Hardness in modern football is the relentless running and repeat efforts, without wanting to be offensive to the greats of the past, the likes of McClure, Dom and Buckley would spew up their ring if they had to run 13km in a game at the intensity of modern footballers!
Most of those pre-80s era blokes hardly left their zone, from that generation maybe only Ashman and a couple of others might be at home aerobically, of the next-Gen types Sheldon, English maybe Marcou would be competitive.
The 90s onwards it was different, basically defined by blokes like Robert Harvey, Flower or Craig Bradley, they are basically the same as modern footballers, Diesel, Kouta, etc., etc.. would be right at home. But people talked about Bradley and Harvey like they were freaks of nature, now they are all like that, and trust me it's as hard as hard gets!
I know that opinion is harsh, those past harder era players the run they had is matched today but by mediums and talls. BigH runs further than most pre-90s onballers. Obviously, modern players might go down like a proverbial "Bag of @#$!" if an 80s era player could actually catch them, but that is something very different.
There is the issue of having the right mix of introverts and extraverts, but you don't want to go too far on that, not like the Dawks, it comes back to bite you!
Most of those pre-80s era blokes hardly left their zone, from that generation maybe only Ashman and a couple of others might be at home aerobically, of the next-Gen types Sheldon, English maybe Marcou would be competitive.
The 90s onwards it was different, basically defined by blokes like Robert Harvey, Flower or Craig Bradley, they are basically the same as modern footballers, Diesel, Kouta, etc., etc.. would be right at home. But people talked about Bradley and Harvey like they were freaks of nature, now they are all like that, and trust me it's as hard as hard gets!
I know that opinion is harsh, those past harder era players the run they had is matched today but by mediums and talls. BigH runs further than most pre-90s onballers. Obviously, modern players might go down like a proverbial "Bag of @#$!" if an 80s era player could actually catch them, but that is something very different.
There is the issue of having the right mix of introverts and extraverts, but you don't want to go too far on that, not like the Dawks, it comes back to bite you!
"Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck ....... Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck"