LAST week, Geelong's Brent Prismall played his best AFL game. And tonight, against Sydney at ANZ Stadium, after three seasons at senior level, he'll equal his longest streak of consecutive appearances. Five.

It's not quite the stuff of Jim Stynes, but when you're a young midfielder on the fringes of one of the best teams the game has seen, every match is a landmark.

After his great performance in the wet against Melbourne last Friday night, the Cats simply had no choice.

"That's a bit of a (selection) challenge," Geelong coach Mark Thompson mused after Geelong's whitewashing of Melbourne, pondering the potential return of injured pair Paul Chapman and Darren Milburn.

"We normally plug Prismall back (to the reserves), but he had 30 possessions and kicked three goals, so he'd be pretty hard to take out of the side."

Not that Prismall would have been in the least surprised if he had lost his spot, despite averaging 23 disposals in his eight games this year, and twice racking up 30-plus.

If carving out an AFL career was just about talent and dedication, Prismall would be halfway there. But it's also about opportunity. And in that regard, his timing couldn't have been worse. Geelong is on a major roll, 37 wins from its past 39 games, one premiership and a second seemingly inevitable.

Not only that, the Cats boast one of the deepest midfield groups the modern game has seen. Gary Ablett, Jimmy Bartel, Joel Corey, Cameron Ling, Chapman, James Kelly, Joel Selwood, Corey Enright, Max Rooke, etc, etc. As former Geelong great and a previous owner of the Cats' No. 32 guernsey, Garry "Buddha" Hocking, puts it: "A host of Academy Award winners".

Which has made the expectations of the coaching panel on any member of the midfield group incredibly high. And the marking of Geelong fans used to weekly displays of excellence tough, to say the least. With precious little else for them to complain about, Prismall's place in the pecking order has, for Cats supporters, become a bone of contention.

The Geelong forum on popular football website Bigfooty has been arguing the toss for the past month, a thread about Prismall now extending to 19 pages and more than 270 posts.

In one camp are the unabashed admirers, who see a beautiful kick of the football with a smart football brain, a player who would walk into any other side. In the other, the sceptics, who believe Prismall is no more than a handy back-up, made to look better by the talent around him. But that's an assessment disputed vigorously by his teammates.

Corey has become something of a mentor to the young engine-room aspirant. "He's way too good for the VFL," he says. "You'll ask him, 'How did you go?' and he'll just say, 'Yeah, all right'. And then you'll find out he's had 41 touches and kicked four goals, and you ask the blokes he's played with and they'll say he was amazing. He just dominates at that level."

It's lack of continuity at senior level that has been the fly in the ointment. Prismall was a key in Geelong's 2006 pre-season cup-winning team but broke his arm 11 minutes into his first AFL game of the regular season. It was round 14 before he returned, and while he managed to play seven of the last nine games, it was lost in the wash of a miserable finish in which the Cats won only two of their last six games.

Last year, he played the first five games before being dropped. He then broke his wrist and it wasn't until the eve of the finals that he was back in harness. In the meantime, a young prodigy named Joel Selwood had stepped into the breach. Even then Prismall was close, named as an emergency for the grand final.

But so good are the Cats now, breaking into the best 22 is like penetrating Fort Knox. Prismall played in round five this year, was dropped, reappeared for rounds 11, 12 and 13, was dropped again for two weeks, but was back again after injuries to Ablett and Ling.

His first two games in his most recent stint were the top-of-the-table clashes with the Western Bulldogs and Hawthorn. He had 20 disposals in both, but was caught with the ball on a couple of occasions and the critics were quick to pounce. Which has made his efforts over the past fortnight timely indeed. He had a solid effort against Richmond before last week's vote-winning effort against Melbourne, one that moved Hocking — Prismall's former coach at the Western Jets — to send him a text message. "It just said, 'Good on you mate, that's the level the No. 32 works at'," Hocking chuckles.

Now coach of the Geelong Falcons, Hocking is careful not to stick his nose in too frequently in the senior team's affairs. But there's still a sense of kin. Hocking called then Geelong football manager Garry Davidson when Prismall was drafted at the end of 2004 to tell him he would be "rapt" if the youngster were to inherit his old number.

"I took to him straight away," he recalls of Prismall's season at the Jets. "He just had a really nice personality, always had a smile on his face, and had real focus and direction." Leaving aside the quality of the opposition, Hocking believes the most significant aspect of Prismall's game against Melbourne was his workrate. "He actually got the ball rolling right from the start with his attack on the footy and his intensity," he says.

"He's a player who just needs to get the footy in his hands. I'd like to see him run and carry it a bit more and really bring his kicking to the fore, because he's a beautiful kick, but at the moment he's probably still in awe of the boys around him and feels like it's his job to feed it off."

Not that the more senior Geelong players feed any sense of inferiority. In fact, Corey says he can learn much from Prismall's football smarts, and vice versa. "I'm in pretty close contact with him. He runs things by me, and I run things by him," Corey says. "When you're out there in your little bubble, just to ask his perspective on things helps me a lot. I really enjoy it when he plays well, because you feel like there's a connection there.

"It's looking at the bigger picture. Just because he hasn't got the experience, doesn't mean he hasn't got anything to add, and just because we've got the experience, doesn't mean we know what's best. It's a two-way street."

And one thing in which Prismall is clearly becoming an expert, is the art of patience. Last year, Adelaide asked about his availability at the trade table and was told the 22-year-old was a "no-go zone".

But with Prismall out of contract at the end of this season, you can expect a flood of interest this time. As one rival recruiter said this week: "The kid's a gun. Who wouldn't be interested?"

Which makes the next six weeks the most critical of a potentially fine career. Hold his spot in the team, play in a premiership and Prismall will most likely remain a Geelong player for a long, long time. Miss out again, and the frustration could be overwhelming.

Corey has plenty of sympathy. "I know from when I was younger it would have to play on your mind a little bit. But you couldn't tell externally from how he acts or goes about it," he says.

"He's been unlucky when he's gone out of the side. He's just had to hang in there."

Adds Hocking: "I think a lot of people probably expected him to sink, but I think he's just starting to show people he can actually swim, which is terrific for him because he's had a tough initiation.

"Does he get that opportunity this year to become a premiership player? I've got my fingers and toes and arms and legs crossed. Not because he wears No. 32, but because I just love the kid and the way he goes about his footy.

"He's not me. He doesn't get suspended and lose a bit of control. He's a different player, and people have got to give him a bit of space and time to show what he can actually do."

Last week's performance against Melbourne earned Prismall another chance to show his wares, against Sydney tonight. Another good game against the Swans should theoretically allow him to set a new personal best of six games on end.

But this is Geelong, and the names Chapman, Milburn and Wojcinski are all potential "ins" for next week's big clash with the Kangaroos. Which means that for Prismall, yet again, selection night will be every bit as big a cause for butterflies as game day.

ANALYSIS

GOOD player. Bad timing. It's a situation not uncommon to elite level sport, where a talented individual's dreams can be stymied by the presence of so many stars around them.

Cricket has provided plenty of cogent examples. There was Jamie Siddons, by consensus the best batsman never to play for Australia at Test level, a run machine who simply had too many peers in the queue ahead of him.

And there's Stuart MacGill, of course, who would probably be remembered as one of the game's best spin bowlers were it not for a bloke by the name of Shane Warne.

The AFL continues to turn out its own hard-luck stories, of which Brent Prismall is merely the latest. Despite his obvious abilities he is struggling to find a permanent home in a Geelong line-up that continues to raise the bar of excellence.

While there's a school of thought that it's far easier to be a good player in a great side than a poor one, it's not the case if you can't force your way into the team to begin with. And that's been the story for many players denied their opportunity by a glut of talent.

The powerhouse that was Richmond in the early 1970s boasted several, most notably big man Graham Teasdale, a sensation in the Tigers' under-19s, but who graduated to senior level with the club in the middle of three successive grand final appearances that would deliver back-to-back premierships.

He, along with two teammates with similar predicaments, Brian Roberts and Francis Jackson, were traded to South Melbourne in a deal to deliver Swans star John Pitura.

All gave the Swans great service. Teasdale won the 1977 Brownlow Medal, but none would get to play in a premiership or be recognised as part of one of the game's greatest teams.

Neither would teammate and teenage sporting prodigy Robert Lamb, who also ended up at South, unable to force his way ahead of the likes of Kevin Bartlett, Paul Sproule and a young Neil Balme or David Cloke.

Allan Goad, a Hawthorn midfielder of the 1970s and early 1980s, spent a whole career living in the shadows of such Hawk greats as Leigh Matthews, Michael Tuck and Terry Wallace.

Then there's the host of players — part of the great Hawthorn and Essendon sides of the mid-1980s — who served inordinately long apprenticeships at reserves level before earning their chance.

Jamie Morrissey for the Hawks and Gary O'Donnell for the Bombers spent enough time in the "twos" to span a football lifetime before finally taking the step up and playing in senior flags.

But the lack of opportunity can kill other careers. Mick Thomson and Mark Eustice were talented Essendon youngsters who, with a fraction more luck and timing, might have been part of two premierships in the mid-1980s.

Both missed out, transferred to a struggling Richmond, and while Eustice would go on to play some good football for Sydney, never became anything near the household names they might have.

For Prismall, by comparison, there will be no lengthy apprenticeship at VFL level. Shorter lists and greater demand for quick results dictate that if Geelong decides he cannot squeeze into its best 22, he will move on.

A big, premiership-winning name in one of football's greatest sides, or a journeyman eking out a relatively anonymous existence with an also-ran. When you're surrounded by sporting brilliance, no matter how good you are, it can be a very fine line.