit and clear him or do they look at it in isolation and cite him?

The hit was not identical to last week, very few incidents are identical, but in one sense this one looked slightly worse than last week’s. The hit was later, coming well after Wright got rid of the ball as he was trying to block his run not arrive late to spoil a ball.

As a block there was no real logic or reason for him to reach to go high.

Ablett’s best hope is the level of contact, was it sufficient for a report? The guidelines hold that impact to the head should be graded higher than the actual contact because of the potential for serious injury, but this is never applied.

Moving the goal posts

Essendon were dudded. The umpire made an error on Friday night when he warned but did not penalise Dane Rampe for jumping on the post.

It was the most befuddling of brain snaps from Rampe to jump on the post padding and shake the post as David Myers ran in to kick for goal to win the game.

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The rules are clear on it. It should have been a free kick taken at the goal line – a certain goal.

The umpire’s decision to just tell Rampe to get down was like a parental scalding. But it warranted more than that.

Gill McLachlan’s argument that it was a common-sense decision and the warning to get off the post was akin to warning a player to take a step back on a mark or he’ll give away a 50-metre penalty is a false equivalence.

A player does not know where a mark is when he is told to take a few steps back, he is guided by the umpire where the mark is. Rampe knew where the post was and he jumped on it.
Players who run through the mark are given a 50m penalty for doing something that is often unintentional.

Common sense could say they just be told to get out of the way; they are not they are penalised.

What Rampe did was not unintentional, he knew what he was doing, he jumped on a post and it shook. It was stupid and it should have been more costly. It was for Essendon.

Brian has roamed too far

Channel Seven commentator Brian Taylor weekly laments of the umpires, and Ray Chamberlain in particular, that ‘it’s not about you, it’s about the players”. Then goes ahead and ignores his own advice.

The announcement that he will continue to pronounce Orazio Fantasia’s name how he wants to (Fan-tay-zha) and not how the player wants him to (Fan-ta-see-ya) is him doing what he recommends others do not. He is making the game about himself, not the player.

Taylor says he will pronounce the Italian name the “Australian way”, whatever that is.

Interestingly commentators, Taylor included, had no problem changing James to Jimmy Bartel, or Brian Harris to Brian Lake, but saying an Italian surname how a player of Italian heritage wants it accurately pronounced is a bridge too far.

Taylor is unashamedly self-indulgent in his method of commentating and delivering the game as entertainment not just sport. But this was an error, Brian has roamed too far.