Watching promising AFL careers come to a premature end largely due to injury remains one of the game’s great tragedies.

Even with faultless preparation and rehabilitation, some players’ bodies simply can’t stand up to the physical demands of the modern game.

Josh Drummond was one of those ‘unlucky’ ones.

Drummond announced his retirement from football on Tuesday after coming to the tough realisation that he just ‘couldn’t do it anymore’.

It proved a disappointing end for the lethal left-footer who has battled more injuries than most throughout his nine years at the Brisbane Lions.

Sadly, he leaves the game at just 29 years of age and with only 94 matches - a return that doesn’t accurately reflect his enormous contribution to the Club and his supreme on-field abilities.

You need only to compare his stats with fellow defender and 2012 Club Champion Joel Patfull to get an idea of exactly how much football he has missed. Despite being on the list for two extra years, Drummond played 45 less games than Patfull.

Had his body not failed him on so many occasions, there’s no doubting Drummond would have been a 200-game player and added further individual accolades to his already impressive playing resume.

Watch Josh Drummond's highlight package on LIONS TV 

You could say that his has somewhat mirrored that of Fitzroy’s last Captain Brad Boyd, who played only 85 games in eight seasons with the Club from 1992-1999 before chronic injuries forced him into an early retirement.

Boyd was also a relatively late bloomer who spent a couple of seasons with Collingwood’s U19 side before making his AFL debut with Fitzroy aged 20.

Drummond, meanwhile, was drafted to the Lions’ Rookie List in 2004, but didn’t earn his first senior call-up until Round 8 of 2005 when he made an immediate impression in the team’s win against the Crows in Adelaide.

His long-kicking and point-point precision by foot saw him take over the Lions’ kick-in duties in only his second senior match, and he quickly became a key component of the side in the latter part of the season.

Many argued that no first-year player made a greater impact on the competition than Drummond in 2005, but at 22 he was ‘too old’ to be considered for the AFL Rising Star award.

His promising start, however, was followed by a frustrating spate of hamstring, back, shoulder, quad, knee, calf, thigh and hip injuries which saw him play more than 15 games in a season just once in his nine years.

It was no coincidence that when Drummond completed his first full pre-season and stayed healthy for 20 matches in 2009, the Lions competed in the AFL Finals for the first time in five years.

In that same year, the Queenslander also secured his first - and only - top 10 finish in the Club Champion award.

Even though you can’t help but wonder ‘what might have been’, the Lions can still feel privileged to have had such a wonderful player - and person - at the Club over the past decade.

Read some the messages of congratulations that were left by Lions fans for Drummond on Twitter