True Believer wrote:Anyone comparing BJ to Banger is taking drugs.
Harvey was a machine. Saw him go over 40 disposals 3 games in a row in '98 when anything over 30 was a very good game for a mid and cheapies in the back line were still unheard of.
He was the man that rotations were designed to stop because he used to run taggers into the ground, so they started rotating taggers on him. That was when taggers could get away with rough stuff too.
After he had yet again pulled down Carlton's pants and made them look stupid, David Parkin made the observation that "you'd be hard pressed to lay a tackle on him in a phone booth".
Dual Brownlow Medalist, 8 time All Australian, four time club best and fairest, St Kilda team of the century, second most total Brownlow votes in the history of the game, only player to poll Bronlow votes in over 100 games, and 3 times EJ Whitten Medalist.
Based on those stats, BJ isn't fit to polish Harves boots.................
+1. I'd also take a guess that if some of the modern stats used to measure effectiveness were around throughout his career he'd have dominated them, too. Scoring assists and score involvements would be 2 Banger would have sat atop the heap. Harvey to Lockett, Loewe, Riewoldt and Gehrig would have been enough on their own. But, when you throw in his ability to carry the ball through the midfield and forward he'd be a lay down misere. He ran at people, away from them, around them, stepped them, all the while keeping the ball so team mates had the opportunity to get into good positions to receive and convert. The Parkin quote was after 1 of the most dominant games of football a midfielder could possibly play - he didn't get cheapies, he won his own ball and then set about making opposition efforts to get it back look lame. He just made his team mates jobs so much easier.
On BJ's great 2010 GF (but it was still Lenny who willed us back into the game), I offer Banger's semi vs Adelaide in '05, in Adelaide. We kicked 8, he kicked 3 (plus 2 assists from memory) on a wet windy night, we were riddled with injury and underdone returnees and he was in his mid 30's. He ran from start to end and lifted the side over the line against the odds. Some from the media who were in the rooms after that game said they had never seen anyone so feted by team mates et al for what he had just done. He was also the tiredest man anyone had ever seen, but that's what he did.
The man was a giant. BJ is a very good footballer but sporadic and too easily distracted. There is no comparison.
'I have no new illusions, and I have no old illusions' - Vladimir Putin, Geneva, June 2021
