GFL greatest players

In 2015, The Geelong Advertiser compiled the 'Top 50 GFL players of all time' since the Geelong Football League competition had broken away from the Geelong & District Football League in 1979.

Geelong Advertiser football writer, Nick Wade, worked with some of the biggest names over the history of GFL footy, including Peter Kelly, Arthur Hodgson and John Fitzgerald, to trim the list of GFL players down from 50 to number one. The panel followed a strict criteria of 100 games with a club solely during its GFL era. This ruled out many of the greats from clubs who may have dominated prior to the 1980s during the GDFL two-division competition.

The panel of local experts decided that North Shore and St Marys onballer, Frank Fopiani, was the greatest of them all. They said Fopiani was chosen because he was "the best player in the best team of his era" which included a bevy of best and fairest awards at North Shore. This was during the club winning six premierships in succession from 1995 until 2000, while Fopiani was also voted the best player on ground in the North Shore grand final win of 1993, his first season at the Seagulls.

Fopiani was regarded to "hardly fumble below his knees, rarely missed a target with his dozens of weekly disposals and used his pace and evasiveness to break away from a contest". However, it was his successful move to St Mary’s, where he coached the club into the 2003 GFL grand final - which the Saints lost in a replay after a drawn first game - and then won the best-on-ground medal in the 2004 premiership that separated Fopiani from the rest.

Among the top 50 greatest GFL players, there were no less than eight former VFL/AFL players - Alan Woodman, Ray Sarcevic, Basil Flynn, John Fitzgerald, Ron Watt, Paul Corrigan, Brett Hungerford and Michael Schulze - all of which had played senior games for the Geelong Cats, though five of them had made less than 10 VFL/AFL appearances.

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Wikipedia