Shaun Burgoyne - Silk: Football, Family, Respect

Contents

For Amy, Ky, Percy, Leni and Nixie

Family is everything to me

my story is nothing without you all by my side

Born: 21 October 1982, Darwin

Draft: No. 12, 2000 National Draft by Port Adelaide

Debut: Round 3, 2002, Port Adelaide v St Kilda, Docklands Stadium, Melbourne

Games: 407 (157 Port Adelaide, 250 Hawthorn)

Goals: 302 (171 Port Adelaide, 131 Hawthorn)

Disposals: average 17.6 per game

Brownlow votes: 85

Premierships: 4 (2004 Port Adelaide, 20131415 Hawthorn)

All-Australian: 2006

International Rules: 2008 and 2017 (captain)

AFL Hall of Fame Tribute Match: Dream Team, 2008

Indigenous All-Stars: 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2015 (captain)

Polly Farmer Medal: 2015

Most VFL/AFL games

432: Brent Harvey (North Melbourne)

426: Michael Tuck (Hawthorn)

407: Shaun Burgoyne (Port Adelaide, Hawthorn)

403: Kevin Bartlett (Richmond)

400: Dustin Fletcher (Essendon)

Most AFL games by an Indigenous player

407: Shaun Burgoyne (Port Adelaide, Hawthorn)

372: Adam Goodes (Sydney)

350: Eddie Betts (Carlton, Adelaide)

340: Andrew McLeod (Adelaide)

317: Lance Franklin (Hawthorn, Sydney)

303: Michael OLoughlin (Sydney)

Most VFL/AFL finals

39: Michael Tuck (Hawthorn)

35: Shaun Burgoyne (Port Adelaide, Hawthorn)

34: Joel Selwood (Geelong)

31: Harry Taylor (Geelong)

Most wins as a VFL/AFL player

302: Michael Tuck (Hawthorn)

263: Shaun Burgoyne (Port Adelaide, Hawthorn)

260: Kevin Bartlett (Richmond)

241: Joel Selwood (Geelong)

Most VFL/AFL games by a set of brothers

762: Selwoods (Adam, Troy, Scott, Joel)

752: Danihers (Terry, Neale, Anthony, Chris)

710: Maddens (Simon, Justin)

647: Burgoynes (Peter, Shaun)

Most VFL/AFL games by a pair of brothers

710: Simon and Justin Madden (Essendon, Carlton)

647: Peter and Shaun Burgoyne (Port Adelaide, Hawthorn)

578: Ian and Bruce Nankervis (Geelong)

562: Rhyce and Heath Shaw (Collingwood, Sydney, GWS)

557: Mark and Jarrad McVeigh (Essendon, Sydney)

555: Chad and Kane Cornes (Port Adelaide)

546: Terry and Anthony Daniher (Essendon, Sydney)

533: Gordon and Syd Coventry (Collingwood)

518: Adam and Joel Selwood (West Coast, Geelong)

Oldest VFL/AFL players

43+ years: Vic Cumberland (St Kilda 1920)

40+ years: Dustin Fletcher (Essendon 2015)

39 years, 296 days: Jack Leith (Melbourne 2012)

39 years, 239 days: Syd Barker (North Melb 1927)

39 years, 181 days: Jim Flynn (Carlton 1910)

39 years, 95 days: Ted Rowell (Collingwood 1915)

38 years, 304 days: Shaun Burgoyne (Hawthorn 2021)

38 years, 291 days: Craig Bradley (Carlton 2002)

To the end of Round 23, 2021 (Source: AFL Tables)

4-time AFL premiership coach

Hawthorn Football Club

20052021

BULLET BURGOYNE HAS BEEN A STAR of the AFL competition for two decades. Towards the end of his first decade in the game, he was one of the best five players in the competition in my view. If, for whatever reason, he was considering a change of club, at Hawthorn we wanted to be at the front of the queue.

I have vivid recollections of our initial conversations with Shaun once he had indicated a willingness to explore the possibility of playing football in Victoria. He had endured a tough previous two years at Port Adelaide, especially regarding a chronic and debilitating knee injury which had curtailed his durability to play to a high level from week to week. Andrew Russell, our head fitness coach, and I both knew Shaun very well from our time at Port Adelaide. Shaun possessed values that we admired, including a selflessness and humility that endeared him to all. Given the challenge that sat before him and the associated risk, those values would be very important.

It was our shared view that we could get some very strong and sustainable football from Shaun if he was prepared to change some of his ways and dedicate himself totally to the game. He was not unprofessional at Port Adelaide by any means, but some of the things we believed he needed to do to prolong his career were at the extreme end of professionalism. His diet would need to change, his weight and skinfolds would need to be lowered, his positional play would need to become more flexible and varied, his game and training recovery would need to be screened and monitored diligently by our medical and conditioning team, his training loads would need to be altered significantly, and most importantly, we would need to take six months to strip back his program to the basics and rebuild his leg and core strength following his post-season knee surgery. Only if Shaun had genuine buy-in to that criteria would we deem it worthwhile to activate a trade. Therein lay the bedrock of a bond, trust and partnership between player and club that had at its core sacrifice, honesty and commitment.

Shaun Burgoyne arrived in Melbourne late in 2009 on crutches. I can still remember our prized recruit teetering into his first media conference at Hawthorn. His eldest son, Ky, who was just a young child at the time, was beside him, and the Burgoyne family was about to embark on a new journey, and a big adventure.

Right from the start, we told Shaun and Amy we were committed to ensuring this adventure was not a short-term proposition. At the very least, this needed to be a three-year commitment. I can remember that being a significant part of our discussion. We were asking the Burgoyne family to move from their home state, and the club felt that responsibility. My wife, Caryn, and I also felt it, because we knew that Shaun and Amy would be dislocated from the extended family support that is so valuable when raising a family of your own. What was forged out of that is a great connection between club and player. Mutual trust. Mutual respect. Mutual benefit. Mutual sacrifice.

As a player, Shaun had a rare quality reserved for the elite in the game: a capacity to not be flustered when in possession of the ball, no matter the moment, and no matter the chaos. His demeanour has been so unflappable, and his manner so calm and reassuring. Whilst most players in the league feel the need to dispose of the ball as soon as opposition pressure is applied, Shaun has had the strength, confidence, power and agility to absorb the pressure and still have the composure to break free or dispose of the ball with precision. Being able to consistently extract himself from chaos is an asset that he has demonstrated in all parts of the ground.

Needless to say, his flexibility to play to an elite level either as a midfielder, forward or back has been so valuable for our club. So often, he has assumed a rescue role; when in times of need or desperation, we would move Shaun into a role that fixed our problem. He could play tall or small, and his success rate at rectifying a dilemma seemed like 100 per cent efficiency. He loved the in-game challenge of changing positions and altering the course of a game with his influence. Few have the capacity to be so flexible, and even fewer have the capacity to understand what needs to be fixed at that very moment and then apply their skill set and temperament to get the job done.