How many Queenslanders have finished top five in their club best and fairest in each of the last five years? And who are they?
The answer is the two players who were the Queensland standouts in Round 2 of the AFL season last weekend – Brisbane co-captain Harris Andrews and Adelaide vice-captain Ben Keays.
The pair, coming off massively different junior backgrounds, were drafted 12 months apart – Andrews with pick #61 in 2014 and Keays with pick #24 in 2015. Both to Brisbane. Andrews was player #285 on the all-time Brisbane playing list and Keays #293.
They played 25 games together from 2016-19 but that’s where their shared journey ended.
At the end of 2019, as Andrews was building a career that now sees him one of the premier defenders in the competition and co-captain of the Lions 2024 premiership side, Keays was delisted by the Lions.
The standing of the two young Queenslanders was flipped. Massively so.
Keays had been the Queensland Under-18 captain and a two-time All-Australian Under-18 All-Australian.
A five-star Morningside junior, with a rich family history in the AFL, a great grandfather, a great uncle and an uncle who played at the highest level, the goal-kicking midfielder was always going to be an AFL player.
Andrews had no such thing. He played State Under-18 football but largely flew under the AFL radar.
There were no such guarantees for the lanky giant, who as a junior played at full forward. He was a speculative late draft pick.
The pair, born 73 days apart, were united at AFL level in Round 6 2016 against Sydney at the Gabba when Keays debuted for the Lions.
It was Andrews’ 25th game and, by chance, the AFL debut of another Queensland football product, Aliir Aliir. And Justin Leppitsch’s 50th game as Brisbane coach.
But it was a short-term union. Keays played 11 games in 2016, 10 games in 2017, and two games in each of 2018-19.
A total of 30 games for a 6-24 win/loss record at a time when Andrews had played 97 games for an improving 27-70 record.
Chris Fagan was three years into his Lions rebuild, having taken the club to the finals for the first time in 10 years, and Andrews was three years in the leadership group, when Keays was delisted.
He made his exit from the Gabba with the retiring Luke Hodge as Lewis Taylor went to Sydney, Tom Cutler went to Essendon, and Ryan Bastinac, Nick Robertson and Josh Walker were also cut loose.
Overlooked in the 2019 AFL National Draft, Keays got a second chance via the Rookie Draft that followed, picked up by the Crows with pick #7. And while he would have watched the Lions’ premiership last year and thought “that could have been me” he’s built one of the great ‘second chance’ careers over the past five years.
In his time at the Crows Keays has become one of the club’s most important and prolific players, sharing the 2024 club best & fairest with captain Jordan Dawson last year after finishing 5th-2nd-3rd-T8th in his first four years at the club, and earning promotion to leadership group.
He’s now played 108 games in a row with the Crows, having not missed a game in his five-plus years at the club to rank fourth among current players on the ‘consecutive games’ list. Collingwood’s Jack Crisp (240) leads from St.Kilda’s Callum Wilkie (124) and Sydney’s Ollie Florent (122) and Charlie Cameron’s 145-game run ended when he missed the Lions’ season opener in Sydney with injury.
Andrews is the only other Queenslander to have claimed five top 10 finishes from 2020-24, having won the coveted Merrett/Murray Medal in 2023 after finishing 6th-6th-T4th from 2020-22 and before he was 7th in the premiership B&F last year.
In the same period Brisbane forward Charlie Cameron has had four top 10 finishes and teammate Dayne Zorko three, and Aliir, now at Port Adelaide after starting his career at Sydney, has had three.
Last weekend Andrews was the standout Queensland performer, sharing best afield honors with Lachie Neale in the Lions’ win over West Coast at the Gabba. Playing his 214th game, he had 20 possessions in a resolute defensive effort and polled nine votes in the Coaches Player of the Year Award.
Keays, in his 138th game, had 22 possessions and kicked four goals in the Crows’ 61-point MCG demolition of Essendon. He polled six coaches votes – second only to captain Dawson’s 10 votes.
Other Queenslanders to poll in Coaches Player of the Year Award were Brisbane’s Dayne Zorko, who picked up three votes against the Eagles for his 28 possessions, and Hawthorn’s Mabior Chol, who earned one vote for three goals in a 20-point MCG win over Carlton.
Also last weekend, brothers Will and Levi Ashcroft had 24 and 17 possessions respectively for a Lions side that included eight Queenslanders.
Jaspa Fletcher picked up 18 and a goal, Eric Hipwood had 15 possessions, nine marks and two goals, Jack Payne nine disposals and six marks in a strong effort down back, and Bruce Reville had eight possessions in his first game since Round 21 last year.
Oskar Baker played his first game of the season with the Western Bulldogs, coming off the bench as the substitute in their six-point loss to Collingwood, Jack Bowes had 10 possessions for Geelong in their surprise loss to St.Kilda, and Corey Wagner had 20 possessions on his 28th birthday as Fremantle fell by three points to Sydney in Perth.
SUBMITTED BY PETER BLUCHER