Clayton Oliver 150th Game

[Supreme_Demon 2,951]

Just thought this deserved a separate thread on Demonland.

As mentioned by @WalkingCivilWarin another thread, it will be Clayton Oliver's 150th game for the Melbourne Football Club.

Clayton Oliver, only one third of the way through his career, at 25 years of age has to be one of the greatest Demons players in the modern era.

You gotta love Clarrie. I hope he wins more Premierships for the Demons and also grabs that elusive Brownlow Medal one day.

 

Clayton Oliver is a Champion for the Melbourne Football Club. I hope he goes on to play at least 350 or even 400 games for the Demons.

I encourage as many Melbourne supporters as possible to attend the match against the Swans on Sunday at the MCG to say a massive THANK YOU to Clarrie in his 150th game for the Demons!

His "bang, bang bang!" goal late in the 3rd Quarter of the 2021 AFL Grand Final will never be forgotten!

 

Fingers crossed Clayton Oliver plays, many, many more magnificent games for the Melbourne Football Club!

Congratulations on 150 games for the Demons Clarrie! 🔴🔵👹

[Deeko2 672]

Barring injury, will play well over 300 games and most likely finish his career as our most decorated player ever (subject to a couple more flags).

The thing that excites me about Clarry (and Trac) is that he's a wonderful contested mark and was a really good junior forward.  I have no doubt when he gets a tad older, he'll be able to spend more time up forward and have a genuine impact there as well as the midfield.

[Jaded No More 55,325]

One of the greats of our club already. Freak of nature and my favorite player to watch. Deserves a good game and a win this weekend. 

[DubDee 19,256]

Already the greatest MFC player I have ever seen.   Over the past 35 years I had always wished for a gun midfielder and he finally arrived.  And he is a down to earth good bloke too!

He is so durable as well as skillful, I would back him to get to 300 games in 7-8 years time.  and then sign another 7 year contract!  ;-)

[whatwhat say what 17,482]

best midfielder i've even seen at the club, which is from mid-80s onwards

[BW511 2,134]

The bloke is an absolute gun and still flies under the radar of opposition supporters.

I admit, there’s some bias attached but he’s the best player in the comp in my eyes. I love watching him go to work

[rufus 916]

Best Demon player I have seen in my lifetime...and comfortably. One of the cleanest players when under physical pressure I have ever seen. Absolute legend of this club.

Needs more mates able to operate effectively in a contest if he is to get the rewards he deserves in his career. 

[layzie 27,039]

How bloody good is Clayton! I've never seen anyone play a better first 150 games than this guy. Pillar of consistency and hopefully a future Charlie winner. Good on you Clarry!

Edit: That image will be his statue outside the G one day..

Edited March 27 by layzie

[Demonsterative 1,622]

This has to be up there with the best most consistently played, first 150 games in the history of the AFL. Definitely at the MFC. 
 

Clarry is better than a generational player. It takes many generations to find someone of his quality. 
 

Congrats and THANKS Clarry 

[DeeZone 6,508]

Clayton Clarry Oliver what an absolute Champion of the game and I agree with all above Clayton is the Best Demon that I have seen in my time as a Member of the MFC. Let’s hope he gets to play in a couple more Premiership’s and wins a Brownlow.❤️💙

[Sir Why You Little 33,248]

@picket fenceWill be up and about this week!

Clarry had a poor game last week. Hopefully this week will be a Cracker. 
 

TAKE THE GAME ON…

[La Dee-vina Comedia 15,888]

By my possibly dodgy mathematical calculations, by this weekend Oliver will have played 150 out of a possible 160 games since he joined the club. That's a fantastic achievement.

And, I'm not having a go at you SWYL, but your opinion certainly wasn't shared by The Age newspaper which included Oliver as the only Demon in their votes for the game. (For those that don't know, The Age gives five player votes for each game, with each being out of 10). 

[Sir Why You Little 33,248]

6 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

By my possibly dodgy mathematical calculations, by this weekend Oliver will have played 150 out of a possible 160 games since he joined the club. That's a fantastic achievement.

And, I'm not having a go at you SWYL, but your opinion certainly wasn't shared by The Age newspaper which included Oliver as the only Demon in their votes for the game. (For those that don't know, The Age gives five player votes for each game, with each being out of 10). 

I watched the Game. We got smashed in the middle for 3 Quarters. 40 points down  Clarry had a bad night 

The Age is a piece of junk these days 

[La Dee-vina Comedia 15,888]

6 minutes ago, Sir Why You Little said:

I watched the Game. We got smashed in the middle for 3 Quarters. 40 points down  Clarry had a bad night 

The Age is a piece of junk these days 

I thought Oliver was serviceable, but not much more. If I were handing out votes, I would have had both Brown and Lever ahead of Oliver, but still unlikely to get votes ahead of five Brisbane players in that game.

[Sir Why You Little 33,248]

2 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

I thought Oliver was serviceable, but not much more. If I were handing out votes, I would have had both Brown and Lever ahead of Oliver, but still unlikely to get votes ahead of five Brisbane players in that game.

A serviceable game for Clarry is a poor game. He sets a very high bar. He had 9 tackles, but he missed a lot of very important ones as well. 
We need to win games, not give up 40 point leads

[Ollie fan 1,877]

He played an average game for him -ie by other standards, exceptional- until the restart when he was clearly IMV the catalyst.

As my username suggests, I love his play and have since Rd 1  2016: first game, 2 Brownlow votes. He is unbelievable. Congratulations and please, 150 more, as good as these!

[dl4e 5,385]

Just hope other players lift around clarry for his 150th. He has done so much for the club.

[Bates Mate 3,701]

I've been on the clarry choo choo train since his first game. Saw some freakishly quick hands that day and said to my dad this guy is special.

 

Mind you I said similar things about Cale Morton and Addam Maric 😅

Edited March 27 by Bates Mate

[Binmans PA 25,323]

Always been my favourite player too. Love him. Congrats Clarry.

[BDA 18,711]

Not much more i can add other than he was a JT masterstroke. 

[Supreme_Demon 2,951]

25 minutes ago, BDA said:

Not much more i can add other than he was a JT masterstroke. 

Absolutely!

A big THANK YOU to Jason Taylor our National Recruiting Officer. He really is a brilliant recruiter.

Clayton Oliver has been a star since his debut game for the Demons!

Here is a great video clip of his debut game in Round 1 back in 2016 against GWS to bring back some fond memories.

 

And once again, well done on 150 games Clarrie! Let's hope you play at least 200 more (so over 350 AFL games) for the Demons! 🔴🔵👹

Edited March 27 by Supreme_Demon

[Little Goffy 11,631]

Just for the milestone, let's take a moment to see how he's going on the stats.

Disposals: 4,341, at 29.13 / game.

All-time target for total disposals is currently Robert Harvey (9,656) but will probably be Scott Pendlebury by the end of the year.

On disposals per game of, only marginally behind Tom Mitchell at 29.42. I'm comfortable saying Mitchell has peaked while continuing to be very good for some years yet. The target is basically Clayton's to chase.

Clearances: 1,024 at 6.87 per game.

Clubhouse leader by a fair margin is Selwood. on 1,844 at 5.19 per game. Patrick Cripps is the only other chaser, going at 7.07 per game but is two seasons older for just 12 additional games due to the strain of carrying Carlton on his back.

Contested possessions: 2,332 at 15.65 per game

Patrick Dangerfield leads overall with 4,082, at 13.38 per game. Once again Cripps is the main rival chaser, going at 14.73/game.

Tackles: 891, at 5.98 per game.

Record currently held by Selwood on 1,799, but is another likely to be claimed by Pendlebury by the end of the year. Of current rival 'chasers' only Jack Steel (6.98) and Hugh Greenwood (6.74) are laying more tackles per game than Oliver.

Clangers: 4.32 per game.

The all-time leader (at least since the stat was formally recorded) for clangers per game. Almost all modern Brownlow medals have been won by a player with an exceptionally high clanger count (Martin, Fyfe, Cripp, Wines, Mitchell - the only exception in the last 8 years was Lachie Neale in the 18-game 2020 season)

Brownlow votes: 110 votes, at 0.79 per game.

Gary Ablett Jr's 262 total votes would seem insurmountable, but Oliver is actually going at exactly the same rate of votes per game. Something I find interesting is that it took Ablett Jr 100 games before he even cracked double-figures for votes in a season. He then had 8 consecutive seasons of more than 20 votes per game, before a long tail of another six seasons which netted him another 50 or so votes. Oliver was in the double-figures by his second season and now appears to have just entered his peak '20+ votes' period, but his average is already a match for Ablett.  In years to come it will be interesting to compared Ablett's tragectory and the 'clear best player in a weak team' vs Oliver's 'great player sharing votes with great players in a strong team' distribution of votes.

In summary and touching wood of course, if Clayton Oliver just keeps plugging along even without any further improvement on his first 150 games, he is realistically on target to become the all-time record holder for;

Disposals, Handballs (obviously), Contested possessions, Clearances, Tackles, Clangers and Brownlow Votes.

[DeeZee 6,563]

All time top 5 player for the club and the most consistently top level performing player I have ever seen.

[DutchDemons 1,118]

A thread celebrating a milestone for a still young player who already has the equal most best and fairest wins in the club’s history, and was instrumental in breaking the premiership drought, and people are arguing that his last game was bad because his 37 disposals (highest on the ground) weren’t very effective. LOL. Says it all

 

Massive congrats to a champion player.

Edited March 27 by DutchDemons

[Dee Dee 1,010]

Just for interest, how old were David Neitz and Nate Jones when they played their 150th?