In AFL circles, Scott Pendlebury is in rare air. He has touched the ball more times than anyone in the history of the game. He has laid more tackles. He’s a dual premiership player, a Norm Smith medallist, a six-time All-Australian, the longest-serving Collingwood captain, and five-time club best and fairest.
Tonight, against historic rivals Carlton, he will play game 400, a feat achieved by just five other players in VFL/AFL history.
To understand the key to Pendlebury’s longevity, the ABC has collected and analysed decades’ worth of data which reveal the key traits that separate him from the pack.
The Pendlebury legacy
Despite playing for Collingwood (arguably the league’s most divisive club), his regrettable dreadlocks, and the luxury of playing three-quarters of his career games in Victoria, Pendlebury is widely admired by fans from all areas. He might be the AFL’s equivalent to Roger Federer. A nice guy. A footballing purist without controversy or fuss.
“He’s very rarely on the front or back page. When he makes a comment, it’s well-thought-out and well-structured. He is very fair. He keeps himself in really good nick. He is a good family man. All the things you want to see with a great sportsman, he is,” said premiership coach and ABC Sport expert Mick Malthouse.
“He just wants to go out there, play well, and do well for his team. People love that.
“I’m not sure Collingwood could have the same success that they do without him.”
Time and space
Since his debut in 2006, Pendlebury has built a reputation for finding time and space on the field where others can’t.
North Melbourne champion and AFL games record holder Brent Harvey considers Pendlebury “more advanced than most players” with the ball.
“He’s so good with his hands, he’s so good with his feet, and he’s so good with vision. We’ve all said it … it looks like he’s going in slow motion,” Harvey said.
Pendlebury’s basketball background has been quipped about ad nauseam. It was even mentioned by commentators when he booted a goal with the first kick of his career.
But Malthouse believes Pendlebury’s experience on the smaller court is what helps him see the game differently.
“His uniqueness is making the game come to his pace, and I think basketball is a great teacher of that,” he said. “He’s able to make quick decisions, know where his teammates are, know where the opposition is, and know the circumstances of what to do.”
Quantity and quality
Finding time and space isn’t just for show, it often leads to better decisions and more precise and damaging disposals.
Pendlebury regularly operates in areas of high pressure and congestion, yet he remains one of the least likely players in the AFL to make a mistake.
The chart below compares current players by the frequency of their mistakes, or “clangers”. You can see that Pendlebury is an outlier both in terms of quantity and quality of his possessions.
Harvey says that opposition teams couldn’t stop Pendlebury from getting the ball, they could only aim to limit his effectiveness when he did.
“I can remember a lot of team meetings and sitting in there and saying that we need to shut down Scott Pendlebury if we’re to win the game,” Harvey said.
“He works so hard and he’s so smart, but it’s about trying to negate those possessions when he had the football. You had to cover his left side. You didn’t want him to kick the ball, you wanted him to handball it, but … his hands were so good that he was [still] setting plays up.”
The consistency king
Pendlebury isn’t known for tearing games apart like Richmond champion Dustin Martin or former Hawthorn and Sydney great Lance Franklin. Nor is he known for accumulating a huge number of possessions per game. In fact, he has had just one 40-disposal game in his entire career.
With Pendlebury, it’s death by a thousand cuts. He delivers more consistent weekly performances than most other contemporary greats. The gap between his best and worst is, statistically, razor-thin.
The charts below provide a snapshot of the disposals per game across the career of some of the league’s top players. A narrower curve indicates greater consistency.
