Jarrod Berry will lock in his second “life sentence” in a week on Sunday as he plays his 150th game for the Brisbane Lions against West Coast in Perth.
Having last week shunned an end-of-season appointment with free agency to sign a five-year contract extension that effectively means he will play out his career with the Lions, Berry will now qualify as a Lions Life Member.
It is an automatic thing for a 10-year and 150-game player. And among 350 Brisbane players all-time over 38 years he will be just the 33rd to reach this mark.
As the recognition confirms, it’s a major milestone achieved by only 9.4% of the club’s players.
At other major games landmarks, 123 players (35.1%) have played 50 games and 65 (18.6%) have played 100 games. Only 20 players (5.7%) gave gone on to 200 games, with 10 players (2.9%) getting to 250 and two players (0.6%) to 300 games – Simon Black and Marcus Ashcroft.
At 26 Berry, who has played 112 games in jumper #7 after wearing #13 in his first two years and 37 games, will be the 12th-youngest Brisbane 150-gamer.
And, most importantly, he will play his 150th alongside long-time best mate Hugh McCluggage.
Simply, it would not have been right if the former Victorian country pair, who were drafted together and debuted together, were separated on such a significant Berry milestone. Coach Chris Fagan wouldn’t allow it.
After all, only once when Berry or McCluggage has celebrated a milestone game has the other one not been in the side. That was in Perth for McCluggage’s 50th in 2019, when they lost by a point to Fremantle. It’s the only milestone game either has lost.
Berry’s 150th will close a massive month for the pair, drafted together by the Lions in 2016 in a strategic response to the exit of Elliot Yeo, Sam Docherty, Jared Polec, Billy Longer and Patrick Karnezis, the so-called ‘Go Home Five’.
Having brought in coach Fagan on a rebuilding mission after the sacking of favourite son and 2014-16 coach Justin Leppitsch, the Lions adopted a deliberate strategy to draft country players who had bonds outside football and would not face the same ‘go home’ temptations as draftees from State capital cities.
They didn’t come more connected than Berry and McCluggage. Born 26 days apart, they’d grown up in similar environments in western Victoria before finishing their education together as boarders at Clarendon College in Ballarat while playing football together with the Ballarat Rebels (now the Greater Western Victoria Rebels) and Vic Country.
They were the Lions’ first two picks of the Fagan era in the 2016 National Draft – McCluggage at #3 and Berry at #17 after 12 months earlier Berry had been touted as a possible #1 pick.
An All-Australian Under 18 choice and a TAC Cup Team of the Year selection as a bottom-ager in 2015, Berry captained a Vic Country side which included McCluggage at the 2016 national championships.
The powerful midfielder/utility only slid in the draft pecking order in his 2016 top-age year due to injuries and some result fluctuations in form as McCluggage climbed after winning the Morrish Medal as the TAC Cup’s best & fairest player.
For the Lions to snare this pair together will go down as a watershed moment in club history.
Fittingly, they debuted together in Round 3 2017 in a 31-point loss to StKilda at Marvel Stadium in Fagan’s third game. McCluggage had 13 possessions and two tackles from 85% game time, and Berry eight possessions, a goal and two tackles from 73% game time.
Only five other members of the Lions side that day are still at the club – Dayne Zorko, Harris Andrews, Eric Hipwood, Ryan Lester and the injured Darcy Gardiner.
The 15 who have moved on were Jake Barrett, Dayne Beams, Tom Bell, Rohan Bewick, Tom Cutler, Jack Frost, Stefan Martin, Sam Mayes, Dan McStay, Daniel Rich, Nick Robertson, Mitch Robinson, Tom Rockliff, Josh Schache and Lewis Taylor.
In 175 games since then only once has Fagan not had at least one of the Ballarat boys in his side – in Round 19 2017 when the Lions lost by 68 points to West Coast at Subiaco.
Berry and McCluggage have played 145 times together, including 12 finals, and only four times has Berry played without McCluggage by his side.
So when Fagan was asked early in this season about the prospects of the Lions retaining the pair as both headed towards free agency he quipped “they are connected at the hip” before predicting confidently both would stay given their character and shared commitment to the club. He was never going to be wrong.
The Lions haven’t been the only beneficiaries of Clarendon College, a private co-educational school established in 1864, with a footballing alumni that goes all the way back to Percy Beames, a three-time premiership player and Team of the Century choice at Melbourne and AFL Hall of Famer. He played 213 games from 1931-44.
John Birt, Essendon champion and Fitzroy’s last CEO, is another Clarendon product, with Alastair Clarkson, Bob Davis, Michael Jamison and Seb Ross among a raft of other footballers, alongside cricketer Andrew Symonds, ex-politician John Button, a senior minister in Hawke/Keating Governments, ex-Nauru president Bernard Dowiyogo, Australian acting great Bill Hunter and Neighbours star Kimberley Davies.
But on Sunday Berry will be the school’s No.1 man as he takes his place in Lions history.
He’ll join a 150-Game Club ‘launched’ in Round 5 1996, two years before he was born, when club great Roger Merrett, who’d played 149 games at Essendon, played his 299th career game.
It was a mixed day in club history – Brisbane played Fitzroy for the last time at the Gabba and won by 109 points. A 20-year-old Michael Voss in his 60th game and on his way to the 1996 Brownlow Medal had 28 possessions and kicked two goals to pick up three votes.
Playing alongside then captain Merrett and future captain Voss that day were Marcus Ashcroft and Adrian Fletcher, fathers of current pair Will Ashcroft and Jaspa Fletcher.
The full list of Brisbane 150-Gamers in chronological order is:-
- Roger Merrett
- Marcus Ashcroft
- Richard Champion
- Matthew Kennedy
- Shaun Hart
- Darryl White
- Nigel Lappin
- Michael Voss
- Chris Scott
- Jason Akermanis
- Justin Leppitsch
- Craig McRae
- Alastair Lynch
- Chris Johnson
- Simon Black
- Daniel Bradshaw
- Luke Power
- Tim Notting
- Jonathan Brown
- Ash McGrath
- Jed Adcock
- Joel Patfull
- Daniel Merrett
- Daniel Rich
- Tom Rockliff
- Dayne Zorko
- Ryan Lester
- Dan McStay
- Harris Andrews
- Darcy Gardiner
- Hugh McCluggage
- Eric Hipwood
- Jarrod Berry
Nigel Lappin, who was 52 days beyond his 24th birthday in his 150th game, is the club’s youngest 150-gamer from Ashcroft, Voss, Jason Akermanis, McCluggage and Simon Black.
Roger Merrett, nine days beyond his 36th birthday, was oldest from Alastair Lynch, Richard Champion, Zorko, Matthew Kennedy and Craig McRae.
Black, with 105 wins and a draw in his first 150 games, had the best win ratio among this group, from fellow 1997 draftee Luke Power, Jonathan Brown, Chris Johnson, Tim Notting and Daniel Bradshaw.
Tom Rockliff, who had only 45 wins in his first 150 games, had the toughest run to his life membership mark. Next were Roger Merrett, Zorko, Rich, Kennedy and Ashcroft.
Despite playing regularly in a losing side, Rockliff was the club’s leading possession-winner in his first 150 games with 3995. Black (3394) was second from McCluggage (3221), Zorko (3189), Voss (3102), Rich (2884), Ashcroft (2791), Power (2758) and Lappin (2723).
Lynch, who had kicked 173 goals in 120 games at Fitzroy before moving north despite at times playing at fullback, kicked 338 goals in his first 150 Brisbane games to top the goal-kicking from Brown (307), Bradshaw (282), Roger Merrett (271), Hipwood (227), McRae (183), Leppitsch (172), Akermanis (165), Zorko (162) and Power (159).
Black (80) had most Brownlow votes at 150 games from Voss (72), Brown (71), Rockliff (66), Akermanis (56), Lappin (41) and Power (40).
But it’s a statistical honor roll that will soon need to be re-written. After 145 Brisbane games Charlie Cameron has kicked 298 goals, which puts him behind only Lynch and Brown.
And Lachie Neale, after only 126 Brisbane games, already has a possession count that would see him second on the possession list at 3599 - 396 behind Rockliff’s club high. And to the end of last season, when he’d played only 111 Brisbane games, Neale already had 126 Brownlow votes – 46 more than Black at 150 games.
