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The Fremantle Dockers’ games record holder, and walk up hall of fame entrant, Matthew Pavlich announced his retirement today. He leaves the league as one of football’s great noblemen.
Pavlich’s numbers really do speak for themselves: 353 games played, 700 goals kicked (assuming all things go well on Sunday), six times named All Australian, six times named Fremantle’s best and fairest, and 189 games as Fremantle’s skipper – in the top 10 of all-time. Those figures will define his career in the history books. They are the marks of a hall of fame player.
He’s currently the president of the AFL Player’s Association, charged with handling the negotiations in what will be one of the most important moments in the League’s history. Pavlich has been a voice of reason in many debates, and looms large as the sensible, measured ex-player commentator the football media so sorely needs in its sea of hot takes.
The Dockers have had a forgettable season, and will finish in the bottom four for the first time since 2009. Their three wins to date will be their second-lowest tally on record. It is not the way any player wishes to bow out, let alone one of Pavlich’s stature.
But even in his final season, Pavlich has been weaving magic. A four-goal performance against the Power, and a clutch goal against the Eagles – over which he holds a 19-15 record, just quietly – in Round 3, come to mind. His trademark long kicking and strong one-on-one abilities have not deserted him. He remains a very, very good player.
And, like so many of the game’s greats, Pavlich’s Dockers never won the last game of the year. Their lone trip to the grand final, in 2013, was even on scoring shots but uneven on the scoreboard. Pavlich kicked 3.2, and was the leading scorer on the ground; his teammates kicked a combined 5.9 (and three rushed behinds) for the rest of the game.
Playing his role. Those three words could define many players but for Pavlich, they speak to the manner in which he became the champion he retires as. The Fremantle Dockers didn’t have a happy existence for most of Pavlich’s career – his all-time winning record is 48.7 per cent – and more often than not, number 29 was called upon to fill the numerous holes present on his team’s list.
Drafted as a power forward, Pavlich played his third season as a majority key defender, earning the All Australian full back spot in the process. The following two years, and frequently thereafter, Pavlich played as a big-bodied midfielder, backing up his out-of-position higher honour with a half forward flank spot in 2003.
It was a role Pavlich was called to play frequently as a change up, or when his team needed a lift at a centre clearance. He did what his team needed him to do, and almost always did so at an elite level.
But it is abundantly clear that this selflessness extended beyond the perimeter fence of Subiaco Oval. Pavlich’s most memorable act, and the one for which he will almost certainly not receive due credit for, was his decision to stay a Fremantle Docker throughout his entire career.
In case you’re new to this footballing caper, excellent key forwards are the game’s most valuable commodity. In the modern era, there are at any point in time five or six big bodied forwards that are in the elite bracket. Right now, it’s Josh Kennedy of West Coast, Lance Franklin at Sydney, Tom Lynch at Gold Coast, Jack Riewoldt at Richmond, Jeremy Cameron at GWS, and probably one of Tim Membrey, Jack Gunston or Josh Jenkins. These moments are often fleeting: Travis Cloke can tell you all about that.
Back in 2007, Pavlich was one of those guys. He’d kicked 71 goals in 2006, and was on track to back up that mark half way through 2007 when it emerged the two Adelaide clubs had lobbed large contracts in front of the then 25-year-old.
The Dockers had made it to their first preliminary final in 2006, a loss, a mark which the Crows also achieved in that year. The Power were less good in that particular year, but made it into September in 2007. A South Australian, the temptation would have been immense.
It was, in many ways, a sliding door moment for all three clubs: Adelaide would go on to play finals in 2008 and 2009 without a prime-aged key forward – Jason Porplyzia led their goal kicking tally in 2009 – before slipping out of finals contention for a few years. The Power shot up to second in 2007, before enduring five straight years of hell until Saint Hinkley arrived.
Pavlich stayed a Docker.
Again, in 2010, Pavlich was courted by many sides. He stayed a Docker. An excellent 153-game career as Fremantle’s Mr Fix It has blossomed into a 353-game career as Fremantle’s Mr Everything.
He leaves the game as one of its most decorated individuals. In a football world where economics is pushing players and clubs towards short-term-ism, Pavlich’s career might be one of the last of a dying breed. Fremantle’s number 29 is, undisputedly, the AFL era’s greatest nobleman. His exit will leave a gigantic hole not just in the Dockers’ forward line, but in the Australian football landscape.