Seventy-eight years ago a 22-year-old key defender from Kedron put the “Q” in VFL.
Erwin Dornau, a 22-year-old centre half back from Kedron, born and bred in Brisbane, educated at Windsor State School and a star for Queensland at the 1946 Australian Carnival in Hobart, made his VFL debut for South Melbourne.
He was the first Queenslander to play in what is now the AFL, turning out for South Melbourne at Lake Oval on Saturday 17 April 1948 – Round 1 of 19 for a 12-team competition.
South, coached by Bill Adams, had finished 8th in 1947 and took on a Jack Dyer-coached Richmond, who had finished 4th the year before.
Dornau, wearing jumper #17, shared in a 15-point win despite six goals from captain-coach Dyer on a day in which Geelong Team of the Century pair Bernie Smith and Bob Davis and North Melbourne TOC choice Jock Spencer also debuted.
Barely 183cm, Dornau played 17 games in a South side that went 7-12 to finish 10th and polled eight votes in the Brownlow Medal – equal 21st overall and second-best for the Swans behind 1949 winner Ron Clegg.
A knee injury restricted him to 10 games in 1949-50, and despite being appointed vice-captain in 1952, he retired at the end of that year after 54 games to go coaching in the country.
Dornau, a Queensland Hall of Fame who died aged 82 in September 2008, was the first of now 214 Queenslanders to play in the AFL and, significantly, the first of 35 to debut in the first round of the season.
While it counts for no more than every other game, and is confined to the record books by September each year, Round 1 – or Opening Round as it is now – is extra special.
It’s a reward for a long, hot summer and good practice match form at a time when hope and enthusiasm is high across the entire competition.
Oddly, it’s a group that includes as many players who turned out to be ‘spare parts’ men as it does senior regulars. Try to guess who they are .. you’ll be surprised.
Morningside pair Barry Denny and Warren Jones debuted for Melbourne and Carlton respectively in Round 1 in 1977 and ’78, before Zane Taylor did likewise at Geelong in 1980, Brett Grimley and Gary Shaw followed at Fitzroy and Collingwood in 1983, Dale Woodhall enjoyed a Round 1 debut at Collingwood in 1984, and Rick Norman had the same thrill at North in ’85.
Since the birth of the national competition in 1987 a further 27 Queenslanders – including a remarkable treble from the Cockatoo-Collins family - have had their first taste of the elite competition in the first game of the year. They were:-
1987 – Gavin Crosisca (Coll)
1992 – Steven Handley (Geel)
1994 – Che Cockatoo-Collins (Ess)
1996 – David and Donald Cockatoo-Collins (Melb), Danny Dickfos (Bris)
1997 – Max Hudghton (StK), Aaron Keating (Adel)
1999 - Brett Backwell, Ben Thompson (Carl)
2004 – Steve Kenna (Carl)
2006 – Scott Harding (Bris)
2008 – Kurt Tippett (Adel)
2009 – Brendan Whitecross (Haw), Jake Spencer (Melb)
2011 – Claye Beams (Bris)
2012 – Peter Yagmoor (Coll)
2013 – Josh Thomas (Coll)
2014 – Clay Cameron (GC)
2017 – Jack Bowes (GC), Brayden Preuss (NM)
2019 – Bailey Scott (NM)
2020 – Connor Budarick (GC)
2021 – Paul Hunter (StK)
2023 – Will Ashcroft (Bris), Bodhi Uwland (GC)
2025 – Levi Ashcroft (Bris)
The Cockatoo-Collins twins, who followed older brother Che into AFL football, are the only twins in history to debut in the same game. And in Round 1.
Now, after Brisbane premiership teammates Will and Levi Ashcroft enjoyed a Round 1 debut two years apart in 2023 and 2025, this week, as the 2026 AFL season gets underway, Queensland football is poised to welcome the second leg of another pair of Opening Round brother/brother debutants.
Zeke Uwland, brother of Suns star Bodhi Uwland, is poised to become the 36th member of the QORDC - Queensland Opening Round Debut Club - at People First Stadium on Friday night, when Gold Coast host Geelong.
The 18-year-old Burleigh junior and SUNS Academy graduate is poised to debut two years less 12 days after Bodhi did likewise against Sydney at PFS in 2023.
Barring a selection surprise, the first ‘Zeke’ to play in the AFL will be the only Queensland debutant in Opening Round as the Uwland brothers complete an entirely different yet amazingly similar path to the elite level.
Bodhi was the last pick in the 2021 rookie draft and sat out the entire 2022 season with a back stress fracture before his first game in 2023. Zeke will debut after missing virtually all of 2025 due to back problems, yet he was pick #2 in the 2025 national draft.
Coincidentally, Bodhi, now wearing jumper #6, will play his 50th game as Zeke plays his first game in the #32 jumper his brother wore in his first 49 games.
The Uwland story is the next chapter in a wonderful advertisement for football on the Gold Coast, with the sandy-haired brothers, born and bred on the tourist strip, having been foundation members of the Suns in 2011 and ardent supporters since.
Also set for a big Opening Round is ex-SUNS utility turned Western Bulldogs small defender Connor Budarick, who will play his first game in red, blue and white against Brisbane at the Gabba on Saturday night.
The former SUNS Academy captain, a 55-game Sun from 2020-25, played in the club’s first two finals last year but surprised many when he sought a trade to the Bulldogs.
Now 24, the two-time knee reconstruction victim will wear the #19 Dogs jumper vacated by Liam Jones, who is now on the coaching staff at Brisbane.
Oskar Baker, a Wilston-Grange and Aspley junior, a Lions Academy product and an ex-Melbourne draftee, is also set to come ‘home’ this weekend. He played the Dogs’ last five games last year in his third season at the club, and is coming off the best off-season of his career.
There are not expected to be any other Queensland debutants in Opening Round, in which Sydney will play Carlton at the SCG on Thursday night, GWS will host Hawthorn at Sydney Showgrounds on Saturday afternoon, and St.Kilda will play Collingwood at the MCG on Sunday night.
Tyan Prindable, a Lions Academy product drafted last November by Collingwood, has impressed enormously in his first summer at the Pies but will be hard pressed to break into their top side immediately.
