Zac Bailey was something of a surprise selection at #15 by the Brisbane Lions in the 2017 Draft. He’d been tipped by the experts to go between 20-40.

But 76 games into his AFL career the 22-year-old Norther Territorian is proving even better still, and exceeding even the expectations of the nation’s best recruiters.

Bailey now ranks 7^th among members of the Draft Class of 2017 in games, 6^th in possessions and 6^th in goals. And he sits alongside Melbourne’s Bayley Fritsch and West Coast’s Tim Kelly among three players to rank top seven in each key category.

And, after a career-best six-goal haul in the Lions’ Q-Clash win over the Gold Coast Suns on Sunday, is one of just three 2017 draftees and the only midfielder to have kicked six goals in a game. The others have been Fritsch and Western Bulldogs’ Aaron Naughton.

Bailey’s six goals in his 76^th game equalled the Q-Clash record he now shares with current teammate Charlie Cameron (2019), ex-Lion Ash McGrath (2011) and Suns turned Port Adelaide Power forward Charlie Dixon (2015).

And it made him just the 33^rd Brisbane player among 337 all-time to kick six or more goals in a game.

Ironically, Bailey’s place on the list matches the #33 jumper he wears and which has been worn most often for Brisbane by fellow Territorian Darryl White at 267 – fourth most in AFL history.

The scouting report on Bailey ahead of the draft listed his strengths as his ability to win contested ball and his elite speed, plus his kicking and tackling.

In what has proven to be wide of the mark, his marking, endurance and ability to hit the scoreboard were listed as potential areas of improvement before he was drafted by Brisbane after he finished his schooling as a 2016-17 boarder at Prince Alfred College in Adelaide.

At 22 Bailey is the 13^th youngest Brisbane player to kick six of more goals in a game.

The youngest and quickest has been 2001-03 premiership player Daniel Bradshaw, who kicked a half dozen in his fifth game in 1997 only 185 days beyond his 18^th birthday.

John Hutton, former No.1 draft pick who played three years in the AFL with three different clubs, was six games to his first bag of six-plus in 1992, while Laurence Schache, father of ex-Lions #2 pick Josh, was eight games.

Bradshaw also has most bags of six-plus for the club with 19, from Jonathan Brown (17) and Alastair Lynch (13). Ex-captain Roger Merrett (7) and inaugural signing Brad Hardie (5) are the only other players with more than three.

Brown holds the club record of 10 goals kicked against Carlton at the Gabba in 2007 which saw Blues coach Denis Pagan sacked three days later. Bradshaw and Hardie each kicked nine goals in a game.

The list of Brisbane players to kick 6-7-8-9-10 goals in a game, and how many of each they kicked, is:-

In the Fitzroy record books, 13 players kicked nine or more goals in a game a total of 27 times.

This club record is 12 goals to the credit of the club’s all-time leading goal-kicker Jack Moriarty in 1928, and Bob Merrick, who played only 59 games but booted an even dozen in just his eighth game in 1919.

The last Fitzroy player to kick nine-plus was Richard Osborne, who bagged 11 against Melbourne at Carlton’s Princes Park in 1989. This came after Mick Conlan booted 10 in 1984 and Bernie Quinlan helped himself to two bags of nine plus a 10 and an 11 in 1983-84.