Errol Gulden is one. So are Nick Daicos and Zach Merrett. Ditto Jordan De Goey and Jordan Dawson. Patrick Cripps, surprisingly, is as well – with a bit of help.
They are not necessarily the AFL’s speed demons or endurance beasts, but they give their coaches tactical flexibility. And at a time when the tag is back, their importance is greater than ever. They are the iron men of AFL midfielders, the on-ball stars who spend the longest on the field.
Every club, according to Champion Data, has at least one midfielder who plays 80 per cent of the match. Some – including Carlton, the Brisbane Lions, Essendon, and Fremantle – have two, while Sydney and Collingwood are among four clubs who have at least three.
In the Swans’ case, their gun midfield trio of Gulden, Isaac Heeney and Chad Warner can all absorb a large workload, which helps explain why they finish games better than any other club and were three games and significant percentage clear atop the ladder heading into round 16.
It’s no surprise to see wingmen feature prominently among the midfielders who play the most minutes. Playing a role that requires stamina to power from end to end on their side of the ground, they are often among the top few in their clubs’ time trials.
Among midfielders, the top four for average percentage of game time played are all wingers – Gulden (92.6 per cent), Melbourne running man Ed Langdon (91.6), reigning All-Australian Josh Daicos (88.6) and Fremantle’s Jeremy Sharp (88.1). Gulden spoke last month of his desire to play an entire game without coming to the bench.
“Hopefully by the end of the year I can play a full game and not come off… and if it means a few of the other boys get a bit more of a chop out when they’re playing more inside mid, I’m happy to do it,” Gulden told SEN.
Inside midfielders who can soak up the minutes are harder to find. Not only must they clock the kilometres to get from contest to contest, they do so with the added stresses of tackling and being tackled, and cop the bumps a winger in the open is not subjected to.
This is the world of players like Tim Taranto (fifth among midfielders, 87 per cent game time), Luke Davies-Uniacke (sixth, 86.4), Zach Merrett (eighth, 85.4), Nick Daicos (11th, 84.4) and Lachie Neale (12th, 83.8).
With the tag back in vogue, these players have the lungs to run their tagger into submission, as Nick Daicos did two weeks ago to North Melbourne’s Will Phillips, who was subbed out at three-quarter time with his tank empty.
Daicos also has the rare ability to play different positions at an elite level. In defence, he is blistering on rebound. In attack, he creates goals for others and himself. He takes taggers out of their comfort zone, aerobically and positionally. Like Gulden, Daicos has also asked his coach to play 100 per cent game time.
“He’s a complete package as a player,” North coach Alastair Clarkson said. “There are very a few that have got it. They’re either really, really quick – but they can’t run very far – or they can run far, but they’re not quick, or they’re a really good athlete, but they can’t kick it very well. He’s got it all.”
With the cavalry returning, Magpies coach Craig McRae this week foreshadowed getting even funkier with how he would deploy Daicos.
“Ideally, you play him where the game needs him,” McRae said.
De Goey racks up the minutes through his ability to play forward. Though not noted for his endurance, his 84.2 per cent of game time is only marginally behind Nick Daicos. Why rest on the bench when you can terrorise opposition defences while catching your breath?
Once, there was a stigma attached to sitting on the pine, be it through getting “dragged” or being one of the last few players picked, it can now be the best player’s friend. Cripps, the Carlton captain and a Brownlow medallist, is a case in point.
As smoothly as Cripps is moving this year, due in no small part to the off-season training he did with his sprint coach, he is a beneficiary of rotations. While the best midfielders are coming off about four times a game – or once a quarter – he pit-stops 5.3 times.
Using the Blues as an example, players with big motors like Acres, averaging about 3.6 bench stints, allow Cripps the extra breather.
As Richmond coach Adem Yze, who has Taranto as a high-minutes midfielder, says of the value of having such a player: “It helps a lot of our power athletes get an extra rotation.”
Then there are the on-ballers who absorb high rotations for fewer minutes game time. Former Treasurer Joe Hockey would snidely term such types as “leaners”, though their team is lifted by their presence. These players refuel on the bench and then empty out in a short, powerful burst.
Historically, Collingwood great Dane Swan made a career out of being the “most rotated” player, a point he explained with self-deprecating humour in his well-received hall of fame acceptance speech. In 2024, veteran pair Elliot Yeo and Patrick Dangerfield are among the notable midfielders who need more breaks.
Yeo averages 7.6 interchanges a game, about two a quarter, for just under 70 per cent game time while Dangerfield is at 5.2 and 68.5 respectively, though both have had their average minutes lowered by in-game injuries.
The bench is not just the domain for the over-30s. West Coast sensation Harley Reid’s power plays feed off five rotations a game, while North’s rising midfield star George Wardlaw averages 73.6 per cent game time – meaning he plays about half a quarter less than senior teammate Davies-Uniacke.
Of the top-10 players for game time this year, eight are defenders, who typically do not have to run as far. Modern-day defensive systems require them to follow their forward only to a point, before handing off to a teammate so they can maintain their team’s shape behind the ball.
No man has spent more time on the field than Essendon full-back Ben McKay, who, with 99.7 per cent game time, has played almost every minute of the Bombers’ season, just ahead of St Kilda’s All-Australian defender Callum Wilkie on 99.6 per cent, and Western Bulldogs interceptor Liam Jones on 99 per cent. McKay and Wilkie have had just two interchanges each.
That reinforces again how defenders are the true unsung heroes of a team. The midfielders have the Brownlow Medal, the forwards the Coleman. But the backs can’t even get a rest.
