Statisticians will be on ’30 Watch’ at Marvel Stadium on Friday night as the Brisbane Lions look to shut down the Western Bulldogs player who, at least by the numbers, has caused the club most trouble over the past 38 years.

Veteran Dogs midfielder Jack Macrae  has topped 30 possessions 10 times in 14 games against the Lions, and has polled 14 Brownlow Medal votes.

Both are records in head-to-head rivalry between the clubs, who have met 61 times since 1987.

Macrae tops the 30-possesion game honor roll between the clubs from Dogs Scott West (7), Matthew Boyd (6) and Adam Cooney (5), and Brisbane’s Simon Black (5) and Tom Rockliff (5).

He shares top spot on the medal vote count between the clubs with ex-Dog Tony Liberatore – one vote ahead of Jason Akermanis.  

Akermanis heads the Brisbane count with 11 and  also polled two votes for the Dogs in one of five games he played against Brisbane in the twilight of his career.

Ex-Dog Chris Grant (12) is fourth on the overall vote list from dual Brisbane Bears club champion Michael McLean, who has also polled for both clubs against the other. He polled three votes for the Dogs and seven votes for Brisbane.

The Dogs’ Adam Cooney and Brad Johnson (9) lead former clubmate Peter Foster (8) and Brisbane’s Black, Nigel Lappin and Lachie Neale (8), while Rockliff and Michael Voss polled seven votes for the Lions against the Dogs, and Tony McGuinness seven votes for the Dogs against Brisbane.

But the statistical focus on Friday night as the 13^th-placed Lions meet the 11^th- placed Dogs will be more about the possession count of three of the top eight major ball-winners in AFL history.

Macrae, with 107 games of 30-plus, is sixth on the all-time list behind Gary Ablett Jnr (126), Sam Mitchell (121), Robert Harvey (118), Scott Pendlebury (116) and Dane Swan (108).

Neale (106) is seventh – five ahead of the Dogs’ Adam Treloar, who has 101 after this season becoming the eighth player to post his 30-plus century.

Treloar was the #1 possession-winner in the League through the first 11 rounds before the mid-season byes distorted comparisons. He had 357 to lead Fremantle’s Caleb Serong (355) and Collingwood’s Nick Daicos (350), and bagged 37 in his side’s 18-point win over Collingwood last Friday night.

Dogs captain Marcus Bontempelli, coming off a career-best 38 possessions last week, was one of only three players in the League to have averaged 25 possessions and a goal a game through the first 11 rounds. The others have been Sydney’s Isaac Heeney and GWS’ Josh Kelly.

It will all be part of an intriguing midfield battle as the Lions look to beat the Dogs at Marvel for the first time since 2014 and improve an aggregate 25-36 head-to-head record.