Michael Prior could easily have been a Brisbane player - if he was either just a little better or a little worse.

Prior was drafted by Essendon from East Perth with selection #3 in the 1992 National Draft in between the then Brisbane Bears’ choice on Nathan Chapman at #2 and Justin Leppitsch at #4.

Loosely speaking, it was a missed opportunity. Although Chapman played only 60 games while based at the Gabba before 16 games at Hawthorn, Leppitsch was a 227-game cornerstone of the club’s triple premiership era of 2001-02-03.

Twenty-eight years later the now 47-year-old Prior found himself inside the Brisbane camp last Friday night when son Jaxon made his AFL debut with the Lions.

Michael and wife Kara, plus daughter Madi, made a rushed trip from Perth to Melbourne to watch the Lions’ go down in a nail biting one-point loss to the Cats in Geelong, when Jaxon was a late inclusion for Jarrod Berry.

It was a meeting of Prior’s two families, with his real family catching up with his Brisbane family.

In his second season at the club, Prior lives with Jarrod and Tom Berry and Hugh McCluggage, and ironically got his chance to debut alongside two of his housemates.

Finally, Michael Prior found an up-side of the Covid situation, which last September cost him the coaching job he’d had at Fremantle for 13 years.

Had he still been at the Dockers he might not have been able to be in Melbourne for his son’s debut but a leave pass from his new role as Game Development Manager at West Coast ensured he didn’t miss the special moment.

Jaxon Prior was presented with his #20 Lions jumper by assistant-coach Jed Adcock, who played 10 years with the man who is synonymous with the #20 not just at Brisbane but across the AFL – Simon Black.

Not only is Black’s 322 games in the #20 Lions jumper a club record it is an all-clubs record – six games ahead of Drew Petrie’s 316 games in #20 for North Melbourne.

Like Black, Jaxon was a young West Australian who moved from one side of the country to the other to follow his football dream.

A standout member of the 2019 WA Under-19 side captained by fellow Lions player Deven Robertson that won the national 19 championships, Prior was a member of the WA Colts Team of the Year and played two senior games in the WAFL in the same year.

He had been linked to both WA clubs in the lead-up to the draft before being claimed by the Lions with selection #59 as part of a draft class that included Robertson (#22), Brock Smith (#33) and Academy product Keidean Coleman (#37).

Described ahead of the draft as a hybrid defender, Prior debuted at 19 years 295 days and had nine possessions in his first game to outpoint his father on both counts - Michael was 20 years 333 days and had eight possessions.

He had chosen to spend his first year on the Essendon list in Perth playing in the WAFL in the belief that it would be better for his overall development. It was the year the ‘Baby Bombers’ won the flag.

Prior Snr played 81 games with Essendon from 1994-2000 and nine games with West Coast from 2001-02 before enjoying a WAFL premiership with East Perth in 2003, coaching the East Perth Colts to a flag in 2006 and joining the Fremantle coaching staff in 2008.