TIM Evans or Scott Hodges?

You'd still be smiling on losing the toss for first choice of Port Adelaide's most-prolific goalkicker.

But which of the record-breakers, who each rewrote the SANFL all-time count for goals in a season, would be at full forward?

The question has been asked before - and to a grand selection panel when the Port Adelaide Football Club named its "Greatest Team" from 1870-2000. And the field of contenders included Rex Johns, Eric Freeman, Wally Dittmar, Les Dayman, Frank Hansen and John McKenzie.

Specialist goalkickers supposedly are the easiest footballers to judge by statistics, particularly when there is a clear-cut call on their kicks: They either count as goals or they don't.

Evans, after starting at his Port Adelaide league career at centre half-back for a month, kicked 1019 goals in 232 games - average 4.32.

Hodges, who also was not initially groomed as a full forward, kicked 671 goals in 167 games that were interrupted by AFL action away from his Port Adelaide home - average 4.02.

It is a marginal call.

Tim Ginever started his Port Adelaide league football career in 1983 with Tim Evans in the goalsquare. He ended his 314-game playing chapter at Alberton with Scott Hodges at full forward - and deciding grand finals and preliminary finals. He saw both power forwards establish their grand place in SA league football history – and learned how calm Evans was off the field at the card table after kicking a bag of goals each Saturday.

“Two totally different players – amazingly different,” says Ginever.

“I grew up admiring Tim Evans and all the Port Adelaide premiership stars of that 1977-1981 era. He was the legend of goalkickers. And then I am in the team playing alongside him – and getting him a beer from the esky at the card games after our matches.

“I couldn’t believe how much he would put into his pre-game routine. He would sit there crossing his legs, ripping his shorts to make them loose. That was it.

“But out on the field you couldn’t fault him for concentration – he was great at understanding what he had to do. He was so good overhead for his marks. He was so strong one-on-one. He was so precise with his kick.

“On the lead, he’d make that burst to get away from his defender – and he was hard to catch on the first five (metres). His hands were so good. And you never saw him duck his head.

“If they blocked him on the lead, he’d go back to the goalsquare for a one-on-one – and he would destroy anyone. It was unbelievable to watch. He was constantly kicking a bag of goals – big scores.”

Hodges, one of Ginever’s team-mates from the Port Adelaide junior ranks?

“No-fanfare Scott; he did not like a fuss being made over him,” Ginever says.

“And that was pretty much how he played. Put the ball out in front of Scott – anywhere in front of him – and he would run onto it. He would not deviate from his straight-line approach to the ball no matter who was in his way. And many paid the price for getting in his way.

“Scott’s versatility, from what he had learned in other positions, meant if the ball hit the ground, he would get his hands on it and create his own goal. He’d pick up the ball, brush off an opponent and get a goal. He was so dynamic. He’d tackle hard. He’d never drop his head. And he’d get you that clutch goal, again and again – and in big matches.

“His 1990 – Margarey Medal, goalkicking record and premiership off a big grand final – is the best year I’ve seen from anyone. Anyone!”

Ginever's call on the coveted full forward role?

“That’s unfair,” replies the Port Adelaide premiership captain and former coach.

“But I will say the selectors of the ‘Greatest Team’ did get it right. Tim Evans at forward for his 1000-plus goals and Scott Hodges alongside him. It’s a dream pairing for a dream line-up – and a nightmare for the defenders.”

Evans rewrote the SANFL goalkicking books in Port Adelaide's record-breaking 1980 season. He left the best count in a season at 146, rewriting the legendary Ken Farmer's record of 134 from 1936.

Hodges lifted the bar to 153 goals (taking the record from Sturt great Rick Davies, 151 in 1983) with his heroics in the 1990 SANFL grand final triumph against Glenelg in the darkest winter of all.

Evans topped Port Adelaide's goalkicking list 10 times (1975 and every season from 1977 to 1985); Hodges did such five times (1988, 1989, 1990, 1994 and 1996).

Evans was the SANFL's leading goalkicker six times (1977, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1982 and 1984); Hodges won the Ken Farmer Medal as the league's leading goalkicker three times (1990, 1994 and 1996).

The "Greatest Team" selection panel - that comprised club greats Bob Quinn, Fos Williams, Dave Boyd, Russell Ebert and Greg Phillips while John Cahill abstained - chose Evans at full forward and Hodges in a forward pocket. Pity the defensive team needing to deal with such a potent combination.

Remarkably, for all the success Port Adelaide gathered in its first 109 years in the SANFL, it was not until Evans kicked 146 in 1980 - with a record 16 against West Adelaide at Alberton Oval in round 5 - that the club could put three figures by the name of a spearhead on the honour board at Alberton.

Then, in the space of a decade Evans and Hodges each rewrote the SANFL record books. They remain the only Port Adelaide players to have kicked the ton while Mark Tylor (97 goals in 1992) and Les Dayman (99 goals in 1930) came very close.

Since being a foundation member of the SA Football Association (now SANFL) in 1877, Port Adelaide has led the annual goalkicking charts 36 times - more than any other club. Evans (six) and Hodges, Johns, Hansen (four times each) make up for half of this record.

The first Port Adelaide player to top the league's goalkicking chart was Rob Roy with his 22 in the club's first premiership season in 1884.

And the most-interesting race to the top of the goalkicking charts from the pioneers at Alberton was with John McKenzie in the club's second premiership season in 1890.

At the start of the last weekend of the season - with no finals in 1890 - Norwood's goalkicking sensation Charles Wood had the lead on McKenzie by three goals, 22-19. Norwood had completed its 18-game season on Saturday, September 13 while Port Adelaide still had its finale (and premiership clincher) against Adelaide the following Saturday.

Port Adelaide won, 20.20 to 0.1 (with only the goals counting) while McKenzie raced to the top of the goalkicking charts by quarter-time of the Adelaide belting and finished the game with a record 13 goals from 24 shots - and season with 32 goals.

The South Australian Register recorded McKenzie's run on the goalkicking charts that day in mid-September 1890 with this tally:

"In the first quarter after a miss, (McKenzie) put on four goals in succession, all splendid kicks. After this he missed four times, but during the third stage added half a dozen more goals, the first four without the intervention of a minor. However, at least two ridiculously easy shots from about ten yards in front were mulled."   

SIX SHOOTERS

(Six of Port Adelaide's renowned goalkickers beside Tim Evans and Scott Hodges) 

1) WARREN TREDREA

Goals: 549 in 255 AFL games; 33 in 26 SANFL games from 1996-2010.

Everyone knew Warren Tredrea after his eighth AFL game - 17 marks, 18 kicks, 8.4 ... and a knee injury before the end of the match. By the end of his stellar football career, Tredrea was bound for the Australian Football Hall of Fame with four consecutive All-Australian selections (2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 beating Brisbane key forward Jonathan Brown to this honour); four John Cahill Medals as Port Adelaide's club champion in 2001, 2004, 2005 and 2009; eight leading goalkicker crowns at Port Adelaide (seven from 1998 and the eighth in 2009) and captaincy of the 2004 AFL premiership team. He stands third on the Port Adelaide Football Club's all-time goalkicking list.

2) REX JOHNS

Goals: 451 in 134 SANFL games from 1954-1963.

Australian Football Hall of Fame Legend Malcolm Blight would stand on the terraces at Alberton in his youth to admire one Port Adelaide footballer - Rex Johns. Off his left foot, he topped the Port Adelaide goalkicking list six times - in 1956, 1957 and 1958 and then (after recovering from injury) 1961, 1962 and 1963. He was the SANFL's leading goalkicker four times, 1956 (70 goals); 1958 (55); 1962 (76) and 1963 (54). And there was considerable style in the way "Rexie" Johns scored his goals in an era of tough, defensive football. No wonder he caught the eye of a young Malcolm Blight.

3) ERIC FREEMAN

Goals: 390 in 115 SANFL games from 1964-1971.

He could take a strong mark. He could kick the ball across long distances and with accuracy. And ... he could play cricket as well. Eric Freeman succeeded Rex Johns as Port Adelaide's key forward from 1964 - and from 1965-1967, "Fritz" was the SANFL's most-imposing forward topping the league's goalkicking chart in 1966 with 81 goals. Freeman's 75 goals in 1970 played a significant part in Port Adelaide's rise from non-finalist (sixth) to minor premier in the club's centenary season.

Test cricket tours took up much of Freeman's football opportunities in 1968 and 1969. In the five seasons in which cricket did not take Freeman off the football field, he always returned at least 50 goals to top the Port Adelaide goalkicking count in 1965, 1966, 1967, 1970 and 1971.

4) LES DAYMAN

Goals: 401 in 166 SANFL games from 1921-1931 and 1937.

"Bro" was one of SA's first true stars as the game of Australian football picked up the pieces after World War I as fans marvelled at his skills and ability to command the ball in the air. He also was Port Adelaide's all-time leading goalkicker until Rex Johns starred in the club's Golden Era in the 1950s. And his tally of 401 would have been greater had he not been lured to the VFL in 1932 to first play three seasons with Footscray and then two with VFA club Coburg.

Dayman's resume at Port Adelaide - three best-and-fairest awards and four times the leading goalkicker - is recognised with his selection at centre half-forward in the club's "Greatest Team" selected at the turn of the 20th century.

Club patriarch Bob McLean attributes 99 goals to Dayman's season count in 1929, a figure recorded as 86 by the SANFL in recognising Dayman as the league's leading goalkicker in that year.

5) FRANK HANSEN

Goals: 168 in 58 SANFL games from 1910-1914.

Originally from South Adelaide, Frank Hansen became part of the all-conquering Port Adelaide teams before World War I, although injury forced his retirement halfway through the "Invincible" season of 1914 when aged 29.

Hansen topped the SAFL leading goalkicker list as soon as he arrived at Alberton and for four consecutive years - 46 in 1910, 41 in 1911, 37 in 1912 and 39 in 1913.

6) MARK TYLOR

Goals: 395 in 174 SANFL games from 1985-1997.

At a time when Port Adelaide had to keep winning premierships to advance its case to be in the national AFL competition - and Scott Hodges was being called to AFL action at Adelaide - Mark Tylor became a critical part of the club's campaign for repetitive success.

A "local product" from the Lefevre Peninsula, Tylor won two Ken Farmer Medals as the SANFL's leading goalkicker - in 1992 with 97 goals and 1993 with 87 - and topped Port Adelaide's goalkicking list three times, 1992, 1993 and 1995. Injury (a broken hand) late in 1992 denied Tylor the chance to join Tim Evans and Scott Hodges as Port Adelaide's only century goalkickers.