Regrets are an inevitable part of life. They come with the territory of breathing and are a part of the unwritten deal we all sign for the right to exist.
Although some contrition can feel enormous – such as the misery born when a relationship breaks down or after committing a far more criminal act – others are forgotten in the blink of an eye.
In terms of the unpredictable game of football, there are a plethora of scenarios that have made or broken careers.
What if your side had picked a different player from a certain draft?
What if your star spearhead had kicked straight when it mattered?
What if said player was better behaved?
Well, for fans of every creed we have sought to answer the question that has rankled you for years and kept you up at nights for far too long.
We can't promise that we won't open old wounds, as let's face it, that is the entire point of the exercise.
PART ONE: Adelaide, Brisbane Bears, Brisbane Lions, Carlton
PART TWO: Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Fremantle
PART THREE: Geelong, Gold Coast, Greater Western Sydney, Hawthorn
PART FIVE: Sydney, St Kilda, West Coast, Western Bulldogs
However, if we can help you find closure by looking at the facts and asking what if the doors slid the other way, then we have done our job.
As always, feel free to critique our non-linear traipses, as we are tipping some of you are unlikely to enjoy some of the conclusions we have drawn.
With the first three instalments in this series now behind us, here is part four of the game's greatest ‘what ifs' since 1990.
It may seem particularly sadistic of me to start sticking familiar daggers into old wounds at a time that the Demons sit just below the ladder's top rung.
However, had basic competency been enacted when drafting talent across the vast majority of this millennium, the air the league's oldest football team currently finds themselves breathing wouldn't be that rare at all.
From the commencement of the 2007 season until the completion of 2013's calendar, Melbourne proved poor enough to produce a 34-2-118 record.
As woeful as this appears at first glance, it becomes even more de(e)pressing when broken down further, with the once proud side only able to win 22.08% of these 154 ‘contests'.
As the league has rewarded weaker sides with stronger draft picks since 1986, it goes without saying that due to their inability to remain competitive – even if they weren't actually trying to at times – Melbourne were afforded several bandoliers of blue-chip selections.
Across this torturous stretch that saw the club claim two wooden spoons and never take part in the September action, the Redlegs made a total of 71 draft selections on 64 different players – with Tom McNamara, Jake Spencer, Neville Jetta, Jordie McKenzie, Daniel Nicholson, Michael Evans and Mitch Clisby selected twice.
As we are almost eight-years down the track from the night of the 2013 draft, we are all armed with a clear level of hindsight that allows us to genuinely grade the players that Melbourne plucked with their war chest of picks.
Like a curmudgeonly pedagogue at the end of semester, to truly get to the bottom of how bad the Demons were at identifying talent across this aforementioned period of time, it is necessary to assign passing and failing grades to these 64-names.
To do so effectively, we'll need to draw up some guidelines.
SEE ALSO: What if Mark Bickley never farted during at half-time of the 1993 Preliminary Final?
To gain a pass mark in this exercise, a player selected between 2007 and 2013 will have needed to have either played 100 games for the club, claimed an All-Australian blazer, won a club best and fairest or led the club for goals in a single season.
After running my well gnawn bic up and down my notes and cross-referencing statistics with my laptop cursor, the results make for horrendous reading for those whose hearts beat true for the red and the blue.
Of the 64-players that made their way to Melbourne within this seven season boundary, only nine names have managed to surpass at least one of the markers I have laid down – Jack Grimes, Jack Watts, Neville Jetta, Max Gawn, Jeremy Howe, Tom McDonald, Jack Viney, Christian Salem and James Harmes.
Again, if you break this down further, you will find that this wafer-thin minority of proven names makes up just 14.06% of the entire list of names called.
Now, I'm sure I am not raising any new points to the Demons' band of loyal members – nor will I in the next portion of this piece – but for a professional sporting team that pays people to present the correct under-age talents with club branded polo shirts, these results are beyond dismal.
Despite the fact that the club has rectified these issues from 2014 onwards - with names like Petracca, Oliver, Spargo, Fritsch, Jackson, Pickett, Rivers and Jordan currently plying their trade tremendously for Simon Goodwin's side - the list of names that could have begun wearing a red yoked guernsey from 2007 until 2013 is nightmare fuel for success starved Demon diehards.
As I don't wish to be any more malicious than is necessary, I'll roll through this catalogue at pace.
If Melbourne's recruiting staff were even marginally competent within our previously outlined bounds, then any number of this seemingly never-ending list of names could have joined the perpetually disappointing football club:
Patrick Dangerfield
Cyril Rioli
Harry Taylor
Alex Rance
Easton Wood
Ed Curnow
Jack Ziebell
Nic Naitanui
Phil Davis
Daniel Rich
Luke Shuey
Hayden Ballantyne
David Zaharakis
Dayne Beams
Dan Hannebery
Rory Sloane
Liam Shiels
Mitch Robinson
Michael Walters
Michael Hurley
Jordan Roughead
Jack Redden
Hamish Hartlett
Dustin Martin
Liam Picken
Luke Breust
Ben Cunnington
Mitch Duncan
Jack Gunston
David Astbury
Ben Stratton
Nat Fyfe
Dylan Grimes
Michael Barlow
Zach Tuohy
Isaac Smith
Jack Darling
Scott Lycett
Luke Dahlhaus
Luke Parker
Jason Johannisen
Jeremy McGovern
Lachie Neale
Jack Crisp
Mark Blicavs
Jake Stringer
Jack Macrae
Ollie Wines
Nick Vlastuin
Brodie Grundy
Lachie Hunter
Matt Taberner
Dane Rampe
Zac Williams
Dom Sheed
Patrick Cripps
Matt Crouch
Jarman Impey
Zach Merrett
Toby Nankervis
Aliir Aliir
Tom Barrass
Darcy Byrne-Jones
Charlie Cameron
Now, before you start sharpening your own knifes to toss back at me, Melbourne fanatics, take a breath and know that not all of these names could have have found their way onto your list.
Also know that a vast majority of them were also passed on by a plethora of other clubs.
Still, every single one of them was available to your club when your recruiting team was on the clock.
SEE ALSO: What if Nathan Buckley stayed a Bear?
Nevertheless, had the club's fortunes have been trending upwards rather than sitting mired in the proverbial cellar for seven seasons, then Melbourne wouldn't have been afforded so many early first-round picks.
Yet, as the recruiting staff were evidently incapable of producing a ‘hit' with their selections, who is to say they wouldn't have taken the same band of also rans in this alternative reality too?
Some may also suggest that the coaching staff of the day, and not those that called out a draftee's name, should be shouldering more of my chagrin here. But as very few of the players that entered the Demons' inner sanctum from 2007 until 2013 have gone on to forge noted careers at other clubs, it is clear that although there were issues with the barn and the feed, the cattle in the paddock wasn't exactly A-grade either.
SEE ALSO: What if the AFL allowed the Lions to play a home Preliminary Final in 2004?
It is almost impossible to know whether Melbourne would have broken their still active premiership drought had a lot of this litany had become Demons.
However, what should be taken for red (and blue) is that if a smattering of these previously listed stars had laced the boots for the sesquicentennial club, then there is close to no chance that the side with 12 premiership trophies to their name would have been made to wait just shy of 12-years between finals campaigns.
Still, If Max, Jack, Clayton and co can steer Melbourne from the depths of hell in 2021, then I doubt a second thought will ever be given to this heartbreaking catalogue.
If you don't believe me, I'll differ to someone with a few more braincells than I to set your pessimistic minds straight.
The mustachioed French writer Marcel Proust once said, “we are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.”
Given the late wordsmith still holds the Guinness World Record for producing the world's longest ever novel, I'm tipping he knew a thing or two about torturous journeys that consistently appeared to run away from the finish line.
Having wantonly picked at these still aching sores, I must apologize to anyone that holds the Demons dear, and even though I pray at a different alter, I do, for my sins, vehemently hope that an exorcism of epic proportions is on the cards for you this season.
And as the statistical gurus at Stats Insider currently give you a greater chance of claiming the cup than your previous recruiting team did of drafting a decent player, your levee of hurt seems to be rapidly nearing its capacity.
Across the three-and-a-quarter previous entries in this series, I have stressed ad nauseum that the vast majority of these alternative narratives presented are born out of regrets.
However, in the case of North Melbourne, the incident that led to their brand of melancholic musing arose after illicit actions took place well beyond the boundary line.
As a disclaimer, I have deliberately left this subheading for this particular piece as bland as possible for the dual reasons that everyone already knows what I am talking about and that my meagre bank balance won't survive a libel lawsuit.
I will also stress that as someone who has lived and breathed for some time, I too haven't lived a life devoid of sin.
However, even though I have never partaken in any meaningful conversation with Carey, as he was the catalyst for chaos at Arden Street 20-years ago, he must remain the focus of this hypothetical chronicle.
With that out of the way, let's hop into things.
What if Wayne Carey's moral judgements had been as strong as his contested marking ability? Would the Kangaroos have added to their four premiership trophies? Would ‘The Duck' currently find life easier within the geographic bounds of the 3051 postcode?
Following a 2001 season that saw the Wagga Wagga spearhead suit up for North in just 14-games after feeling the effects of a myriad of differing ailments, Carey and his Roos limped into the summer break after their 9-0-13 campaign.
SEE ALSO: What if the Bluebaggers were never caught with brown paper bags?
Despite the fact that there were numerous household names beginning their careers with the blue-collar club, many of the senior names on the Shinboner's list at that stage were entering their footballing winter.
Prior to the start of the Roos' 2002 fixture, six names – including Carey - that had ‘been there, done that and won the medal' for the club had blown the candles out on their 30th birthday cake, with the yet to be named Shinboner of the Century, Glenn Archer, snapping at their heels aged 29.
Still, head coach Denis Pagan – then entering his final year in the role - had a plethora of names that were either in or around their prime at his disposal, with Colbert, Grant, Simpson, Pickett and ‘Boomer' Harvey all shy of their 27th birthday.
Although the club was only two-years post it's fourth flag and, on-paper, their list seemed able to contend again, the Kangaroos' form the previous year had many musing that the writing appeared to be on the walls of their decaying Fogarty Street grandstand.
If even a fraction of a breeze could still waft beneath the sills of their premiership window during the 2002 Wizard Cup series, then these gentle tickles were emphatically snuffed out ahead of the season proper.
As commentary on extra marital affairs is better left for the gossip rags attached to the front of supermarket checkouts, I'll spare all eyes an unreliable recount of the events of March 2002.
In spite of this, as the fallout had a profound impact on a football club, I will endeavour to focus on the action that was played out in studded boots.
As previously mentioned, 2001 proved to be an annus horribilis for an ageing North Melbourne list, and with the club's skipper and best player asked to leave the premises, many were of the belief that would only go from bad to worse.
SEE ALSO: What if Maynard had been paid a free-kick?
Yet, even though the Roos may have won just nine games in '01, by the curtain came down on Pagan's final season at Arden Street, the club's splintered playing group were able to belt out their unique theme a further 12-times.
In spite of the fact that North were able to return to the September action in 2002, their ambitions of adding to their already obtained silverware were thwarted in their Elimination Final loss to Neale Daniher's Demons.
After dropping five-games throughout the season by less than 20-points, one can't help but wonder how much higher than 7th the Roos could have bounded had Carey not made Las Vegas his home in that year.
In an attempt to answer this, I have chosen a potentially ludicrous measure of finding an average goals-per-game figure that Carey could have realistically added in 2002.
As the man that many dubbed ‘The King' had slotted 105-goals in his final 37-games in blue and white stripes, it could be argued that a mean of 2.8 majors a week could be ascribed to his Nike laced right foot.
But as mentioned, Carey was slowing down by 2002, so as to truly find a reasonable number, I have added his 56-goals in his 28 starts for the Crows to help find a balance.
Once these further figures are run through a calculator, it could be argued that Carey's worth to the Roos that season was somewhere around 2.5-goals per fixture.
With this wonky reasoning in mind, had the prototypical centre-half-forward had behaved himself and also met his benchmark, then four out of five of these aforementioned defeats would have been erased.
If you add these proposed wins to their realistic tally and adjust their competitor's, the Kangaroos would have sewn up third place on the ladder and a date with the eventual premiers Brisbane in a Qualifying Final.
As one of the losses turned victories was against the Lions at the ‘Gabba (the venue for this theoretical clash) a case can be made for lightening striking twice.
SEE ALSO: What if Stephen Dank was never contacted?
If this were to be the case, then then the Carey-led Kangaroos would have earned the right to face Port Adelaide in a Preliminary Final at the MCG – a side that North had knocked off twice that year by an average of more than three-goals.
With the Lions again likely to have awaited Pagan's men in the Grand Final, this fanciful form-line shows that Carey and Pagan would have held aloft their third premiership cup.
Now, these mental gymnastics may mean absolutely nothing, as football games have never been won on paper or after punching digits into an electronic tabulator. Nevertheless, I am simply showing you that a case, however implausible, can be made.
Still, it could also be argued that the Shinboners may not have bounced back at all from their lull in 2001 had they not been granted a sour adhesive to mend their fractured club.
I am also sure that I have drawn the ire of many for suggesting that Leigh Matthews' Lions were anything short of invincible across the month of September between '01 and '03. But as we are dealing in the imaginary and the supposed, there is nothing you can do to stop me, thought Police.
Although it is impossible to know just how North Melbourne's contemporary history would appear had Glenn Archer hosted an uneventful barbeque more than two-decades ago, but what is known is that any premiership reunions that Carey and company attend have the potential to be a lot warmer than they are almost certain to be in reality.
Since the dawn of federation, there has also been a healthy distrust and dislike that has lobbed, bounced and been returned across the border between South Australia and Victoria.
Understanding who first served this noxious projectile is hard to trace, but for anyone that has ever passed through these neighboring states, you will know that they are both as keen as the other to keep the rally going across the MacCabe Corner of the net.
Although you would think that any miniature differences would have been smoothed rather than sanded after 80-years, you would in fact be wrong. By the time the 1980's came to pass, the semantics of this standoff had only intensified.
As I am here to talk about sport and not pie floats, red wine or how many trams each capital city has, I'll gloss over the minutiae and sink my teeth into only topic that is ever worth discussing ever – football.
By the time that flared jeans and sideburns had gone out of fashion, the VFL was rapidly becoming as broke as parachute panted rapper MC Hammer. The SANFL, then a thriving competition, saw this as their point to pounce and formerly submitted a bid for an expansion license in 1981.
Despite the fact that the VFL, then headed by the Dr. Allen Aylett, initially rejected these advances, by the time that Jack Hamilton and Ross Oakley had succeeded the North Melbourne aligned dentist, the narrative had flipped on its head.
In 1986, the cash poor but history rich VFL clubs voted to expand the league so as to recoup funds from the hefty licensing fees that would need to be paid. A year later, the Eagles and Bears entered the competition, but the SANFL, still possibly smarting from their previous rejection, decided to reject the offer to join their neighbours.
SEE ALSO: What if Fitzroy's loan from Nauru was never called in?
Not only did the South Australian's turn down the offer but they also launched a community funded player retention scheme designed to stop the best local talents from plying their trade in Melbourne.
With seven of the SANFL's 10-clubs sitting in the red by the end of the 80's, the league was once again asked to join the newly minted AFL as the league's 15th team. Even though then SANFL boss Max Basheer once again dismissed the Victorians, a powerhouse team under his stewardship liked what they were hearing.
By the end of the 1989 season, Port Adelaide were without doubt the most dominant team in their particular competition.
Since their foundation in 1870, the Magpies had claimed a grand total of 29 premierships and were looking to cap off the club's third three-peat in 1990. As a community club that not only drew huge crowds but also had stacked coffers, Port Adelaide saw their chance to rise above their geographic neighbours and take their successful brand of football to the national level.
Prior to playing a practice match against AFL opponents Geelong ahead of their respective 1990 campaigns, Port signed a head of agreements with the AFL to enter the competition in 1991.
As you may know, the Prison Bar clad men are one of those teams that is infamous for either being loved or hated, and during the summer months of 1990, everyone – including those at SANFL headquarters – hated Port Adelaide.
After meetings were held and inked parchment was created at AFL headquarters in Melbourne, the Magpies were sleeping sound in the knowledge that they were finally to be afforded a chance to spread their wings and fly from their outgrown nest.
However, after court proceedings, back stabbing and a back flip from Basheer, the SANFL applied for Port's license under the same terms and snatched it from them at the eleventh hour.
Now, we all know that this competition backed team went on to become the Crows and that Port would have to wait a further six-years and five SANFL flags to join the AFL, but what if the Alberton club weren't played as patsies in this initial deal? What if Basheer and his board had let them fly?
SEE ALSO: What if the Dockers had kicked straight in the 2013 Grand Final?
When seeking to get to the bottom of this pair of questions, we must ask a whole lot more, including:
What would Port Adelaide's nickname be in the ‘big league'?
What would they wear?
What song would they sing?
Where would they play?
Who would play for them?
Would they be any good?
Would they have won a flag as quickly as the Crows?
Before I give myself a headache at best or burden myself with an aneurysm at worst, I'm going to clear these queries from my plate before even looking at the buffet again.
Had Port joined the AFL in 1991, they would have had to have ceded the ‘Magpies' moniker, but as has been reported several times by primary sources, they would have simply just operated as the Port Adelaide Football Club rather than seek out another nickname.
As the club's ‘Power' tag came after club officials fell in love with the non-plural Orlando Magic title during a fact-finding mission in the mid-90s, this could have still been on the table at an earlier stage.
Yet, as the Florida hoops franchise was yet to win the draft lottery twice by this stage, the nickname definitely didn't have the same lustre as it did later in the decade.
When seeking to find an answer to their potential uniform, the answer is exceedingly interesting given the current climate.
As mentioned earlier, Port Adelaide signed a 15-point agreement with the AFL in 1990, with the 9th point of said document proving the most intriguing.
According to Norman Ashton's 2019 tome ‘Destiny: How Port Adelaide put itself on the national stage', the deal agreed upon by the league and Port stated that:
‘The commission agrees that Port Adelaide shall participate in the AFL competition under the name ‘Port Adelaide' and with players wearing its existing SANFL playing uniform subject only to changing its football socks and changing its Club emblem of ‘The Magpies' so as to avoid confusion with the uniform and emblem of the Collingwood Football Club and subject to Port adopting an alternative uniform involving minor changes for matches between Port and the Collingwood Football Club, such changes to be approved by the Commission.'
So, cop that Eddie McGuire, the Prison Bars would have had a place in the AFL just months after your side claimed their drought breaking 1990 premiership and there wasn't a damn thing you could have done about it.
However, Port's theme song would have had to change, as Sydney already held the rights to the 'Notre Dame Fight Song'.
In terms of where Port would have played had they entered the AFL early, the only logical conclusion to draw is Alberton, as this was still the era in which teams ran out within their postcode.
Add this to the fact that there was less than a snowflake's chance in hades that the SANFL would allow the defecting team to play at Football Park, and the answer becomes exceedingly simple.
Even though this may have initially hurt them financially, the club's perpetually strong membership base and perennially solid relationship with sponsors would have likely seen them right during the dying days of the semi-professional era.
When seeking to analyse their potential playing list, the answer here is also easy. As Port would claim the 1990 SANFL flag – their third on the trot – you would have to imagine that due to quality and cohesion, the entire playing list would have been elevated – even though they did taste defeat to the tune of 52-points in their previously mentioned pre-season clash just 12-months earlier.
SEE ALSO: What if 'Bomber' Thompson had departed the Cattery at the end of 2006?
If this was the case, then names like George Fiacchi, Greg Phillips, Gavin Wanganeen, Russell Johnston and Mark ‘Choco' Williams would have either returned to the grade or debuted at the level earlier than in reality.
Head coach, and the man the Power's best and fairest award is named after, John Cahill would have also started his second stint as a pedagogue at the level six seasons earlier than in actuality.
As Port were a defecting team, they would have had a hard time coaxing South Australian talent on other AFL lists back to the club - unless of course they were products of Alberton to begin with.
So, with this in mind, you can rule out Darren Jarman and Tony McGuiness returning, yet, the potential for names such as Greg Anderson coming home early would have steeply risen.
Although there is a relatively straight forward answer for all of these previous quandaries, the final one on our list is far more ambiguous.
As just mentioned, Port's list was a cohesive one that had proven able to win silverware at a state level with ease. Still, with a potential inability to coax players that learnt the game at other locations around Adelaide, would they have been able to compete and win as quickly as the Crows?
Of all the hypothetical narratives I have raised across this series, this is possibly the most impossible to answer due to the fact that there is an almost non-existent sample size of Port playing AFL calibre teams at that stage..
With just the aforementioned clash against the Cats to go by, all we can truly state is that by the commencement of the 1990 season, Port Adelaide were proven to be a side that was 52-points worse off than a team that lost their respective Grand Final the season before by a straight kick.
However, as Geelong bested eight VFL teams – including three finalists - by this margin or greater in 1989, this isn't actually that big of a slight on Port at all.
This answer may seem feeble, but as the gap between the quality of the two competitions at that stage is nigh on impossible to quantify in this present day, I am sticking to an answer that Port Adelaide would have run to a similar timeline as the Crows had they been afforded a chance to.
Nonetheless, even though nothing can be proven, members of the Crows' murder should always be thankful for Ports' bold bid to join the league in 1991, as it forced the SANFL to begrudgingly birth your side.
So, Crows fans, just remember that during the next Showdown when you are hurling abuse at your fellow statesmen in the stands.
Despite lending a vast quantity of this series' column space to recounting errors, mistakes and regrets, when it comes to running a fine-toothed comb through the Tigers' coat, the door that slid was one that did so to safety.
With a trio of premiership cups having been placed in the previously cobwebbed trophy case at Punt Road since 2014, this contemporary era has been Richmond's most lustrous since the mid-70's.
Although their list, coaching staff and board have worked wonders to rid the club of their previously mocked identity, it has been the work of one heavily inked and highly skilled man that has led the way in giving Richmond back their roar.
However, had things panned out differently following the cessation of the 2013 season and the kibosh not been put on a killer deal, there was a very real possibility that the Tigers' 1980 chalice may have been the last piece of silverware in their cupboard.
Having been taken with the 3rd pick of the 2010 draft, Dustin Martin had longed been rated highly by the brass at Tigerland.
After making his debut in the number 36 guernsey in 2010, the man with Maori heritage – as evidenced by his tattooed homage to the Ngāti Maru people and their Matai Whetu marae on his neck – would go on to change his locker and hairstyle, but not his brilliance over the next 11-seasons.
Still, by the time the yellow and black army were bested by a side that ironically finished ninth in the 2013 finals series, Martin and his management had set their sights on a financially sound orange sunset.
After reportedly turning down a deal that would see the Bendigo Pioneers product net around $600,000 per annum with the Punt Road club, Martin and his manager, Ralph Carr, jetted north to the harbour city's west after receiving word that the competition's youngest side was willing to part with the contents of Fort Knox to end their on-field woes.
In spite of the fact that Martin would eventually return to the Tigers' ambush on a smaller deal than first negotiated, what would his career have looked like if he had traded yellow and black for orange and charcoal?
Would his mantel remain as decorated?
Would Richmond break their drought?
Would the Giants big, big sound have become a familiar tune in late September?
With a multitude of directions available for us to travel, to truly get to the bottom of this nightmarish reality for troops of the Tiger Army, we'll need to begin by answering the most concrete questions.
Firstly, had Dustin Martin packed his bags and jaunted north to join the Giants ahead of the 2014 season, would Richmond have become a worse team? The simple, and obvious, answer here is yes, they absolutely would have.
Secondly, would the Giants have then in turn become a better team? Again, the answer is relatively straight forward.
Be that as it may, like I was always requested to do by my fleet of fed-up maths teachers across my schooling years, I'm going to show you my work.
Prior to Round 1, 2014, Dustin Martin had played 86 out of a possible 89 games for Richmond and had scored 7.61% of the Tiger's goals across his four years in the league.
SEE ALSO: What if Ablett's shoulder had remained intact in 2014?
At that stage, Martin was still a pair of years away from flexing his inked biceps on the competition, as evidenced by his bare trophy case.
Now, we all know that Damien Hardwick eventually raised Martin's midfield minutes, and the now 30-year-old would rise to the task and never look back, but what if he had made a geographical move before he had been afforded a positional switch?
Ahead of the 2014 season – their third in the league – GWS had a catalogue of names that could run through the engine room such as Ward, Treloar, Shiel, Smith, Greene, Coniglio, Scully and Whitfield.
Granted none of these names had elevated themselves to total prominence by this point, but with such a lengthy list at his disposal, where would the newly appointed Leon Cameron have deployed Martin had he joined his arsenal that summer?
As a side that had only managed 221-goals in 2013, Martin's tally of 23 in the same season was worth the value of 10.41% of the Giants' total majors. For this reason, one would have to imagine that Martin would have likely been asked to play forward of the ball for a side that was coming off back-to-back wooden spoons.
If this was the case, then an argument can be made that had Martin made the move to Breakfast Point, his career could have actually been stunted.
Still, as the Richmond dynamo has gone on to cement himself as possibly the greatest name of his era so far, there is a more than fair counter point that would suggest Martin would have dominated no matter where he called home.
There is also another view that coach Cameron would have read from the same playbook as ‘Dimma', and that ‘Dusty's' midfield minutes would have climbed at Homebush as well.
SEE ALSO: What if the Giants had landed 'Buddy' at the end of 2013?
Having now played upwards of 250-games for the same club that drafted him, Dustin Martin's record-breaking trifecta of Norm Smith medals suggest one thing – he has been Richmond's greatest weapon at the stage when one was most needed.
Howbeit, had Martin had been a fourth-year Giant by the time that the Tigers had broken a 37-year premiership drought, would the long awaited rains have fallen Punt Road Oval at all?
I am sure that this hot needle has rankled many of the Richmond's 100,000 members, but the question is salient – just how important was ‘Dusty' to the creation the dynasty?
Across Richmond's rise and rise between 2016 and the cessation of last season, the club has claimed three-flags after compiling a record of 79-wins, 45-losses and a singular draw.
Throughout this 117-game stretch, Martin managed to lace the boots on 113-occasions.
Across this portion of performances, the 2017 Brownlow medallist collected 118-Brownlow votes, meaning that on average, ‘Dusty' was one of the best three players on the ground each and every week.
Just let that sink in.
If any side lost a player of this calibre, their performance would naturally dip, but as Martin has a reputation of showing up when Richmond needs him most, would the Tigers have managed to have hopped their many post-season hurdles without their superstar?
Had Martin been absent during September of 2017, there is an argument that the Tigers may not have beaten the Giants in that year's Preliminary Final.
As the man in question showed up to kick three-goals in the space of 10 minutes and put the game to bed early in the final term, had Martin been wearing orange that day, the tale could have had an alternative ending.
SEE ALSO: What if Jason Dunstall didn't insist on Alastair Clarkson's appointment?
With performance that saw him slot 2.2 and boot the Sherrin inside 50 on four occasions during a game decided by just over three-goals, had Martin been missing during the 2019 Prelim' in which the Tigers clawed back from 21-points down at half-time against the Cats, then a case could be made that they may have bowed out early again.
Once more, had Martin been unavailable during last year's Grand Final – another contest in which they trailed the Moggs by 21-points before he stamped his influence – then yet another chance could have been squandered.
Again, I am sure that I have stroked the Tiger of old's fur in the wrong direction, but this exercise has not been enacted in the effort to label Richmond a ‘one-man team', it has simply been completed to highlight how pivotal the mystifying Martin really is.
It is also for all of these reasons that had ‘Dusty' packed his bags and joined the Giants just over seven seasons ago, it would be a safe bet to say that the league's youngest franchise would almost certainly have some silverware to their name.
However, as history – and reality – have shown us, Martin remained a Tiger, and as long as he still calls Punt Road home, his side is never beaten until the final siren sounds - even when I do try and move the goalposts.