THE BEST TAGGER
We found the untaggable one. The inverse read finds the best at the tag — and it isn’t the player who racks up the most tackles.
The mirror of a star
A tagger’s game is the exact inverse of Nick Daicos’s. Not winning the ball and using it, but denying it — and giving up his own game to do it. The signature is high tackles and pressure, a low personal possession count, and a ball-progression score that runs negative, because he isn’t trying to advance the ball. He’s trying to shrink someone else’s night.
Put every trusted run-with midfielder through that filter — defensive load against a suppressed personal game — and one name sits on top.
The pick: Tom Atkins
Geelong’s Atkins does the most stopping work in the competition — 6.2 tackles and 24.2 pressure acts a game — on just 18.8 disposals and 4.0 score involvements. He touches the ball less than almost any midfielder trusted with heavy minutes, and his ball-progression runs negative: he isn’t there to move it forward, he’s there to make sure his man can’t.
The best tag isn’t a shadow. It’s a sacrifice.
The honest reads
Ned Long is the purest of the type — just 16 disposals a game and the lowest ball-progression of any midfielder. Nobody gives up more of their own game. Sam Berry lays the most tackles of any midfielder in the league at 7.6 — the heaviest hands of the lot.
And a fair word on two the raw tackle count would wrongly crown: Matt Rowell and Josh Dunkley do even more defensive work, but they also win 20 to 25 of their own every week. They’re contested ball-winners — a different kind of elite — not run-with stoppers.
The engine has no “tagger” label, so this is the profile the numbers draw: the players who trade their own game to erase someone else’s. In 2026, Tom Atkins draws it more completely than anyone in the game.