If Jaspa Fletcher is looking for any special inspiration ahead of his first Anzac Day game against the GWS Giants in Canberra tomorrow night (Thursday) he doesn’t have far to go …. His father is just the man.

Adrian Fletcher picked up three Brownlow Medal votes in the Brisbane Lions’ first official Anzac Day outing in 2000 – as the opposition captain.

It was Round 7 when the Lions travelled to Subiaco in Perth to play Fremantle in what the club had labelled ‘The Len Hall Game’ in honour of a man who fought in three key battles in World War One and was WA’s last surviving Gallipoli veteran.

He was a machine gunner at Gallipoli, he rode in the Light Horse Brigade of the Desert Mounted Corps in the capture of Beersheba, Palestine, in 1917 and rode with Colonel Thomas E Lawrence - known as Lawrence of Arabia - to liberate Damascus in 1918.

The Lions had played on Anzac Day in 1993-98-99 prior to the special fanfare that is such a part of the Anzac celebrations these days, but 25 April 2000 was a day anyone connected with the club will remember fondly. The enormity of the occasion and the pre-game tribute ceremony was special.

The Lions, with a young Jonathan Brown playing his third game in Leigh Matthews’ second season as coach against Fremantle third-gamer Matthew Pavlich, led by three points at quarter-time before losing by 11 points.

A then 30-year-old Fletcher was in his third season with the Dockers and his first as co-captain with Shaun McManus after playing 107 games with the Brisbane Bears/Lions from 1993-97.

The three Brownlow Medal votes he received in that game were the only votes he ever polled against Brisbane in a 231-game career which included stints at Geelong (1989-91), St.Kilda (1992).and Fremantle (1998-2001).

Marcus Ashcroft, father of injured Lions star Will, also played in that game.

Brisbane’s only other game on Anzac Day was another very special occasion – in 2014 against St.Kilda in Wellington, New Zealand – especially for three current Lions players.

Darcy Gardiner played his second game, Ryan Lester his 43^rd and Dayne Zorko his 44^th as the Lions survived a late charge from the Saints to win by five points after Jack Redden kicked the winner and the last goal of the game 14 minutes from full-time.

It was the AFL’s second game in Wellington after St.Kilda had played Sydney there in 2013, and Justin Leppitsch’s first win as Brisbane coach in his sixth game in charge.

Zorko had 24 possessions and a goal, Lester 21 possessions and Gardner nine possessions playing in defence.