400: Fletch and Harvey closing in on massive milestone

Jason Dunstall, Tony Lockett, Gary Ablett Senior, Tony Modra and Stephen Kernahan are now names from another era, goalkicking giants who have long since hung up their boots.

It is hard to believe, but a whole generation of football fans have now grown up without having ever seen Dunstall hit the ball on a lead, Lockett streamroll a pack, Kernahan kick a helicopter punt or Ablett and Modra sit on somebody’s head to drag in a screamer.

And yet a link between that time and AFL football in 2014 still exists.

Essendon’s Dustin Fletcher is the bridge between those rampaging forwards of times past and the game as it is now.

The lanky defender, now playing in a record 22nd season of AFL football, cut his teeth against some of the best forwards in the history of the game and played on each of the above-named monoliths as a skinny teenager.

Then coach Kevin Sheedy was not scared to test his young players out by giving them tough jobs early on in their careers, and Fletcher was probably given the toughest of all.

In 1993 a 17-year-old Fletcher went straight from playing school footy at Essendon Grammar to taking on the biggest names on the biggest stages of the biggest football competition in the land. And he more than held his own.

Now, as a 38-year-old in what is predominately a young man’s game, he is still holding his own. Remarkable considering any player over 30 seems to be on borrowed time.

Then again, after playing against the likes of Dunstall and Lockett week in and week out, everything that came after must have seemed easier.

22 years at the top. Let’s just consider that for a moment. That is over two decades of playing a physically demanding elite level sport – a time span that sees babies grow into children and then adults.

In that time he has seen five new teams added to the competition and witnessed two die while also playing with and against the sons of former teammates and opponents.

Along the way he became the most-watched AFL footballer of all time, with a cumulative crowd of 18,271,064 people having passed through the turnstiles of games he played in to the end of 2013.

400-gamers Michael Tuck and Kevin Bartlett, were also remarkably durable footballers, but neither can boast the longevity of Fletcher having lasted 20 and 19 seasons respectively.

More recently Robert Harvey lasted 21 seasons before hanging up his St. Kilda boots in 2008 aged 37. He is third on the all-time list of games played but will soon be passed by Fletcher who sits just three games behind him, 380 to 383.

Of those still playing, only North Melbourne’s Brent Harvey comes anywhere close. The sprightly 35-year-old, a veteran of 364 games, is into his 19th season and shows no sign of slowing down.

So could either of them join Tucky and KB as members of the 400 club?

If he’d played the 20 games he lost through suspensions, Fletcher would already be sitting on 400 games. While it is possible for him to reach the milestone by the end of this year, it is unlikely that his ageing body will allow him to play the full number.

Although he has been incredibly resilient, he managed just 13 games last year, the equal-worst return of his long career. Realistically he would need to saddle up for a 23rd season and play well into his 40th year to crack the quadruple century.

He hasn’t ruled out the possibility of playing into 2015, but it would be a Herculean effort. Only one other player in the history of the game has played into his forties and that was over 90 years ago when St. Kilda’s Vic Cumberland called it a day at 43 years of age.

If anyone can do it, it would be Fletcher.

His pace and judgement seem intact and he continues to patrol Essendon’s back line as effectively as always, foiling forwards with last-second spoils and rushing behinds with perfectly timed lunges, not to mention taking match-steadying marks and clearing danger zones with booming drop punts or torpedoes.

If Fletcher ends this year with a games tally in the 390s, then the lure of coming back one last time to crack the big 400 would be almost irresistible.

Harvey must also be considered an outside chance at getting to 400. With 36 games to go it is possible for him to achieve the milestone in just two more seasons. Like Fletcher, he has been remarkably resilient and since 1998 has played 20 or more games in all but two seasons.

Two more would take Harvey into his 38th year, an extremely old age for a hard-running midfielder. If an extra season were needed, he would be turning 39, just as Fletcher is this year.

Could the Kangaroo favourite maintain both his pace and form for another three years? Could he play out his twilight years as a small forward, perhaps as an impact player coming on late in the game as a substitute?

It is not beyond the realms of possibility but, as with Fletcher, so much depends on how the body holds up to the rigours of a game that shows no signs of slowing down.

Odds are though that both players will fall agonisingly short of the big 400, which is a shame, as it will be a long wait before anyone else gets within shouting distance of this biggest milestone.