Magpies star Jordan De Goey has spoken on the comparisons he has drawn with triple Norm Smith medallist Dustin Martin over the course of the past several seasons, first dating back to his breakout campaign in 2018.
The 25-year-old had a career-best campaign as the Magpies reached the Grand Final, with the mercurial forward booting 48 goals for the year to get his side within a kick of their 16th premiership.
De Goey's stellar season as a bullish forward soon had many onlookers comparing his potential to then-reigning Brownlow Medal winner and Tigers premiership superstar Dustin Martin.
Martin had an unparalleled season the year prior, polling a record 36 Brownlow votes and claiming the Norm Smith Medal to end Richmond's premiership drought.
With De Goey's campaign of 2018 showing some correlation with the Tigers champion, the aforementioned suggestions placed mounting pressure on the raw shoulders of De Goey.
Speaking on The Unlaced Podcast, De Goey said the comparisons between him and Martin following his breakout season were tiresome.
"It pisses me off," the Magpies spearhead said.
"I was a kid and I had one good year and all of a sudden it was like '[Dusty] kicks goals and he's a powerful kind of guy'.
"I started doing a little bit of that and I was showing glimpses of that, then all of a sudden someone puts this label on you and people read about this, and then they judge you on that... it's just like all this unneeded stress.
"The amount of people that will be like 'oh he's a Kmart Dusty, he can't even tie Dusty's shoelace', I get so much funny shit like that.
"Then I'll play a good game and then they'll be like 'oh actually you're alright, you're not too bad'."
The Magpies gun put light on the unfair juxtapositions that impacted him in just his fourth season in the AFL.
"You're being compared to the f**king best bloke in the game and I'm 21, 22 (years old).
"You're kidding yourself if you ever think I'm going to be anywhere near him at that age."
The Magpies had culminated a promising campaign in 2018, defeating Martin and the Tigers in a preliminary final to reach their first premiership decider in seven years.
Leading the club's goalkicking tally for the season, De Goey was a catalyst in Collingwood's Grand Final berth and would go on to boot three majors in the five-point defeat to the Eagles.
Despite the heartbreak, De Goey stated that it took a number of players to reach new heights in order for the Magpies to go so far that season.
"We had a new structure that year and we needed a deeper forward and I was decent one-one-one so they put me down [forward]," De Goey added.
"It just started to work, we just started to play well. The thing with a breakout season is that if you have a lot of people around you that are playing super well it lifts you.
"If you have a really good year and someone else wins the best and fairest... that's a great result. You don't need awards to look back and go 'I made a lot of progress'.
"We had this belief in our group... everyone was confident in themselves and their role."
De Goey's 2021 season has seen him take on greater duties in the Magpies' midfield, recording career-best averages for disposals, clearances and rebounds 50s per game, while still managing to boot 23 goals for the year.
2022 will be De Goey's eighth year at the Holden Centre and first under newly-appointed senior coach Craig McRae.
