Career-best performances from David Swallow and Charlie Dixon took the statistical honours in the Gold Coast SUNS’ loss to the Adelaide Crows in Adelaide on Sunday.
Swallow, enjoying an outstanding fourth season in the AFL, had 37 possessions in the SUNS’ 11-11 (77) to 16-13 (109) loss. This topped his four-time previous best of 28 possessions and sees him become the 10th different GC SUNS player to post a 30-possession game, joining Gary Ablett, Harley Bennell, Jared Brennan, Jarrod Harbrow, Daniel Harris, Jaeger O’Meara, Dion Prestia, Michael Rischitelli and Danny Stanley.
The No.1 draft pick of 2010 is now averaging 25.3 possessions per game this year after corresponding figures of 19.7, 18.8 and 19.3 in the club’s first three years
Dixon had 22 possessions to better his previous best of 18, which, like Swallow, he’d posted four times.
The big power forward, in just his third game back from injury, also had a career-best 15 contested possessions to rank behind only Ablett in this key statistic.
Zac Smith, too, continued his quite miraculous return from injury with a career-best 30 ruck hit-outs in his third comeback game. This follows his 29 hit-outs in his round 9 return, and 22 hit-outs against the Bulldogs in round 10.
The other headline performance out of the SUNS camp on Sunday which went totally unheralded was the incomparable Ablett sneaking into the top 20 in AFL possessions all-time, since records were kept in 1965.
The SUNS skipper went past Peter Bell with a hard-earned 25 possessions against Adelaide to take his career total in 263 games to 6539, at an average of 24.9 possessions per game.
Robert Harvey leads the all-time list with 9656 possessions, with Craig Bradley (8776), Michael Tuck (8293), Scott West (8222), Brent Harvey (7848), Tony Shaw (7632), Simon Black (7580), Brad Johnson (7172), Kevin Bartlett (6999) and Paul Roos (6997) completing the top 10.
In the 11-19 group ahead of Ablett are Paul Roos (6997), Nathan Burke (6943), Wayne Campbell (6926), Nathan Buckley (6887), Shane Crawford (6828), Andrew McLeod (6724), Greg Williams (6721), Kane Cornes (6600), Mark Ricciuto (6569) and Terry Wallace (6540).
Significantly, of top 135 possession getters all-time, plus 28 current players who are beyond or within striking distance of 4000 career possessions, only seven have a higher career average than Ablett. This list is headed by Greg Williams and Dane Swan (26.9), Terry Wallace and Scott Pendlebury (25.7), Scott West and Joel Selwood (25.4), and Robert Harvey (25.2).
Given that in just 10 games this year Ablett has climbed from 27th to 20th on the all-time list and elevated his career average from 24.6 to 24.9, he’s every chance of reeling in most of those before too long.
These standout efforts from Swallow, Dixon, Smith and Ablett came as the SUNS played to the biggest crowd in their 76-game AFL history on Sunday. The attendance at the new-look Adelaide Oval was 49,069 – well above the previous best for a SUNS game of 36,913 against Collingwood at the MCG in round 10, 2012.
Also, Steven May, with 12 possessions against the Crows, became the 19th player to top 500 career possessions for the club, Dion Prestia kicked two goals in a quarter for the first time, while Clay Cameron, Kade Kolodjashnij, Sean Lemmens and Alex Sexton played in Adelaide for the first time.
