BOB Skilton, Tony Lockett, Ian Stewart and Gary Ablett, the four men named thus far in The Age's top 10 players of all time, had many things going for their nominations, none the least longevity.

Skilton played 237 games of league football, Lockett 281, Stewart 205 and Ablett senior 248.

Which makes today's two players stand out even more.

At No. 6 is legendary Essendon fullforward John Coleman, who played only 98 games for the Bombers. And a spot higher still, at No. 5, champion Geelong ruckman Graham Farmer.

Farmer played only 101 games for the Cats. Unlike Coleman, his VFL career wasn't cut short by injury, but a desire to return to his native Western Australia. Which gives some idea of the extent of the impression left by the mobile big man known universally as "Polly", in effectively only five seasons in football's most elite company.

He arrived in Victoria to play for Geelong in 1962 having carved a fearsome reputation with WAFL side East Perth over nine seasons and 176 games. Enough to have had the Cats work tirelessly for years to lure him across the continent.

When the big moment finally came, Geelong had itself a readymade champion, one who'd already won three Sandover Medals and seven club best-and-fairest awards.

It was perhaps VFL football's greatest recruiting coup. It was also a great VFL career nearly finished before it had barely begun, Farmer seriously injuring a knee in the opening minutes of his first game and missing the rest of the season.

The disappointment was remedied in style the following season.

The Cats beat Hawthorn twice in the finals to cruise to a 49-point grand final win. And it was Farmer at the helm, a clear best on ground.

That entire season was a celebration of Farmer's prodigious talent. He would win Geelong's best and fairest (he won again the following year), finish equalsecond behind Skilton in the Brownlow Medal, and help revolutionise ruckwork in the process.

Farmer was mobile, possessed a tremendous football brain and, with rover Bill Goggin, formed a devastating onball duo that opponents simply couldn't match for class or consistency.

He was strong, but was incredibly skilled and mobile for his 191- centimetre, 94-kilogram frame, and also had a natural high leap, which he used to advantage, jumping early in the ruck contests to either win the tap, or often simply grab the ball himself and distribute it with bulletlike speed and precision by hand.

And it was handball that was perhaps Farmer's greatest legacy.

Once employed in a car yard, his after-hours training habit, captured on film, of spearing handballs through an open car window became iconic and symbolic.

Handball previously had been seen as a last-resort. Farmer turned it into a dangerous offensive weapon as part of one of the most skilled teams of its time.

Sadly, it was a team whose talents were never matched with requisite material rewards. Though Geelong never finished lower than fourth during Farmer's time there, it could win only the 1963 flag, losing an epic 1967 grand final to a young Richmond team by only nine points.

A magnificent on-field leader, Farmer would skipper the Cats for three seasons, and his great rivalry with the other great ruckman of the age, Carlton's John Nicholls, became one of league football's great sideshows, two greats of the craft regularly pitting skills, brains and toughness against each other.

It all ended too prematurely for Farmer in Victoria. But he would continue to rack up the honours back in WA with West Perth, finishing his career in 1971 at age 36, having played a total of 393 senior games in two senior competitions and at state level.

Only about one quarter of them would come at VFL level, but that was enough to earn Farmer AFL Hall of Fame Legend status and a place in the Team of the Century.

"Polly" may not have had VFL longevity on his side when it came to The Age's top 10, but he clearly had everything else.

FARMER

Born: March 10, 1935

Height: 191cm.

Weight: 94kg

Club: Geelong

Recruited from: East Perth

AFL/VFL debut: 1962

Games: 101

Goals: 65

Honours: Finished second in the 1963 Brownlow Medal count; Geelong
premiership player 1963; club captain 1965-67; club best and fairest 1963, '64.

Won Sandover Medal (WA) in 1956 and '60. Coached Geelong 1973-75.