Dayne Zorko will join the AFL’s “0.90% Club” on Friday night as the Brisbane Lions open their 2024 campaign against Carlton at the Gabba.

With a sell-out crowd set for a rematch of last year’s preliminary final, Zorko, who celebrated his 35^th birthday on 9 February, will become just the 118th player aged 35 or more among an all-time AFL playing list that at stands at 13,096 prior to the new season.

Having last season gone past Simon Black to move into third spot on the Lions “golden oldies” list, the former captain and five-time club champion will be 35 years 28 days on Friday night.

Zorko trails only Alastair Lynch, who finished at 36 years 98 days in 2004, and Luke Hodge, who was 35 years 91 days in his last game in 2019.

Going into his 13^th season, Zorko is poised to top Hodge in Round 9, and by the end of the season could be as high as 80^th on the League’s all-time oldest players list.

And, in a statistic which underscores the enormity of his achievement, among the 25 players in the 35-plus club who have played 250 games he was the oldest debutant at 23 years 93 days.

Or, more succinctly, after a belated start to his AFL career, he’s done an extraordinary job to rank among the very best latecomers to the AFL all-time. And one of Lions’ best bargain recruits.

Overlooked in four consecutive drafts after he captained the Queensland Under-18 side in 2007, he was zoned to the Gold Coast Suns ahead of their entry to the AFL in 2011 and traded to Brisbane for the club’s second round draft pick.

Having played 106 AFL games in the last five years, Zorko ranks 51^st among AFL players all-time for games beyond 30.

A further 20 games this year would see him inside the top 20 on a list headed by Carlton’s Craig Bradley (195) and the League’s four 400-gamers – Hawthorn’s Michael Tuck (190), North’s Brent Harvey (184), Essendon’s Dustin Fletcher (170) and Port Adelaide/Hawthorn player Shaun Burgoyne (168).

Zorko will play the 10^th season-opener of his career on Friday night – the 15^th Brisbane player to double-figures for Round 1 (or equivalent) games.

Daniel Rich, who played 15 Round 1 games without a miss throughout his career, heads the Lions list from Simon Black (14), Marcus Ashcroft, Shaun Hart, Nigel Lappin, Michael Voss, Darryl White (13), Justin Leppitsch (12), Jonathan Brown, Luke Power (11), Jed Adcock, Daniel Bradshaw, Daniel Merrett, Ash McGrath and Daniel Merrett (10).

Lachie Neale will play the 11^th season-opener of his career and his sixth for the Lions.

The AFL’s 30-Plus Club will welcome two new members on Friday night - Lincoln McCarthy, who was 30 on 22 October last year, and Joe Daniher, who turned 30 on Monday (4 March) – as coach Chris Fagan considers a club record 30-Plus contingent.

With Daniher, McCarthy, Zorko, Neale, Ryan Lester, Jarryd Lyons and Darcy Fort, Fagan has seven options to pick from.

Even six will be a club record after the Brisbane Bears/Lions, who in 845 games have fielded five players aged 30 or more 26 times – including four times last year.

WHO IS THE OLDEST AFL PLAYER ?

This is an honour which belongs to AFL Hall of Famer Harold ‘Vic’ Cumberland, who was 43 years 48 days old when he played his 176^th and last AFL game for St.Kilda in 1920.

It was the end of a career that saw him debut with Melbourne at 21 in 1898, share in the Demons’ 1900 flag, and, after a 1909-11 stint with Sturt in the SANFL, play in the 1913 grand final with St.Kilda. He played 50 games for Melbourne from 1898-1901 and 126 games for St.Kilda in four stints from 1903-1920.

He won the SANFL’s Magarey Medal in 1911 and had such an impact that he was later named on the interchange bench in the Sturt Team of the Century. According to scant records, he also played in Tasmania, the WAFL and with the Auckland Imperial FC in Auckland, and represented Victoria and South Australia.

A strong and athletic ruckman despite being only 182cm tall, he was lost to football in 1916, when only Carlton, Collingwood, Richmond and Fitzroy played in the then VFL due to the First World War.

He enlisted on 1 January 1916, travelled to France with the 29^th Battalion and was wounded three times before returning to Australia in November 1919 before his last season with St.Kilda in 1920.

In his last game in Round 16 he played in a Saints side that included with a 20-year-old second-gamer Billy Sarll, who was not even born at the time of Cumberland’s AFL debut.

In 1927 Cumberland was involved in an accident in suburban Ferntree Gully in which, while riding his motorbike, he hit a cow. He died in hospital several months later aged 50.

He was an inaugural inductee to the AFL Hall of Fame in 1996.

THE OLDEST FITZROY PLAYER?

The oldest Fitzroy player among 1157 players all-time was 1913-16 premiership player Charlie Norris. He was 37 years 18 days in his 124^th and last AFL game in 1918.

Also a premiership player at Collingwood in 1910, he played 18 games in black and white (1910-11) and after a mid-season move to Fitzroy played 106 games with then then Maroons.

The great, great grandfather of current Collingwood player Will Hoskin-Elliott, Norris is also in the AFL record books as the oldest debutant to play 100 AFL games, having played his first game at 28 years 344 days.

Other Fitzroy members of the 35-Plus Club were Percy Parratt (36 years 235 days), Clen Denning (36/204), Bert Clay (36/117), Kevin Murray (36/74),  John Rantall (36/16), Frank Curcio (35/284), Geoff Moriarty (35/258), Jimmy Freake (35/244), Norm Smith (35/214), Horrie Jenkin (35/200), Doug Hawkins (35/113), Bernie Quinlan (35/61) and Joe Kerrigan (35/88).

The club’s 14 members of the 35-Plus Club is second only to the 15 of South Melbourne/Sydney.