I recently saw a social media post from a bloke last year questioning if there was anyone better than Peak Fyfe at their best. It's an interesting question, albeit ambiguous. I prefer to think of it as a 'who could beat peak (mid-2015) Fyfe in a one-on one if the ball was kicked in their direction'.
Simply no-one in this generation of footballers, although many numpties piped up with Dusty- meh; Dangerfield- no, I think we actually saw that game in Geelong; Gazz jnr- nah, and a ridiculous call of Pendelbury- lol. Pavlich wasn't raised in the comments, but should have been.
Cases were then put forward for Hird, then Gary Snr and Carey, and then to Leigh Matthews. That's an interesting list. Matthews might have beaten Fyfe in a ground ball, but probably not fairly. Having seen peak Ablett Snr I'm going to say he's the only one I would be concerned about in terms of aerial ability, and sheer power over the ball. But if we include the two way running this generation of footballers do, I think Fyfe would have blown him up in the contest over time. Maybe Peak Fyfe is the best we've ever seen winning a contested football either in the air or then following it up on the ground.
One hell of a career, and sad to see the light fade as it inevitably does, cruelled by the sacrifice this game and his uncompromising competitiveness demanded. But that's enough retrospective- onwards to 250 and the team glory that he deserves!
