SUCH is his passion for football, Joel Selwood can still vividly recall the day he laced up his boots and set foot into the field of battle for the first time in Bendigo.
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He was nine-years-old playing for St Therese's Maroon in the Bendigo Junior Football League and he remembers it just like it was yesterday.
"We played out at St Francis, my coach was Andy Walker and he put me out on the wing and I was filthy," Selwood said this week.
"I played quite well in that first game and then became an on-baller from there."
But not just any on-baller - the nine-year-old running around for St Therese's in 1997 would go on to become a great of the AFL at Geelong.
One of Bendigo's most revered football products, Selwood on Saturday will play his 300th AFL game against the Gold Coast Suns at Kardinia Park, adding another notch to a glittering and envious footballing CV.
Three premierships, three best and fairests, six All-Australian selections, an AFL Rising Star and the longest serving captain in Geelong history - all this after overcoming the left knee injury that curtailed his top-age year at the Bendigo Pioneers in 2006 and made for one particular concerning prognosis from a surgeon.
"The knee was no good, to be honest, and I remember one operation I had where the surgeon had prepared dad by saying, 'if the kid plans on playing football for a long time, I hope he's good at it early days because I don't think he'll last that long'," Selwood said.
Following a stellar bottom-age season with the Pioneers in 2005 in which he made the All-Australian team at half-back following the Under-18 National Championships, Selwood's knee problem restricted him to just three games for the Pioneers in 2006.
Ultimately, 2006 became a case of short-term pain for long-term gain for Selwood, who 14 years on fondly remembers the approach of coach Mark Ellis that year.
I remember one operation I had where the surgeon had prepared dad by saying, 'if the kid plans on playing football for a long time, I hope he's good at it early days because I don't think he'll last that long'
- Joel Selwood reflecting on his knee injury he endured during his draft year of 2006
"I'm really thankful to Mark Ellis, who was coaching at the Bendigo Pioneers. He decided that I should take the year off and get ready for what's next," Selwood said.
"When you're coach of a side you want to be winning games, but he put my development in front of that and that really helped.
"As far as the knee goes, it was an ongoing injury and probably the best way to explain it was it was like a break in the femur from maybe a bit of an overload as a young kid.
"I did athletics, played footy and a bit of basketball and was just growing through that time and the femur had broken a little bit into the top of the knee around the cartilage.
"I had a bit of surgery in Bendigo to start and then transferred down to Melbourne and started getting it fixed up down there.
"I just had a belief that if I strengthened the muscles around it I would give it the best chance of lasting as long as it possibly could.
"Even those exercises I was doing 16 years ago I still today and now, it's one of the better parts of my body."
Oh, how that must make the six clubs who passed on Selwood at the 2006 AFL Draft cringe given all he's gone on to achieve and his standing as one of the game's great leaders and warriors.
Geelong's 2011 premiership skipper Cameron Ling this week lauded Selwood as the greatest captain the Cats have ever had as just one of the many superlatives that have been heaped upon the 32-year-old in his milestone celebration week.
While Selwood's talent was undeniable - that had already been well established when he captained an Australian under-17 team in a three-Test series against Ireland in 2005 - the concern the clubs with the high-end draft picks had was would his troublesome knee stand up to the rigors of AFL?
After Carlton (Bryce Gibbs, No.1), Essendon (Scott Gumbelton, No.2), North Melbourne (Lachlan Hansen, No.3), Brisbane (Matthew Leuenberger, No.4), Port Adelaide (Travis Boak, No.5) and Hawthorn (Mitch Thorp, No.6) overlooked Selwood with their selections, it left Geelong ready to pounce.
And the Cats duly did, snapping up Selwood at No.7 in a move that had two added bonuses to it.
Firstly, parents Maree and Bryce were keeping one of their AFL-listed boys in their home state after twins Adam (West Coast) and Troy (Brisbane) had been drafted to interstate clubs in 2002. The youngest of the four Selwood brothers, Scott, would join Adam at West Coast the following year.
And secondly, Selwood was headed to the club he barracked for thanks to the influence of his uncle, Roger - Bryce's brother.
"My hero was Gary Ablett and then Leigh Colbert, who was a Bendigo boy, became the captain and I wore his number on my back for a while," Selwood said.
"Leading up to the draft I was hoping to stay in Victoria. I had a meeting with the Cats a week before the draft and didn't make too much of it. But knowing Stephen Wells (recruiting manager) like I do now, it's usually a pretty good indication he's interested in you if he's catching up with you that late.
"To be honest, I thought it was probably going to be pick eight at Collingwood. I just hadn't played a lot of footy and was a bit off the radar.
"I didn't go to the draft. I stayed at home because it was important to be around friends and family.
"We were listening to a little crackly radio. When my name got read out it didn't take long to put the jumper on and make Geelong feel at home and then I remember making the drive down to Geelong the next day with mum and dad."
Selwood's selection at No.7 was described by AFL talent manager Kevin Sheehan as a "gift" for Geelong and from the moment he set foot in Kardinia Park, he immediately displayed the determination and commitment to get the best out of himself and his team-mates that had been his hallmark since that first day as a nine-year-old playing for St. Therese's.
"My attitude was not to waste any time. I wanted to play straight away and be respected," Selwood said.
"It was a pretty simple approach - just get to work and show the guys that I'm going to be OK and I'll help you out."
And it's that approach that earned Selwood a game at the first opportunity when he debuted against the Western Bulldogs at Docklands in round one of 2007.
"We had a pre-season game up in Darwin and Mathew Stokes got reported, so there was a spot that came up in the forward line for round one," Selwood recalled.
"So I was a forward pocket rocket. I had never played the position, but I remember giving away about five free kicks that day and just about every possession I had wasn't worth it.
"I had eight touches on the day; the forward line coach at the time was Kenny Hinkley, who told me after that first game he was putting an electric fence up across the forward 50 and that every time I went in there I'd get electrocuted.
"I got moved up to a wing after that and in some ways played as a sub in those early days. I'd start on the bench in each quarter and then come on and give 11 minutes of power running, which I was quite good at, and then come off again in the back half of the quarter.
"During the week they would train me really hard to the extent that I was probably getting more out of training than playing back then."
In what became a rare loss during his formative years at the club, the Cats were beaten 17.11 (113) to 13.15 (93) by the Bulldogs.
Three weeks later after a loss to North Melbourne Selwood's record after his first four games was 2-2.
But he wouldn't lose again for another 25 games and by the end of his fifth season at the club he had three premierships to his name, the first of his three best and fairests, had played for Victoria and won 98 of 114 games.
Selwood's 2007 season will go down as one of the game's great debut years, winning both the premiership - the Cats' first since 1963 with their record-breaking 119-point grand final win over Port Adelaide - and the league's coveted Rising Star.
Just 11 games into his career Geelong coach Mark Thompson told Triple M radio the day after Selwood had 26 touches and laid eight tackles in a 50-point win over Essendon in what would be the first game he polled Brownlow Medal votes in that: "He is incredible... he is the best young kid we've had at the club by a mile.
"And we're talking about Joel Corey, Cameron Ling, Paul Chapman, Gary Ablett Jnr, Jimmy Bartel - he is the best we've had.
"He is skillful, he just listens and I think he's quite driven to be a very good player. He has a good head on him and comes from a great family. I think he's going to be something special."
While Selwood isn't one to look back on the achievements of his past - his focus is firmly on striving to add another premiership to his 2007, 2009 and 2011 triumphs - he has enjoyed the opportunity to reflect this week on all those who have helped him right through from those early days at St Therese's to AFL game 300.
"It's just a great chance to thank all the people who have helped me get here. Family first of all - mum and dad gave us a great upbringing that I can't thank them enough for," Selwood said.
"There's the brothers, my wife Brit, who has had to put up with a fair bit, coaches, team-mates and volunteers who have put in lots of hours that I'd love to be able to be there for this game, but, unfortunately, that's just not going to be (due to no crowds allowed at Victorian games).
"And looking back to Bendigo, I have so many good memories of playing footy in Bendigo and winning a lot of games with St Therese's and premierships. I then went on to Kennington-Sandhurst where I enjoyed my footy with a lot of great friends before it started to get a bit a bit serious from under-15s."
BRYCE AND MAREE SELWOOD - "HE HAS BEEN A DELIGHT AS A SON"
MAREE Selwood says it takes a lot to make her son, Joel, shed a tear.
But she remembers the tears that welled up in Joel's eyes when he and his dad, Bryce, returned to Bendigo from Melbourne in 2006 after a surgeon had delivered a confronting prognosis on the 18-year-old's troublesome left knee.
"Joel was a real rough nut as a kid and you really had to hurt him to make him cry. He'd hardly cry, but he came home that day and there were tears," Maree recalled this week.
"I remember saying to him, 'Joel, you can do it, let's prove the surgeon wrong', and giving him all the right words to turn those tears into determination and that's exactly what he did.
"From then he thought, this isn't going to stop me and I'm going to go as far as I can on this knee until it won't carry me any further."
I remember saying to him, 'Joel, you can do it, let's prove the surgeon wrong'
- Maree Selwood
Bryce clearly remembers that what the surgeon had said didn't bode well for Joel's AFL dreams, which were already being lived out by his two older twin brothers, Adam (West Coast) and Troy (Brisbane Lions).
"The problem with the knee was some of the cartilage was lifting away from the bone," Bryce said.
"We'd tried to do something with it in Bendigo to fix it, but it didn't work out, so we went down to Melbourne and the surgeon indicated that someone undergoing this operation would have the use of his knee, but that there was the likelihood that he'd never play sport at an elite level.
"Joel always had it in the back of his mind that he'd represent Australia at hurdles in the Olympics or he'd play AFL football.
"He loved his hurdles, but he loved his footy a lot more, but at that particular time he thought he might not get to achieve the dreams he had ambitions for."
Fourteen years after Maree's "let's prove the surgeon wrong" pep-up conversation, Joel on Saturday will play his 300th AFL game for Geelong against the Gold Coast Suns at Kardinia Park.
Revered for his courage, leadership and determination, Bryce and Maree can trace their son's fierce competitive streak back to his earliest football days starting out in AusKick in Bendigo.
"I remember when the twins (Adam and Troy are four years older) were in the early days of AusKick and Joel would be pestering us about doing it as well, but he was too young," Maree said.
"But whoever was in charge back then said to let him come and have a go, so we dropped him off in the prep group and when we came back he was in with the grade ones.
"We said what's going on with that and the coach said he was way above the preps.
"The next week we went back and he was with the grade twos and after that the twins said, 'that's it, he's not coming any more... we can't have him ending up with us'.
"So he was advancing every week and was certainly capable of holding his own against grade three and four kids, even when he was in prep."
While incredibly proud of what Joel - and fellow sons Adam, Troy and youngest Scott have achieved in their AFL careers - being the parents of one of the game's most courageous players who is synonymous with ending a game with a bandaged head has its challenges.
For Maree, her most sickening moment came in June of 2017 at Kardinia Park when Joel was knocked out in the opening minute of a game against Fremantle following a heavy collision with Hayden Ballantyne.
"I remember I was sitting next to Zac Smith, who wasn't playing for Geelong that day, and Joel just didn't move," Maree said.
"I looked to Zac and said 'please tell me he's moving', but he couldn't tell me that. My heart was beating fast and my eyes were welling, so that one really struck me until Zac said that he's moving.
"I said to Joel afterwards that day that it really scared me. He said I won't do that again mum, but that's just how he is... he's not going to change the way he plays."
While Selwood has been entrenched at Geelong since arriving at the club with pick seven in the 2006 National Draft and gone on to become a three-time premiership player, triple best and fairest and the club's longest serving captain in a role he has had since 2012, Maree recalls his selection by the Cats coming as somewhat of a surprise.
"Hawthorn (which had pick six) had shown a lot of interest; I remember Hawthorn taking Bryce and I up to the All Seasons and shouting us drinks," Maree sad.
"We thought he might be going to Hawthorn, so when they picked up the guy from Tasmania (Mitch Thorp) we were all a bit shocked.
"We had never really thought of Geelong. After Hawthorn we more thought of Collingwood and they had the pick after Geelong.
"I remember Derek Hine (Collingwood recruiting manager) saying to me after the draft Joel was their Christmas present waiting to be opened and then Geelong came in and snatched it from him.
"It was a huge relief that he was just going to be down the road and he was thrilled to bits because that's the team he barracked for as a kid."
There was an enormous sigh of relief at the Selwood's home in Strathdale on draft day in November of 2006 when Port Adelaide used pick No.6 to take Travis Boak given with Troy already in Brisbane and Adam in Perth after they had been drafted in 2002, the family was keen to avoid adding Adelaide to their list of interstate destinations for AFL games.
"My plan was when the recruiters came to our house, if they were from interstate I'd just give them a plain old bikkie and a cup of tea," Maree said.
"But if they were Victorian recruiting officers I'd get out the chocolate biscuits and make a big deal of them."
Bryce and Maree estimate they have watched about 250 of Joel's 299 games live, but due to no crowds being allowed at AFL games in Victoria, they will have to watch No.300 on the television.
While bitterly disappointed they can't be there in person to watch the milestone, it's an accomplishment they are immensely proud of.
"We're really proud of the person Joel is... he's very caring and thoughtful. He's not a show-off or a big head or anything like that and is still just a down-to-earth kid," Maree said.
"He has been a delight as a son. We've never had any trouble with him and his team-mates all think the world of him and respect him.
"I think that's why his captaincy has been as long as it has been... he's such a good leader and tries to get the best out of everyone."
And every time Bryce watches Joel at a huddle being addressed by coaches, he sees the same traits he did of his son back in Bendigo.
"He's had that habit from a very young age that he'd always look a person in the eye and you can see it when the coaches are talking that his full attention is on the coach. I've always been very proud of that."
ADAM SELWOOD - BACKYARD BATTLE AT THE MCG
FOR the last 10 minutes of the 2011 Geelong-West Coast preliminary final at the MCG, the Cats forward 50 had the feel of the Selwood backyard back in Bendigo.
There stood Selwood brothers Joel (Geelong) and Adam (West Coast) one-on-one in an open Cats' forward line at the Punt Road end.
The result was done-and-dusted - Joel's Cats were well in front and headed for the grand final the following week against Collingwood - but Adam couldn't resist the chance to relive their Bendigo backyard tussles on the MCG.
"I remember the preliminary final; they beat us fairly convincingly and that was a time when I was playing more as a deep back," Adam said this week ahead of younger brother Joel's 300th AFL game for Geelong.
"Joel went forward in the last 10 minutes, so I handed over Stevie Johnson to someone else and thought, stuff this, I'm going to go and play on my brother for a bit.
"Joel then wanted everyone to clear out of the 50, so we were standing down there for the last 10 minutes or so of that preliminary final one-on-one waiting for the ball to come down.
"But for some reason we flicked the switch and the ball stayed down our end. We were both standing there ready to compete and see who the best brother was."
So what would have happened had the ball come down?
"He probably would have marked it... I'm pretty clear on who the best brother is," Adam said.
"But to have a forward 50 to ourselves in a prelim on the MCG, it would have been a hard-fought contest no matter what. There probably would have been a free-kick given away and whoever it went to, the other one would have spat the dummy and gave away a 50m penalty. Just like the backyard, but there was no 50m penalties in the backyard... you just had a blue."
While it was Adam who went to play on Joel that day at the MCG, back in their younger days in Bendigo it was the opposite - younger brother Joel nipping at the heels of his older twin brothers Troy and Adam.
"He's a younger brother by four years, so back then it was a pretty decent age gap. He was always hanging around us wanting to compete against us and when he would come to our training sessions, not only did he want to take part, but he wanted to learn," Adam said.
"When coaches were passing on messages to Troy and I at Kennington-Sandhurst, be it in the under-13s or under-15s, Joel would always be hanging around, so the messages like no u-turns, Joel was learning those at a younger age and he'd implement those in his play when he was playing with St Therese's.
"I remember him learning how to kick on his opposite foot as an eight-year-old when most eight-year-olds were just learning how to kick on their proper foot.
"His talent was always really special, but his thirst to learn the game and go and implement what he had learned was just as important as that talent that he always displayed."
Oldest brothers Troy (West Coast) and Adam (Brisbane) were the first of the Selwood clan to play AFL after they were both drafted in 2002.
Joel followed four years later when he was taken by Geelong with pick No.7 in the 2006 draft, while youngest brother, Scott, joined Adam at West Coast the following year.
Between the quartet they have a combined 730 games - Joel (299), Adam (187), Scott (169) and Troy (75) - the Danihers (752) being the only brothers in the history of the game to play more.
"We're super proud of Joel's whole career. To get to 300 games is a fantastic achievement, but nothing has changed for him as a person," Adam, now the head of female football at West Coast, said.
"As a brother, I'm incredibly proud, but as a competitor, he was always someone you looked up to in the competition with the way he plays and his courage.
"He's a champion of the game... I'm now known as the brother of Joel and I'm quite happy to be called that."
ANDY WALKER - SELWOOD WAS A DOMINANT FORCE FROM FIRST JUNIOR GAME
FORMER St Therese's junior football coach Andy Walker knew from the moment he first saw a young Joel Selwood on a football field he would be destined for greatness.
Walker was Selwood's first junior coach in the under-12's at St Therese's in the Bendigo Junior Football League and more than 20 years on clearly identifies the traits of Selwood's AFL career that reaches 300 games for Geelong on Saturday with what he was already showing back in his AusKick days.
"We had AusKick and I remember a five-year-old who was younger than most of the other kids turned up and was just outstanding in that environment on a Sunday morning," Walker said this week.
"I remember a couple of parents saying, 'my gawd, who is that young kid'. It was Joel Selwood. Right from his first game you could see that all Joel wanted to do was just go out and play the game of footy."
Selwood himself recalls his first game of football, playing for St. Therese's Maroon at St. Francis and that he was "filthy" at starting out on a wing, rather than where the action was in the centre square.
"He was a bottom-age kid and it was just amazing to see him have such control in terms of what spots on the ground to run to, he'd be looking for someone to run past to give off a handball," Walker said.
"He was just miles ahead of all the other kids. I remember there'd be times I'd say, 'we need you to come and have a rest on the bench because the other kids need to get hold of the ball as well'.
"He wasn't a hog, he shared it, but he'd always be the first to find the football.
"Like he still is now, he was always so hard-at-it, but he was never aggressive towards any of the other kids.
"I remember umpires coming up to me at three quarter-time and saying, you've got to do something about this young kid, he's too good, but how do you stop a player from going in and getting the ball."
Walker coached Selwood for several years at St Therese's before the star-in-the-making then moved up age groups and into Kennington-Sandhurst.
"He has certainly met all the expectations that people thought he'd achieve and has done it in such a great way," Walker said.
"I can tell you that I didn't make any difference to Joel back then and no-one else would have either... he was a self-made player right from the start, he just needed a competition to play in."
MARK ELLIS - SELWOOD ALWAYS PLAYED ON INSTINCT
MARK Ellis considers himself fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time - his stint with the Bendigo Pioneers gave him the opportunity to coach Joel Selwood.
Ellis' first two years as coach of the Pioneers in 2005-06 coincided with Selwood's two under-18 seasons with the club.
While the Pioneers didn't win a game in the TAC Cup that first year, Selwood had a stellar 2005 bottom-age season in which he not only made the All-Australian team following the Under-18 National Championships on a half-back flank, but he also captained Australia's under-17 side in a three Test series against Ireland.
Selwood's top-age year though in 2006 was curtailed by a knee injury. He played just three games - against Dandenong in round two, Gippsland in round three and North Ballarat in round six - before undergoing a knee operation and shifting his focus to the National Draft later that year in November.
Selwood could have returned to the field late in the season for the Pioneers and played a handful of games, but as much as Ellis would have loved to have him back out on the park, the focus was on his long-term future.
"It would have been great to have him out there for two full years so that other people could have more opportunity to see just how good he was... the way he played his footy, it was just good too watch," Ellis said this week.
"He played in a similar fashion to the way he does now. He always played on instinct, which was terrific because that was always going to hold him in good stead for AFL footy.
"I was very fortunate with the players who came through when I was at the Pioneers and Joel's preparation was always first-class."
Geelong's Selwood will become the second player in Bendigo Pioneers' history behind Nick Dal Santo (322) to play 300 AFL games when he reaches the milestone against Gold Coast at Kardinia Park on Saturday.
Most AFL games by Pioneers draftees - Nick Dal Santo (322), Joel Selwood (299*), Chris Tarrant (268), Brent Guerra (255), Michael Braun (228), Dustin Martin (227*).
DENIS PAGAN - SELWOOD THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY FOR BLUES
By Adam Bourke
With the first pick in the 2006 AFL National Draft, Carlton selects Joel Selwood from Sandhurst and the Bendigo Pioneers.
Had those 20 words been read out in November, 2006, would Carlton's mediocre period have changed?
Too many variables to definitively answer "yes", but it certainly would have helped the battling Blues.
Instead the Blues selected South Australian Bryce Gibbs with the number one pick and Selwood slid to the Cats with selection seven.
In fairness to the Blues, Gibbs was widely touted as the number one pick that year, while some clubs had doubts about Selwood's knee injury which hampered his final season with the Bendigo Pioneers.
Carlton's coach at the time was Denis Pagan.
The two-time North Melbourne premiership coach had a tough time at the Blues, winning 25 of 104 games between 2003-2007.
Pagan recalled the lead-up to the 2006 draft this week.
"Joel's talent and ability couldn't be questioned and we had a number of players that we had our eyes on and Joel was one of them,'' Pagan said.
"I was a dead man walking at that stage at Carlton and we had a lot of things on our mind, so I was focusing on getting other things right. The drafting of under-18 players I left up to the recruiting people.
"I remember the recruiting people talking about Joel. I hadn't seen him play much at all at that stage. You look back now and he would have been a great player for us, but it didn't work out that way for us."
Pagan has admired Selwood from afar and this week compared the Geelong great to one of his all-time favourite North Melbourne players.
"Joel's a midfielder that I would have loved to have had in my team,'' he said.
"He reminds me of Anthony Stevens in the way he goes about it with his determination. He's a perfect role model.
He reminds me of Anthony Stevens in the way he goes about it with his determination. He's a perfect role model
- Denis Pagan
"In the off-season a few months ago I was talking to Joel at a function for 20 minutes and I walked away thinking to myself what an impressive young man.
"I couldn't have been more impressed by him."
Pagan and the Blues weren't the only club rueing the fact they passed on Selwood in the draft.
Essendon selected key forward Scott Gumbleton with pick two, North Melbourne went with key defender Lachlan Hansen at selection three, while the Brisbane Lions chose ruckman Matthew Leuenberger at number four.
Port Adelaide would have few regrets with selecting Travis Boak at pick five, but Hawthorn's selection of Mitch Thorp at pick six was a bust.
What if Hawthorn had picked Selwood and he was added to the mix of the Hawks' great teams between 2008-2015? That's a scary thought.
BRENDAN McCARTNEY - SELWOOD HAD INSTANT RESPECT AT CATS
INSTANT respect - that's what Brendan McCartney recalls of Joel Selwood's early days at Geelong.
McCartney was an assistant coach at Geelong when the Cats took the 18-year-old from Bendigo with pick No.7 in the 2006 National Draft.
That was back in late November of 2006, and while McCartney moved on from the Cats a decade ago, Selwood will this week play game No.300 for Geelong.
"We had met Joel early. He came down and spent a week with us at Geelong while he was part of the AIS squad, but he couldn't do much because of his knee," McCartney said in Bendigo this week.
"What struck me at first was the person he was and then when we were lucky enough to draft him after other clubs saw fit not to take a risk on him with his knee, what we saw from day one was just an incredible workrate and drive.
"At the heart of all great players is a competitive streak and he has that. He plays fair and he plays within the rules... always has and always will.
"Competitive people always find a way, and if there's an area in their game that isn't at the level they want, they work on it and he was always so coachable.
"In what become a super team (Selwood won three flags in his first five years) he was respected instantly by people who had already been playing for 10 or 12 years.
"200-game players immediately respected him for what he stood for and that has never changed.
"So probably the best way to sum up Joel is he's an incredible person and player for the club and over the 14 years he has been playing I've never seen him flinch or take a backwards step.
Probably the best way to sum up Joel is he's an incredible person and player for the club and over the 14 years he has been playing I've never seen him flinch or take a backwards step
- Brendan McCartney
"He has never not gone out on to a ground and not given everything for his club and that's an incredible thing to say."
Selwood, 32, will play his 300th game for the Cats against the Gold Coast Suns at Kardinia Park on Saturday.
Selwood's football journey started as a nine-year-old with St Therese's in the Bendigo Junior Football League.
SELWOOD'S IMPRESSIVE RECORD IN MILESTONE GAMES
IF his previous milestone games are a sign of what's to come on Saturday, expect a dominant game from Joel Selwood for Geelong against the Gold Coast Suns.
Selwood will play game No.300 for the Cats against the Suns and all throughout his career he has thrived in milestone matches, earning Brownlow Medal votes in each of his 100th, 150th, 200th and 250th games - all of which were wins.
GAME 50 - Round 5, 2009 vs Brisbane: 31 disposals. Geelong won by 93 points.
GAME 100 - Round 8, 2011 vs Collingwood: 29 disposals, 2 Brownlow votes. Geelong won by 3 points.
GAME 150 - Round 16, 2013 vs Melbourne: 29 disposals, 2 Brownlow votes. Geelong won by 68 points.
GAME 200 - Round 19, 2015 vs Sydney: 35 disposals, 3 Brownlow votes. Geelong won by 32 points.
GAME 250 - Round 1, 2018 vs Melbourne: 39 disposals, 2 Brownlow votes. Geelong won by 3 points.
JOEL SELWOOD'S AFL CAREER THROUGH THE YEARS
2007
Games: 21 Wins: 19
Disposals: 404
Goals: 7 Tackles: 95
Brownlow votes: 2
............................................
2008
Games: 24 Wins: 22
Disposals: 607
Goals: 6 Tackles: 78
Brownlow votes: 19
............................................
2009
Games: 25 Wins: 21
Disposals: 687
Goals: 11 Tackles: 118
Brownlow votes: 16
............................................
2010
Games: 24 Wins: 17
Disposals: 677
Goals: 9 Tackles: 126
Brownlow votes: 21
............................................
2011
Games: 20 Wins: 19
Disposals: 518
Goals: 15 Tackles: 125
Brownlow votes: 17
............................................
2012
Games: 21 Wins: 13
Disposals: 539
Goals: 13 Tackles: 118
Brownlow votes: 14
............................................
2013
Games: 25 Wins: 19
Disposals: 615
Goals: 30 Tackles: 140
Brownlow votes: 27
............................................
2014
Games: 24 Wins: 17
Disposals: 614
Goals: 24 Tackles: 144
Brownlow votes: 21
............................................
2015
Games: 20 Wins: 10
Disposals: 491
Goals: 14 Tackles: 124
Brownlow votes: 13
............................................
2016
Games: 24 Wins: 18
Disposals: 679
Goals: 9 Tackles: 139
Brownlow votes: 18
............................................
2017
Games: 21 Wins: 13
Disposals: 536
Goals: 7 Tackles: 107
Brownlow votes: 13
............................................
2018
Games: 23 Wins: 13
Disposals: 621
Goals: 7 Tackles: 124
Brownlow votes: 14
............................................
2019
Games: 23 Wins: 15
Disposals: 489
Goals: 6 Tackles: 94
Brownlow votes: 3
............................................
2020 so far
Games: 4 Wins: 2
Disposals: 85
Goals: 2 Tackles: 11
............................................
TOTAL
Games: 299 Wins: 218
Disposals: 7562
Goals: 160 Tackles: 1543
Brownlow votes: 198
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