BigMart wrote:Browny is a shell of his former self.... He knows that
Pav is still excellent.... May have even been AA last year. He has not been battered or injured like the other two.
P66 silly stuff to try and win points
My three idols
Roo will always be remembered as a Champion, and I think he is underrated... Like Harves.... But he will be remembered for the 200 games beyween 2002-2010 .... And his dizzy heights. Not for his output from 2011-2014, his thigh light years.
Harves was serviceable from 2006-2008 .... Far from champion output... Does that mean he wasn't one?
Rick Ponting was the greatest champion I saw play cricket... Should we not call him a champion at the end of his career, because in his last years he averaged 30? He was not elite in that period.
Champion over a career, does not require elite status for the entirety of a career... In fact no great athlete can lay claim to that... Unless they retired too soon or were freaks
Ali, Woods, Jordan, Tyson, Ablett, Armstrong, Schumacher, Federer, Sampras, Graf, Johns.... All two things in common
Champions of their sport and Decline
Armstrong? Lance Armstrong? You must be having a f****** lend, surely? Armstrong never placed in a Tour de France, didn't win a thing for 8 years. M Jordan went out on top too, (not counting his little Washington thing when he was 48 years old... like we don't count Lockett's comeback). Schumacher never faded. Sampras and Graf didn't either... they retired very high-ranked tennis players.
Monica Seles... she faded. Jim Courier.
There were plenty of examples you could have used but you only cited a couple:
How about Brereton, Seles, Peres (Cathy Freeman's nemesis), Ronaldo, Modra, Damien Martin..., Michael Schtich is the best example of all
Plus, Harvs, i think you'll find, played some excellent footy consistently 06-08. not sure that ranks as fading.