Apologies for the late entry to the discussion - been in England too long (mushing my brain). Wonderful to hear all the love for Ian Martin. Agree with all said. Seems low tacking is indeed coming back somewhat these days and we have some excellent practitoners esp. Jake T and Api K. Ian Martin was only bettered by the great one in going in low, seriously low, front-on, on oncoming gronks. Takes guts to drive in at those oncoming knees. He was in the Tooves category of fearless. But he could also play, coming into the back row from five eighth.
One anecdote: he was coming back from injury later on in his career, probably 76 or 77, and had to come via reserves which caused a bit of a stir at the time. So he ran out at 1.30pm and I can still recall the brutal punishment he handed out to the opposition forwards bringing the ball up. Was back in First grade the following week.
As to enablers, absolutely. It's a team game and so everyone has to be a good enabler mostly, or you have to carry them. Very few players are worth that for any period of time, but if you have a strong enough team you can have someone like Lord Ted Goodwin, or Choppy Close (pretty useless except for running hard with the footy at exposed backlines), or even Crusher Cleal. Really, most of the best superstars were also outstanding enablers, doing the simple things perfectly and making other players excel.
