Halfway through the 2007 AFL season and we're on pace for yet another record to be broken in this age of higher, faster, bigger and, supposedly, better.
But this isn't a mark that will be celebrated with gusto – in fact, if achieved, it will be a triumph for defence, blocking of space, cramping of room and generally stifling some of the biggest stars of the competition.
Just 35 goals to both Brendan Fevola and Lance Franklin is the leading goalkicker benchmark with 11 rounds already consigned to the history books. Simple mathematics tells us that if the second half of the campaign mirrors the first, the lowest total required to win the Coleman Medal since the league expanded outside of Victoria will be recorded.
I acknowledge that coaches prefer to see their weekly score sheet with a double-figure tally of contributors, that an even spread of goalkickers to make their team less predictable is the desired result, but some of the glamour of the game will have disappeared if we are having 70-goal totals taking top billing for a season.
The trend of lower tallies has been creeping in over the past decade, with Fraser Gehrig's 74 majors in the home-and-away season of 2005 and David Neitz's 75 in 2002 the lowest to win the award since we went national.
One has to go back to 1975, when Leigh Matthews, playing predominantly as a rover, topped the goalkicking table with 67 to find a year when no one broke 70 in the home-and-away series.
In addition, we haven't had the century broken during the regular season since Tony Lockett managed 107 in 1998. Both of Matthew Lloyd's tons (2000-01) and Gehrig's (2004) were reached during the finals.
Is it cyclical? We haven't got a Lockett, Dunstall or Ablett (Gary snr) strutting their stuff at the minute, and maybe they were the bookends to the conclusion of a goal-den era that started with Hudson, Wade and McKenna.
When contemplating that group, and all those that came in between (the likes of Jesaulenko, Blethyn, Donohue, Moncrieff, Templeton, Roach, Blight, Quinlan, Beasley, Taylor, Capper, Sumich and Modra) it is possible we were spoilt for choice for the best part of three decades, but it is more likely the style of football in the 2000s just doesn't lend itself to one player regularly kicking bags of goals.
Double-teaming, slotting a player in 'the hole' in front of the full-forward, flooding generally, and positional rotations are all factors in the diminishing goal tallies being booted by the men with the most glamourous roles in the game.
However, there are signs that a more offensive brand of football is on the way back, with teams at different ends of the ladder leading the charge. First-placed Geelong is the league's heaviest scorer at an average of 116 points per game, while 13th placed Carlton is second in that stat with 105 points per match. Admittedly the Blues also have the worst defence, leaking an average of 122 points per outing.
In much the same way the Brownlow Medal has become the midfielders award, so has the Coleman Medal become an award where a lot less than three figures has you in the reckoning.
One plus at least is that we are headed for a grandstand finish in the race for the Coleman, with the top six players on