Champion Data’s Daniel Hoyne is a huge fan of GWS defender Sam Taylor.
Coming off a maiden All-Australian campaign in 2022, the 23-year-old has gone to another level in 2023 and the stats back it up.
Taylor has been so good in both one-on-one contests and in intercept situations that Hoyne went as far as to compare him to Richmond legend Alex Rance, a player he considered the most complete key defender of the last 15 years.
“We’ve gone back over the last 10-15 years and Alex Rance was probably the most complete defender key we’ve seen in the last 15 years,” Hoyne told SEN Sportsday.
“In terms of he would take the best key forward each week, he wasn’t hidden, he was the best interceptor year on year and his one-on-one record was pretty much unrivalled.
“You look at what Sam Taylor’s doing, over the last two years, he’s the second-best player in terms of winning a one-on-one contest in the competition and he’s the hardest player to beat in a one-on-one contest.
“He lost his first one (one-on-one) contest of the year on the weekend.
“He’s been involved in 18 one-on-ones this year and he’s won 12 of them.
“No player has ever won 12 one-on-one contests out of 18, no one has ever done that.”
On top of Taylor’s historic one-on-one statistics, Hoyne is a huge fan of the GWS best and fairest as he’s doing it on the best players week-in-week-out.
Those defensive skills plus his ball use has Hoyne predicting that he’ll one day become one of the best key defenders of not just his generation but across multiple decades.
“His ball use is fantastic,” Hoyne said.
“One thing I also rate about him, like Alex Rance, he doesn’t get hidden.
“He’s played on Oscar Allen, Harry McKay and Darcy Fogarty.
“He’s playing on a team that’s getting bombarded with inside 50s week upon week and that team has conceded the fewest goals to key forwards in the competition – mainly because of the job he’s doing.
“Even though he’s 23, I look at him down the line in 10 years’ time, I think we’ll be looking and celebrating him as one of the best key defenders we’ve seen in the last 20, 30 or 40 years.”
Taylor also ranks first in intercepts and fourth in contested marks this season.
He’ll get his next chance to impress when the Giants face the Lions at Manuka Oval on Saturday afternoon.