A FOREST has been removed in newsprint about the imperfections of Wayne Carey, the person. His name was uttered in an American court this week, and moral watchdogs long ago dismissed him as a lecherous thug.

But as a pure footballer, the "great creator of players" never produced a more perfect machine. Not a single component was overlooked in the piecing together of North Melbourne's all-time champion.

A beautiful kick? Tick (and on both sides). Superb mark, even in pack situations? Absolutely. Ball-handling, balance, agility, speed, aggression, unquestionable courage? He had it all.

Is Carey the third-best player of all time? Have your say.

Moreover, Carey was never shackled by the self-doubt that grips the average sportsman at some point of their careers. The man from Wagga Wagga came with a strut that never really disappeared. Apocryphal or not, it is easy to believe the stories that went around about Carey belittling certain opponents at the start of games: "What? You're coming to play on me? Get me the Footy Record. Who's this bloke, No. 13?"

The combination of peerless skill, and a personal authority to match it, allowed Carey to perform at his best on the bigger stages at the key moments, which was essentially his greatness. Mere mortals are inclined to tighten under the heat; Carey actually rose to it, such as Shane Warne in cricket during the same era.

Like Warne, it rarely seemed to matter what was going on around him. When it got tough, Carey got better. And also like Warne, he was a great individual who could operate within a team environment - somewhat of a contradiction.

Carey played until he was 33, when a dangerous neck injury forced him to walk away from Adelaide, his second club. But in truth he was shot by the time he was 30, and the last few years only muddied the picture unnecessarily.

Like Dermott Brereton, whom he succeeded as the game's premier centre half-forward, he paid a heavy price for playing a collision game. While Ken Hunter might have started it, Carey popularised the manic attack of the football while running with the flight, the game's equivalent of running blindfolded onto a freeway.

It suited his mentality to challenge the old ways, and to challenge the manhood of those coming at him from the other direction. Many players - notably Jonathan Brown - have copied him since, though the suspicion remains that their careers will be shortened by this, too. Carey played his football in the same way that he lived his life: out on the edge, and sometimes over.

Greg Miller, North's recruiter in the 1980s, first saw Carey playing a junior game in Adelaide, where he had gone to live with his mother upon the separation of his parents. As a Wagga boy he was zoned to Sydney, but fate intervened. Miller was recruiting for the Swans when he saw the boy wonder; but around the time Carey began to blossom, Miller switched to North Melbourne with the intellectual property in his kitbag.

Miller paid $20,000 to the Swans for the right to sign Carey and John Longmire (from Corowa, also in the Sydney zone), the single most significant act of his life as an administrator.

Carey's impact was ridiculously quick. He played in an under-19 premiership under Denis Pagan, and soon graduated, in 1989. "I'm here to play in the seniors," he told Pagan once, famously for a teen.

He was captain of the club at 21 and nobody was in any doubt who was steering once the Kangaroos crossed the line. Carey's leadership skills are often overlooked; his teammates at Arden Street worshipped him (at least until the bitter end). At footy trip time, he was known to have taken aside young players who had baulked at the cost, and told them: "I've fixed it up. You're coming."

North Melbourne became the team of the 1990s and within that, Carey was its standard-bearer. At Arden Street, they called him "Duck" because of his slight waddle while running; outside the club, everyone just called him "The King". Watch a videotape of the 1994 finals series and you will see why.

He utterly dominated games and was even better in finals. Two day premierships came the way of North Melbourne, the so-called pauper club. Only a fit of inaccurate kicking on the big day cost the Roos another flag in 1998.

A lot of debate occurred at the time about the comparison between Carey, the ruthless achiever, and Gary Ablett, the incredible wizard. My take is that Ablett was capable of more amazing things on the field, in fact more than any anyone ever. But the sum total of Ablett's output consisted of what he did himself, for he had no concept of team, did not give the ball off if a teammate was in better position.

Carey made other players. Two of them, Winston Abraham and Brett Allison, cobbled careers by playing at his feet, gathering up spillage. The concept of Pagan's Paddock, the creation of space behind Carey, allowed North's centre half-forward to lead up, gather, wheel around and pass to a Kangaroo surging into the ether, a strategy more akin to soccer. Carey did this dozens of times, along with averaging close to three goals a game.

They were heady days, and they ended abruptly. Carey faded as a player around 2001, when his dodgy shoulders ached and he started to lose his athleticism. At Adelaide, he was largely a decoy for others, a terrible reflection on his decline.

Midway through 2004 he played for the final time. They didn't even carry him off the ground, for he would not have it. Not a tear spilled to his cheek that day in Adelaide.

Machines aren't disposed to crying.