Micro Noises 135: Players in their prime
The secret to playing 400 games
Tomorrow night at Docklands will mark a very special moment in the annals of V/AFL footy history. When the final siren sounds in the North Melbourne v St Kilda match, Brent Harvey will have played his 427th AFL match, more than any other player in the league's 120-year existence. Only four players (out of 12,467 to have played at this level) have made it to the fantastical 400 mark.
What is their secret? Is it a thin, wiry build? The other three players to reach that mark - Kevin Bartlett, Michael Tuck and Dustin Fletcher - were no balls of muscle. All three had a distinctive look of leanness about them, with Bartlett and Tuck perhaps even qualifying as skinny. But 'Boomer' Harvey, while small of stature, is by no means thin.
So there must be another factor that sets these 400-gamers apart from those that haven't reached the magical mark. And we think we've identified that factor. And the factor is, in fact, not having factors. Let's look at those top four players on the 'games played' list and compare them to the next three. Harvey, Bartlett, Tuck and Fletcher all made it to 400 but Robert Harvey, Simon Madden and Craig Bradley all fell short. What did they lack that the top three possess?
The answer is written on the back of their footy jumpers. What numbers did the top four wear? Brent Harvey - 29, Tuck - 17, Bartlett - 29, Fletcher - 31. And what numbers did the next three wear? Robert Harvey - 35, Madden - 27, Bradley - 21. See the difference? The top four players all wore prime¹ numbers on their backs, while R. Harvey, Madden and Bradley's jumper numbers can all be reduced to smaller factors.
There you have it folks. It wasn't their ageing, failing bodies that saw Bradley, Madden and Robert Harvey fall short of 400 games, it was the number on their backs. The biggest factor in them not quite getting there was having factors!
Other prime players
If we delve a little further into V/AFL history, it would seem that having a prime number on your back has been historically vital in breaking the league's games record. The first games' record holder in the era of players regularly wearing jumper numbers was Jock McHale. Although his team Collingwood had a policy that saw jumper numbers change from season to season, McHale wore number 17 in three of his seasons, more than any other.
Richmond's Vic Thorp took over the record from McHale, and he wore number 5. Collingwood's Gordon Coventry was the next record-holder and he wore numbers 5 and 7 more than any other. In order after that, the games-record mantle was taken on by Jack Dyer (jumper number 17), Dick Reynolds (3), Ted Whitten (3), John Nicholls (2), Kevin Murray (number 2 for nine of his 17 seasons and number 1 for eight - and while 1 is not technically a prime number, it has no factors!) and John Rantall (wore number 5 in all of years at South Melbourne and North Melbourne and number 1 in six matches at Fitzroy).
After Rantall came Bartlett, Tuck and Brent Harvey, who as we have seen above are all prime-number players. The only clear conclusion to draw here is that, when it comes to working out which players will make it to 400 games and have a chance of breaking the all-time games record, the prime consideration must be prime numbers.
A Schache shocker
Thanks to our friend football historian James Hothersall, we became aware last week of a father-son record that perhaps the holders would prefer we didn't mention. When the Brisbane Lions went down to GWS in round 15, they recorded their 12th consecutive loss, equalling an unwanted club record set by their earlier incarnation, the Brisbane Bears in 1991-92. And those two unsuccessful streaks have familial ties. While first-year player Josh Schache was part of 11 of the 12 losses this year, his father Laurence was part of the latter stages of the Bears' wretched record in his first season, playing in four of the last seven matches of the winless run.
Score Wars - 60 comes from nowhere
Not happy that we had a five-way tie for the lead in Score Wars after round 17, along came 60 in round 18 to be recorded as a final score no fewer than three times for the weekend. That made it seven appearances for the season, which would have made it a six-way tie at the top of the leaderboard has it not been for St Kilda, whose 11.9 against the Bulldogs on Saturday night saw 75 come up for the eighth time, giving it the outright lead, one ahead of 93, 86, 83, 67 and 60.
The Marginal Medal
Meanwhile, along with 60 being a popular score in round 18, 6 points was a popular margin, coming up twice on Saturday after not having been seen before this season. It's still a long way behind Marginal Medal leader 38 points, which came up for the seventh time this season when Sydney defeated Geelong in round 16, giving it a lead of one over 3 points.
Postcode of the week
Fremantle might have been eight points ahead of Gold Coast at half time of their match last Saturday but the Dockers eventually fell 24 points short of the Suns, suggesting that coach Ross Lyon and his crew need to do more research in their efforts to find a winning formula. Reflecting this was the fact that Fremantle were 3.0 at quarter time and 9.5 at half time of Saturday's match. 3095 is, of course, the postcode of Research.
Ridiculous footy anagram of the week
As mentioned above, 'Boomer' Harvey will break the V/AFL games record this weekend and he's playing so well that one wonders if he could play on for his beloved Kangaroos forever. Perhaps the answer to this question lies in his name, BRENT "BOOMER" HARVEY, which is an anagram of "NORTH EVERMORE, BABY".
Micro Noises is Andrew Gigacz's regular, quirky look at all things footy. The name Micro Noises is an anagram of Enrico Misso, who played one game for St Kilda in 1985. He remains the only Enrico and the only Misso to have played footy at the highest level.
Footnotes
1. For any non-maths heads out there, a prime number is a number greater than 1 that is divisible by itself and 1. It cannot be reduced to smaller factors. Robert Harvey's number 35 has factors of 5 and 7 (5 x 7 = 35) so therefore does not qualify as prime.
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