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Why Brown is a modern day champion

2014 was the end of an era for the Lions, with Jonathan Brown hanging up the boots. (Photo: Patrick Hamilton/AFL Media)
Expert
23rd June, 2014
11

Yesterday, we said goodbye to one of the most universally loved AFL players in recent memory, the retiring Jonathan Brown.

His legacy will be one of a respect matched only by his courage, a gruff likeability and three premiership medallions, the last man standing from one of the great sides of the modern era.

Brown was one of the last players who are a throwback to a bygone era, who we could imagine having a smoke at three-quarter time, or necking a VB (never a XXXX) while checking the race results at half time.

A knockabout champion, the only thing he’d like better than landing a punch on the field is copping one in return, and sharing a beer and a laugh with the bloke in question afterwards.

Luke Hodge is another who comes to mind. Dane Swan we could maybe throw in. Bernie Vince would be some chance for the drinking side of things at least.

The thing about Jonathan Brown the player and Brisbane Lions the club is that their powers were only on the same plane at the very end of Brown’s career.

The glory days of the Lions, which delivered three premierships on the trot in 2001, 2002 and 2003 were Brown’s formative years, only his second, third and fourth seasons at AFL senior level.

He had already made an impact with his fearless attack on the man and ball at this stage, but hadn’t yet developed into ‘Jonathan Brown’. We can only imagine how unstoppable Brisbane would have been if he was at his peak in those years.

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Post-2004, after which he had played five seasons for five finals campaigns, four grand finals and three flags, he was only to see September action one more time, for a win and a loss in 2009.

From 2005 onwards, while the man was becoming a great of the modern game, his club was simultaneously sinking to the lower reaches of the ladder, and would spend the large portion of his latter career floating between mediocrity, irrelevance and a laughing stock.

It can be no coincidence that his lone finals series in this time, 2009, was when Brown was at the peak of his considerable, destructive powers.

It was one of only three seasons, across a career spanning fifteen, that he was able to play every game (the others were 2001 and 2007), and his record is worth recounting from that year.

He averaged 16 possessions a game and almost 9 marks, and kicked 85 goals, 52 behinds from his 24 matches. He kicked multiple goals in 23 of them, and was held goalless in the other – when he still had 21 touches and kicked 5 behinds!

This was just before interchange rotations overtook the game, and he played 100 per cent of game time on 17 occasions, and never dropped below 90 per cent.

Like most of the great centre-half-forwards, his prime was between the age of 25 and 27, from 2007 to 2009. The body had matured after several years of hard pre-season work, the flexibility, agility, reflexes, strength and power were in sync, and the physical toll from bashing and crashing was yet to slow him down.

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It would have been a great sight to see a player and leader like Jonathan Brown in full pomp on the big September finals stage, but it wasn’t to be. Only once in his last decade in the game did his Lions finish higher than tenth.

He could have retired at the end of 2013, or perhaps even a season or two before, but he felt the club needed him to still be its figurehead, the one they looked to off-field for guidance, and the glue that held a battling on-field side together.

He gave them structure and purpose in his last days, and while he looked as speedy as a concrete yacht at times, he still played some very good football.

We can say with some certainty that Brisbane would not have three wins on the board this season if he wasn’t playing in those matches. The Lions have won their games by 3, 7 and 8 points this year, and Brown kicked last-quarter goals in two of them. He was still standing up when they needed him the most.

When Jonathan Brown comes up in conversation with our children – and he will – the enduring memory will be of a man running full pace with the flight of the ball, rushing into oncoming traffic, clattering into bodies, and more often than not, hitting the ground with the ball on his chest.

We’ll remember one of the finest exponents of the set shot from the 50 metre arc. We’ll remember reckless courage and a player that put himself in harm’s way, to the point of sustaining multiple face and head injuries, again and again and again, simply to get one more possession for his team.

Jonathan Brown. From a promising player in a champion team, to a beacon in the darkness as a champion player in a struggling one. We salute you.

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