AFL top 100: The best set of steak knives ever

Before the start of the 2015 season, Dayne Beams wanted to move from Collingwood to Brisbane for family reasons so Collingwood and the Lions negotiated a deal.

To get the deal over the line, the Lions offered a sweetener of a young Jack Crisp as an extra incentive to clinch the deal. Crisp had played 18 games for Brisbane in his three years at the club and kicked ten goals. Because of the nature of the deal, it became known as the “steak knives” deal, mirroring the number of TV advertisements of the day with the catch cry “but wait, there is more!” and then going on to offer a free set of steak knives as well to convince the wavering punter to sign up for whatever deal was on offer.

As a result, Jack Crisp was 21-and-a-half years old when he played his first game for Collingwood in Round 1, 2015 wearing jumper number 15 against his old club, Brisbane. Since that game, the former Murray Bushranger has not missed a game in six and a half seasons and has developed into an integral part of the Magpie team.

This week, he will take the field in most unusual COVID-19 conditions in Adelaide to play his 147th game in a row for the Magpies and move up from the 100th most games for the club hot seat that he currently shares with two former greats of the club, Ray Shaw and James Clement and join two other notables – Charlie Laxton (who retired exactly 100 years ago) and Darren Millane (a premiership player who tragically died mid-career) in 98th position on the Magpies’ all-time top 100 game players list.

Whilst the demise of Shaw and Clement from the top 100 Magpies list is sad, it speaks volumes for the durability and form of Crisp, who was able to match their game careers in six and a half seasons and at the age of 27 years old. Ray Shaw was only 27 years old when his career ended, but he had the advantage of starting at the Magpies before he was twenty and remained a one-club player. Like his younger brother, Tony, Shaw was a captain of the Magpies, and until Scott Pendlebury took the mantle of the club’s greatest game player away from Tony, the two brothers had the unique distinction of being book ends in Collingwood’s top 100 game players with Tony at number one and Ray at number 100.

Clement was recruited from Fremantle in another successful recruiting coup by Collingwood after the 2000 season and played many great games for the club mainly as a defender, showing amazing closing speed and mobility. Clement had already played 84 games for the Dockers when he arrived at Collingwood and showed outstanding skill in his all-too-short stay at the club. He finished in the top three in the best and fairest on four occasions, winning it twice in 2004 and 2005 and making All-Australian.

He played in two losing grand final sides and – as vice-captain – was widely tipped to take over the captaincy from Nathan Buckley but retired prematurely to support his wife Jeanne, who has autoimmune kidney failure.

When you consider Crisp had already played the last six games of 2014 with the Brisbane Lions to start his string of consecutive games it now takes his total to 152, nearly two seasons ahead of the only other current player to play more than 100 (Essendon’s Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti) and this year has blossomed into a centreman and on-baller.

The former Myrtleford boy – who seems to really enjoy his footy and is a great team man – has already chalked up three top-three finishes in the Copeland Trophy (Collingwood’s best and fairest).