Fremantle coach Ross Lyon says Nat Fyfe’s improvement will come in his leadership of the team but there is a case to argue that Fyfe’s greatest scope for upside is in front of goal.

The Dockers superstar will play his 150th game against Carlton at Etihad Stadium today — an occasion which offers an opportunity to compare him on two fronts.

First there is the mouth-watering confrontation that will take place today between Fyfe and fellow WA country boy and midfield behemoth Patrick Cripps.

If anyone is wondering why 13th v 18th is worth watching, that battle should be worth the price of admission alone.

And second, it is timely to run Fyfe’s numbers against other great midfielders of the past 20 years — Chris Judd, Gary Ablett, Patrick Dangerfield and Dustin Martin — at the same stage of their careers.

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Between them, these four and Fyfe account for six of the 14 Brownlow Medals won since Judd snared his first in just his third season in AFL ranks in 2004. What the numbers tell you is that the Dockers skipper has the others covered in almost every area except impact on the scoreboard.

Ablett once kicked 44 goals as a high-possession midfielder who drifted forward. Judd twice kicked 29 goals in a season at West Coast despite playing almost exclusively midfield, and famously kicked five off a wing in half a game against Brisbane in 2003.

Dangerfield played forward at times last year and finished the season with 45 goals. Martin has been sent forward in an attempt to isolate him one-on-one against vulnerable small or mid-sized defenders since 2014. Last year, when he won the Brownlow Medal, he booted 37 goals.

Fyfe has never kicked more than the 24 he managed in 2014. Ablett started his career as a forward and later moved midfield. Martin and Dangerfield have always shown the aptitude to play in attack.

But so has Fyfe. Of the five, he is almost certainly the most imposing marking target and the one who probably had the best junior football pedigree as a forward.

It was Fyfe’s six-goal effort for Claremont against Peel in the 2009 WAFL colts grand final that confirmed Fremantle’s decision to take him as their second pick in the draft that year at No.20 after Anthony Morabito (pick No.4).

In the AFL, he has two four-goal hauls and has kicked three goals four times, but remains a midfielder who occasionally goes forward. In the past couple of seasons the Dockers have appeared as likely, if not more likely, to send David Mundy to add punch and experience to a vulnerable attack than Fyfe.

There is no right answer to how much time Fyfe should spend midfield and forward, but it is a question that Ross Lyon, Fyfe and the Dockers should continue to ask themselves.

Fyfe is rapidly catching Matthew Pavlich who, because of length of service, remains the club’s greatest player. Fyfe has the tools to be better than Pavlich, but it should be noted that Pavlich had genuine impact in the midfield and in attack.

He kicked more than 60 goals six times over a 17-year career. Remarkably, in 2010 he managed 61 goals splitting his time between attack and midfield in a season when a young Fremantle team — only marginally further into a rebuild than this one — shocked the competition by making the eight and winning a final.

Camera Icon Nat Fyfe has become one of Fremantle’s greatest-ever players. Credit: AFL Media

In that remarkable game in 2003 when Judd kicked five goals in a half against Brisbane at the Gabba off just 17 disposals, the Eagles won by 69 points.

Early the next year the Lions came to Perth and Judd ran up 30 disposals, kicked a goal and had 16 contested possessions in a three-point victory. Four-time premiership coach Leigh Matthews, who won three flags in a row with Brisbane, observed after the game that as an opposition coach trying to contain Judd he would take 30 disposals and one goal over 17 possessions and five goals any day.

For Fremantle, Fyfe and Lyon, there might be something in Lethal’s words.