For three years we’ve been told to keep an eye on Ethan Read. The 202cm Gold Coast SUNS super-athlete known in some quarters as ‘Unicorn’ is going to be special, they’ve been saying.
It’s not that anyone doubted it. Not after the homegrown Gold Coaster was named first ruck in the 2023 All-Australian Under 18 side. He’d had recruiting scouts in raptures for a long time.
It was always a question of not ‘if’ but ‘when?’ And on Saturday, when the ladder-leading SUNS beat Richmond at the MCG by 68 points and stretched their start to the 2026 season to 3-0, it was an emphatic “now”.
In his 28th game 20-year-old Read kicked a career-best four goals and polled for the first time in the AFL Coach’s Association Player of the Year Award.
They are two markers which collectively say “this young fella can play”.
Of 211 Queenslanders to play in the AFL, only 41 have kicked four or more goals in a game, and while votes in the Brownlow Medal will always be the better-known recognition votes from the coaches, they hold enormous prestige among the playing ranks.
If we interpret correctly the 5-4-3-2-1 votes from Damien Hardwick and Adem Yze on Saturday Read earned one vote from each of them as Sam Collins picked up two votes from each coach and Bodhi Uwland, Ben King and Touk Miller split the 5-4-3 votes for a total of eight each.
Sharing a 7 July birthday with Michael Voss, the now Carlton coach, he is a product of the Palm Beach-Currumbin Football Club, the SUNS Academy, and St.Andrew’s Lutheran College, which also claims its alumni North Melbourne AFL player Bailey Scott, SUNS AFLW player Jamie Stanton and world-acclaimed kick-boxer and mixed martial arts fighter Chelsea Hackett.
Only six when the SUNS joined the AFL, Read was an everyday junior footballer but after an 11cm growth spirt at 16 he rocketed into the elite category.
He was chosen in an All-Australian U18 side with fellow SUNS Queenslanders Walter, Rogers and Lions star Levi Ashcroft, then playing for Vic Metro during a stint living in Melbourne.
And in the 2023 National Draft he was taken behind West Coast’s Harley Reid (#1), North’s Colby McKercher (#2), Walter, North’s Zane Duursma (#4), Hawthorn’s Nick Watson (#5), Western Bulldogs’ Ryley Sanders (#6), Melbourne’s Caleb Windsor (#7) and Adelaide’s Daniel Curtin (#8), and ahead of Essendon’s Nate Caddy (#10).
It was a boom draft for the Queensland clubs, with the SUNS also picking up Rogers at #14, Will Graham at #26, and Sam Closehy at rookie pick #4, and Brisbane nabbed Category B rookie turned 2025 premiership player Bruce Reville.
Read also had a career-best 11 marks and eight score involvements for a career-best player rating of 12.3, but as good as he was against Richmond he had to share the Queensland spotlight for Round 2 with the Bulldogs’ Oskar Baker, Adelaide’s Ben Keays and Port Adelaide’s Aliir Aliir.
In his 51st AFL game, Baker kicked a miraculous late goal from the boundary to snatch a six-point win over Adelaide at Adelaide Oval. It was his third – a career-best – and continued the former Aspley speedster’s bright start to the season.
In the same game Keays was involved in a late incident which drew much and varied commentary.
With less than five minutes to play and the Crows up by a goal, the Dogs received a ‘lasso’ free kick when Crows skipper Jordan Dawson kicked the ball out of bounds on the wing.
Another Queenslander, ex-SUN Connor Budarick, was the closest Bulldogs player and was keen to take the kick quickly. But with the ball having bounced over the fence and into the hands of a Crows fan, it was delayed when Keays told the fan to delay giving it back.
As Keays ran to the mark, he held his hand up and gestured to the supporter to hold the ball ... and the man duly did.
The fan did a dummy throw, pretending to hand the ball to Budarick before taking it away again, and then eventually handed it over to the frustrated Dog.
The brief delay helped Adelaide’s defenders set-up as the visitors surged again and, although it was to no avail, Keays’ action raised plenty of eyebrows.
Channel 7 commentator Alister Nicholson called it “gamesmanship” and the always-outspoken Kane Cornes wondered if the gesture was against the laws of the game. “Keays telling the crowd not to give it back to them, there’s got to be a rule against that,” Cornes said on SEN.
In 2022 the AFL announced umpires would be “less lenient” towards players “who deliberately delay the play” but the matter was not mentioned in Round 2 match review reports which details contentious incidents.
Also at Adelaide Oval on Sunday, Aliir had a career-high and Port Adelaide club record 19 marks to go with 21 possessions in his side’s win over Essendon.
This bettered the previous Power best of 17, which Aliir had shared with ex-captain Warren Tredrea and Brad Symes since Round 22 last year.
Aliir’s 19 marks, which helped earn him six votes in the Coaches Player of the Year Award, would have been a club record at five other clubs, and an equal record at four.
The League best is 24 to the credit of the Bulldogs’ Brian Lake in 2007, and Melbourne’s Greg Parke in 1970. Richmond’s Joel Bowden is next best at 23 in 2008, ahead of four players at 22 – Lake again, Adelaide’s Nathan Bassett, Geelong’s Bill Ryan and North Melbourne’s Gary Dempsey.
The best by a Queenslander is Nick Riewoldt’s 21 marks for St.Kilda in 2016, while his ex-teammate Sam Gilbert had 20 marks in 2010.
The club record of 17 at Brisbane is shared by Jonathan Brown (twice) and Queenslander Jaspa Fletcher in a standout performance against Fremantle in Perth in Round 23 last year, when he also had a career-best 32 possessions and earned his first two Brownlow Medal votes.
The club record at Gold Coast is 16 to the credit of Queenslander Alex Sexton against St.Kilda in 2024 and Brandon Ellis.
The AFL has recorded marks in all matches since 1965, with Parke’s share of the League best having stood since 1970.
A 185cm centre half forward, he was a 171-game player with Melbourne, Footscray and Fitzroy from 1968-77, and finished equal 12th in the 1968 Brownlow Medal. He died aged 73 on AFL grand final day 2021 after a long illness.
