FROM FALCON TO HALL OF FAME
JONATHAN Brown and female marathon runners. You could not find more opposite ends of the sporting spectrum.
But when the comparison was made by his doctor, the Brisbane Lions powerhouse knew he was in trouble.
In his words, Brown had been in a “bit of a purple patch” in the first half of the 2006 season. And in typical fashion, that is an understatement.
From Round 7-10, he had averaged 11 marks, 20 disposals and 6.5 goals, including one bag of eight and consecutive hauls of seven goals.
Later in the year Brown’s dominance would be revealed on Brownlow Medal night with the Lions centre halfforward polling 13 votes from the opening 10 games of the seaso season to be leading early.
Bu But an awkward landing early in the Round 10 game again against Collingwood at the MCG had done what opposition defenders had been una unable to do all year ... sto stopped him in his tracks.
For several days the L Lions were not sure what had happened to their superstar, which was why he ended up in the Melbourne office of leading orthopaedic surgeon David Young.
“I’d landed on my tailbone and while I played out the game I w was bloody crook afterw wards,” said Brown, who has been inducted into the AFL Hall of Fame.
“W “We couldn’t work out what was w wrong so ‘ Gubby’ Allan (Lion (Lions football boss) took me to se see David Young and he goes: ‘ We don't have a lot of precedents to work on here, but what we do know is this injury is very common among female marathon runners.’
“Well, that didn’t give me a lot of confidence as I was a 105 kilo AFL footballer. It turns out I’d fractured my sacrum, it was probably a stress injury as well.
“It was a bit of a shame because I was up and about then but it was probably the catalyst to change the way I trained and get myself right.
“I don’t think I missed a game for the next three years after that. I got a bit smarter and realised the season was a marathon not a sprint and I was able to peel off three best and fairests after that.”
Brown’s stellar career can be split into three phases, with 2006 the start of the second phase that saw the kid from Warrnambool become the best player in the competition.
This was coming off a first phase that was the envy of every player then and now.
After being taken by the Lions as a father-son selection in the 1999 draft — his father, Brian, played 50 games for Fitzroy — Brown walked into a team that was being shaped into a superpower by new coach Leigh Matthews.
The 18-year-old played 13 games in his first season and then every game the following year with his 38th career game being Brisbane’s grand final victory over Essendon.
By the time Brown reached 100 games he had played in four successive grand finals, winning three — 2001, ’02 and ’03 — and was a key figure in one of the best teams of alltime. His memories are very different for each flag success.
The first was ecstasy — “you're a 19-year-old and you're thinking, ‘Gee, how good is life?’ ” — while 2002 came with a sense of relief as the burden of favouritism had weighed heavily on the Lions.
And 2003 was a story of overcoming adversity given the team’s injuries, notably Nigel Lappin famously playing with broken ribs and a punctured lung.
But the loss to Port Adelaide in 2004 still leaves him with a sense of regret.
After a first final at the Gabba against St Kilda the Lions were — unfairly — required to play their preliminary final in Melbourne against Geelong.
“We went from a really healthy team at the top of our game at quarter-time against the Cats to all of a sudden thinking, ‘S--- this is going to be a big mountain to climb’, and it turned out to be one too many mountains,” Brown said.
He hurt his knee midway through the first quarter and had plenty of mates hobbling as well. While they held on to defeat Geelong, it was a different story the following week as Port Adelaide blew the grand final apart in the second half, winning by 40 points.
“I often look back and think, ‘ What if? What if?’ I’d started to really get that belief that you could really dominate a game of football if I got going. So you look back on it and it wasn't my fault, it was just the way the cookie crumbled but that is probably my biggest what-if,” he said.