A healthy milestone for Lincoln

THIRTY games.

It may not sound like a remarkable milestone, but it will be the mark Lincoln McCarthy reaches when he steps onto the SCG on tonight.

The hidden relevance of the stat is that in under two years, McCarthy (pictured) would have played more games for Brisbane than he did in seven injury-cursed years at Geelong.

The goalsneak has not missed a game since the 2018 trade to Queensland.

And in a fixture quirk, he will pass his Geelong games tally against his former club on neutral turf.

McCarthy played 29 games out of a possible 165 in the blue and white hoops, including two seasons wiped by injury.

He played 1, 0, 4, 0, 19, 3 and 2 games in each of his seven seasons at Kardinia Park.

McCarthy has reached 30 matches unbroken for Brisbane.

Cats forward Tom Hawkins said he was happy to see his former teammate get some luck.

But McCarthy’s high-flying mark during time-on in the Round 22 game last year when he kicked the sealer against Geelong has not been forgotten.

“Other than that, I’ve been really happy to watch him — and proud — from a distance,” Hawkins said. “He was obviously injury riddled at Geelong and just couldn’t quite get going consistently for periods of time, (but) he’s been able to do that up in Brisbane.”

Foot setbacks forced McCarthy to miss the entire 2013 and 2015 seasons, while hip, hamstring, groin, back and quad concerns also sidelined him.

Hawkins said the club was always aware of McCarthy’s potential but injuries were always his constant problem.

“He did play some great footy at Geelong … we were able to see the potential but it was just at poor times he was struck down by some pretty serious injuries,” Hawkins said.