When Gary Ablett went down in a crunching tackle from Brent Macaffer at Carrara in round 16 last season, there was no fanfare to announce the arrival of a new emperor of the game.

But there has been a passing of the title, to be sure, and Nat Fyfe is the new man in the seat.

Ablett has been the best player in the competition for at least five years, probably around seven, since 2008.

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He’s had challengers, like Lance Franklin, but the fact quite a few decent judges have begun comparing him favourably with his famous father is enough to show how vaunted Little Gaz has been.

He has not done too much wrong; it is scarcely his fault that his left shoulder had to be pieced together by surgeons not once but twice.

Nat Fyfe is one of the best marks in the competition as a midfielder. Photo: Getty

But at 30, with a major injury that no one quite knows how he will return from, Ablett has simply been overtaken in his absence.

Arise Nat Fyfe, son of a truckie from Lake Grace in the Western Australian wheatbelt, the kid who looks like he stepped off a skate park.

This weekend against North Melbourne, Fyfe clocks 100 games; aside from Chris Judd (a Brownlow Medal, a Norm Smith Medal, a best and fairest, an All Australian and West Coast’s club captain in his first 100) and Joel Selwood (two flags with Geelong, two All Australians and a club championship), no one in the modern era has matched his achievements in that first stanza of a career.

Fyfe has won two Doig Medals as Fremantle’s club champion, in years that the Dockers contended, too, and the AFL players named him their No.1 player in 2014.

He was All Australian and had Matt Priddis not polled two votes in round 23 for West Coast, Fyfe would have led the Brownlow as well (although he was ineligible through suspension).

It is some body of work and in the opening seven rounds of 2015 he has utterly dominated, just as the Dockers have taken all before them. He is already a white-hot Brownlow favourite with no other player at single-figure odds.

Consider that Fremantle got him with a bargain-basement pick 20 in 2009; that selection lends further weight to the feeling that recruiting is the most imperfect of sciences.

The Dockers’ then recruiter Phil Smart can hang his hat on that moment, for the coach, Mark Harvey, reportedly wanted the club to take Ryan Bastinac instead. Smart stood firm and the rest is Fremantle history.

Like Michael Voss, Fyfe can will himself to impact the contest. Photo: Getty

There are no myths about Fyfe. At 23, he’s a beast as a midfielder, and a more than capable forward.

Garry Lyon has compared him to James Hird, which is some compliment, and Anthony Koutoufides, Carlton’s all-purpose man of the 1990s, is another to be mentioned in the same light.

But to me, he is closer to Michael Voss, or Paul Kelly, Sydney’s bull-at-a-gate captain.

Fyfe is more explosive than Hird, and like Voss, he wills himself to impact on games at key moments, like against the Bulldogs last week when Luke Beveridge’s team threatened an upset, and Fyfe launched himself back with the flight to mark Jack Redpath’s kick-out, setting up a goal. Game over!

He is a better overhead mark than either Voss or Hird and possibly the best mark for a midfielder that we have seen. Ever, that is.

Fyfe was in the mood to tear the 2013 Grand Final apart early, but his kicking for goal twice let him down; it remains his primary weakness, if you are hypercritical.

But watching that game, you got the feeling that he would be back, and not in such a profligate hue. That day cannot be far away.

Fyfe signed with Fremantle until the end of 2017, when he becomes a free agent. Just imagine the clamour for his services then. At 26, he will become a million dollar player.

And unlike a few others, he will deserve it. Fyfe is completing his training for a helicopter pilot’s licence. But he does not need it to fly.