Lions’ legend to hang up boots

LUKE Hodge will retire at the end of the year as one of the most decorated players the game has ever seen.

Hodge, who turns 35 on Saturday, has missed only four of a possible 33 games in his 18 months on the Brisbane list.

But the four-time premiership immortal will pull the pin on his football career this year and almost certainly become a Lions assistant coach.

Lions chief executive Greg Swann said on the weekend Hodge had recently bought a house in Brisbane and had no plans to return to Melbourne any time soon.

He is content to move on and allow the young Lions defenders to take his spot in the back six next year.

Brisbane would have to find a place in its assistant coaching team for him but Hodge has no plans to play on next year.

Some critics questioned why he would play on at Brisbane after retiring with a superb football resume at Hawthorn.

But Hodge has justified that decision and is in such a rich vein of form there had been discussion about whether he would play on next year.

Hodge will be an automatic Hall of Famer when he is eligible, having amassed four premierships, three All Australian jumpers, two Norm Smith Medals and having captained three of those premierships.

Asked whether Hodge would play on next year, Swann replied: “No, I don’t think so. I reckon he will get to the end of the year and that will do.

“He is going to, more likely than not, come onto the coaching panel.

“He has just bought a house up there, so he’s not going anywhere.”

The Lions have been able to secure star Lachie Neale and players including Marcus Adams and Lincoln McCarthy, with Swann crediting Hodge’s move north with kickstarting that momentum shift.

“When he came that was a massive turning point for us and he came because of the coach,” he told 3AW.

“Because he came, we had not so much a stigma but an issue with the gohome five and kept losing people and couldn’t attract them, so when he came that was a real shift in everyone’s thought processes.

“You can get as much or as little footy as you like. But he doesn’t get people in the street looking for a selfie like he would in Melbourne.”