ON FRIDAY night two of the oldest clubs in VFL/AFL history will do battle at the MCG as we continue celebrate 150 years of Australian football.
Melbourne and Geelong may have history on their sides, but on Sunday the Adelaide Football Club, in just its 18th year in the competition, will reach a landmark neither of these two sides has managed to achieve in more than 100 years of existence - three 300-game players.
This week, Andrew McLeod will join club champions Ben Hart and Mark Ricciuto in notching up his triple-ton and, in doing so, the Crows will become the only interstate team to boast three players on or over the magical 300-mark.
This is a remarkable feat considering Melbourne has produced just one 300-game player, David Neitz, and traditional powerhouses Collingwood and Geelong just two-a-piece.
Shane Crawford’s 300-game milestone, also taking place this week, will see Hawthorn join the Western Bulldogs (Footscray) at the top of the tree with six players each to reach 300.
On the eve of McLeod’s milestone, Crows coach Neil Craig said quality combined with longevity was the “hallmark of any great champion”.
“If I had to sum Andrew McLeod up, I’d say quality for a long period time, and I think that’s been one of the great things about our 300-game players,” Craig said.
“They’ve played really high performance footy right to the end. I haven’t sat in selection once and said; ‘We’ve got to squeeze 10 or 15 more games out of Andrew McLeod to get him to 300’. Never. In actual fact, he wouldn’t even be thinking, I hope, of retirement because he shouldn’t be.
“I’ve always admired guys like McLeod, Mark Ricciuto and Ben Hart, in our case, and there has been another guy called Robert Harvey, who after a long period of time is still playing high-level AFL footy.
“I think that’s the hallmark of any great champion, the capacity to stay in the sport, whichever sport it is, for a long time and to be able to perform at the highest level for that period of time.
"It’s not two years or three years, it’s 10 or 15 years, or in the case of Robert Harvey, 21.”
Another Adelaide stalwart is poised to join this elite company with perpetually underrated star Tyson Edwards teetering on 284 games. Skipper Simon Goodwin, who made his debut in 1997, two years after Edwards, is currently on 233.
Craig acknowledged there was an element of luck involved in careers of this magnitude, but said it was also a positive reflection of the club.
“With the people you’ve just rattled off [McLeod, Hart, Ricciuto and Edwards] you look at their capacity to prepare, look after themselves and to change and also their mentality and the support they get off the field,” he said.
“Hopefully, there’s also an element of what our club has been able to provide them from a playing environment that keeps them here for 10-plus years.
“I don’t think it’s ever just one thing, it’s a combination of all those, but to have that number of 300-game players in our club is remarkable.
"Tyson Edwards is starting to come up to it and, hopefully, Goodwin can play long enough. It will be fantastic for our club to have all those guys play 300 games.
“We’ve been blessed, our club has been blessed with that type of talent to play so long.”
