LAST week, Dream Team assistant coach Neale Daniher made an interesting observation about the future of football where "freaks" dominated the AFL landscape.

In winding up Big V assistant Kevin Sheedy about how difficult it would be to man-up on his players, the Reverend mused that the Dream Team might start Matthew Pavlich, Lance Franklin and Matthew Richardson in the goal square, then switch them to the midfield, with Buddy and Richo on a wing and big Pav in the centre.

Of the three, Pavlich is the smallest at 192 centimetres and no doubt the slowest. "That's modern-day footy isn't it, that's looking ahead in 20 years time where you have got six-foot-five blokes, six-foot-six blokes playing on the wing and Pavlich in the middle," the former Melbourne coach said.

Probably more instructive in Daniher's line-up was that he was making the important distinction — that even among the best, there are ones who wear 24-carat gold boots.

They are the ones, like Richardson, Franklin, Nick Riewoldt, Adam Goodes and only a handful of others blessed with the tantalising combination of towering height, incredible speed, prodigious natural athleticism and, just as importantly, skill.

Many in the AFL have some of those attributes, but it's the combination that sets them apart.

The attraction is obvious, says AFL national talent manager Kevin Sheehan. "There are many, many good tall players in the competition, solid contributors and at times maybe more consistent players, but then there are the ones who can do those special things because they've got something absolutely rare about them in the athletic and the football sense," he said.

"They're the ones everyone is seeking because they can swing forward or back. When the conditions are in their favour they're almost impossible to beat with their reach and speed. Oh yeah, (the recruiters') eyes light up when they see them because it gets back to the rareness of them."

As many thought he would after his outstanding 2007, Franklin this season has launched himself further into the stratosphere. The question being asked now is, just how good will he get? Yet he was never a sure bet. Drafted at No. 5 overall in the 2004 national draft, Franklin was overlooked not only by two clubs — Richmond and the Western Bulldogs — but also the Hawks before they snared him with their second selection, it is clear no one was overly convinced Franklin's sensational natural athletic ability and amazing talent would be enough to counteract what is also undeniably a somewhat erratic and immature personality.

Richardson, at the opposite end of his career to Franklin, is proving with his hard-running role on the wing this season that he is every bit the freak Buddy is. Racking up more kilometres and possessions than some of the competition's premier midfielders, he also leads the AFL in contested marks. All at the height of 196 centimetres, weight of 104 kilograms and age of 33. Another, who has taken longer to find his feet in the AFL, is the Brisbane Lions' Jared Brennan. Famous for his one-handed pick-ups courtesy of a handspan of 24.6 centimetres, Brennan is a jack-in-the-box with a prodigious leap who set an AFL draft camp record by performing a 102-centimetre vertical leap.

Franklin has a massive arm reach of 87.7 centimetres, but Essendon's Patrick Ryder's is even longer, while Franklin's handspan is a whopping 25.1 centimetres. Riewoldt's vertical jump of 81 centimetres off both legs is also outstanding.

"Those are the sorts of things that set them apart," Sheehan said.

From a fitness and conditioning point of view, Richmond's elite performance manager Matt Hornsby explained most things could be trained into players, but those who were genetically blessed had a natural advantage. "It's their ability to cover the ground with endurance, to keep reproducing across the whole game and also have good speed and power. Richo's the perfect example of that and Buddy's the exact same," he said. "Every parameter of conditioning can be improved but you just have a ceiling on them depending on your own genetics. Guys like Richo and Franklin have some pretty handy genetics that allow their ceiling for athletic potential to be a lot higher than other players."

Veteran St Kilda recruiting adviser John Beveridge, the man responsible for recruiting Riewoldt in 2000, agrees the tall athletic types are a proposition clubs look at as a first choice come draft time. But all clubs have list needs that could mean the tall "freak" is not their No. 1 priority.

"I think first and foremost you are looking for tall key-position players, forward or back. However the outstanding midfielders are also gold, like your Joel Selwoods," Beveridge said. There is no denying that even for freaks, footballing ability still counts.

"The ones who have the size and something special athletically are the rare ones and you don't often see them being able to play football as well as these guys can play. That's the key," Sheehan said. "The starting question in recruiting is 'how well can you play football?' and then it's 'is he sufficiently athletic?' And then you find out he's a freak athletically and you think 'gee, I've got something special here'.

"You'd love to have a gene pool to produce that many in a country of our size. That's why it's exciting to look outside Australia, you start saying 'what about the Pacific islands, what about South Africa?'. We've had a taste of them with the Irishmen, the next challenge is can we find them in other places where they have got great athletic ability."