Dustin Fletcher meets a young fan. Picture: Chris Scott Source: Herald Sun
AS BABY-FACED Dustin Fletcher prepared for the most improbable of debuts in Round 2, 1993, dad Ken was worried about him being snapped in two by an opposition player.
Given the 17-year-old was 70kg dripping wet, it didn't seem an impossible outcome.
Mother Rosemary had other more pressing concerns for her boy.
"That day we were all worried for him, but he had his deb (debutante) ball on that night as well and I thought, poor girl. He will either be all scratched and mangled up, or he won't turn up at all," she said this week.
Fletcher would play in the ruck that day for perhaps the only time before moving on to tackle the assortment of megastar forwards against whom he would make his name as a first-year defender.
Some of the cavalcade of goalkicking legends in Carey, Lockett, Dunstall, Ablett, and Kernahan got a hold of him, but others were in for a rude shock.
By Round 8, coach Kevin Sheedy would assign him Adelaide pin-up boy Tony Modra, in the middle of a hot streak which would take him to 129 goals that year.
Modra recalls considering the gangly red-head as just another live kill.
"When I went down to full-forward I didn't know him and he looked wiry and that thin, so I thought to myself, 'I should be in for a good day', but somehow he held his own," says Modra.
"He used his height and reach and had good touch and I knew after that game I would be up for it every time I played him. And yet he was the kind of guy who would play hard but also play fair and square."
History shows that the uniquely gifted Fletcher would join that year with a band of kids already on a surging run that would take the club all the way to an unlikely premiership.
But only just.
"He did his ankle the week before the finals in 1993 and they were a bit worried about him playing," says Ken Fletcher.
"He got some (painkilling) needles during the finals and then had an operation on his ankle, and then he couldn't go on the footy trip because I wouldn't let him go. He had his high school exams."
Dustin Fletcher and his Essendon teammates celebrate the 1993 premiership. Picture: John Feder Source: HWT Image Library
That remarkable season and the obstacles faced by Fletcher continue to draw recollections that surprise two decades on.
Which makes it all the more remarkable that Fletcher's legacy will be defined not by one single season of glory but what is now transpiring as his career draws to a close.
Exactly 20 years later Dustin Fletcher, 38 on May 7, will play his 367th game tonight and not one teammate, rival or family member bar his mother is even considering his retirement to be imminent.
Certainly not after the Round 1 contest against Adelaide where he was one of only two players to play every minute, and make every minute count.
He has a best-and-fairest in a premiership season (2000), 14 top-10 best-and-fairest results, last year led the competition in defensive-50 score launches, and is as critical as he has ever been at Essendon.
He and Robert Harvey are the only two AFL players to be involved in 21 seasons of football, and he will this year break Simon Madden's club record of 378 games despite 18 weeks of total suspension and just four seasons of 20 with more than 20 games.
Fletcher isn't just old in football terms, he is more than three years older than North Melbourne's Brent Harvey.
"It is an amazing story. Not only is he a great footballer and a great of the Essendon Football Club, but he's just a terrific person," says coach, former teammate and friend James Hird.
"We have had some amazing players come through our club, and Fletch and Lloydy (Matthew Lloyd) are probably the two from my point of view as the two best players I have played with, and probably Fletch because of his longevity just shades Matthew.
"That is hard on Matthew in what he has done, but as a coach I appreciate Fletch so much more than I did as a teammate. You see the range of things he does under pressure, you see what he does defensively, and you see what he does with ball in hand. We are nowhere near as good a team without Fletch in our side."
Hird would debut a year before Fletcher as baby Bombers like Ricky Olarenshaw, Joe Misiti, Steve Alessio and Gavin Wanganeen arrived at the club together.
When Fletcher arrived literally as a schoolkid from Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School with school bag over his shoulder Hird soon learned quickly he was playing alongside a natural born competitor.
"After games we would all get out and about and Fletch would have to go home and study. But what most people don't know about Fletch is he is the most natural sportsman we have had at our footy club in a long time. You play anything, he will beat you. Tennis, table tennis, soccer, football whatever, he is just naturally brilliant at it," Hird says.
Dustin Fletcher's player headshot in 1993. Source: Herald Sun
Essendon's Ken Fletcher in 1979, with wife Rosemary and their children, including son Dustin Fletcher. Source: HWT Image Library
Two decades on, and that sheer will to win has not diminished.
Hird believes it has kept the flame alive for Fletcher, but says the veteran still works extremely hard at his craft.
"His speed is like it was, his training ethic is probably better than when I was playing with him, and he doesn't want to miss a training session.
"The thing about Fletch is he has these fantastic limbs and his timing for a spoil is perfect, but he reads the cues of the kicker from 50m away or more better than anyone in the AFL. He knows where the ball is going. How he does that only Fletch knows."
Fletcher and wife Suzie's sons Mason, 13 on Monday, and Max, 10, are are already members of the James Hird Academy at Windy Hill.
Anyone who has seen them dominating kick-to-kick sessions at the VFL or post-match in the MCG rooms knows they are the spitting image of their talented father in every way.
"They look like him, they run like him, their ball skills are like him, so they are well on their way," says Hird.
Dustin saw his father Ken captain-coaching Tatura as a grade two kid after his exceptional 264-game career at Essendon, with their contribution at the club already spreading 35 seasons.
He has a sister Rebecca and younger brother Lachlan, who famously won a premiership for Port Douglas against the undefeated South Cairns in 2001 with an after-the-siren goal.
Lachlan is not whippet-thin like his brother, but mother Rosemary says Fletcher just can't keep weight on.
"I have got no idea why. When he was at school he used to eat like a horse. He would come home from school, cook himself a steak, have main meal and sweets, and then have something before bed."
Stephen Kernahan and Dustin Fletcher do battle in the 1993 Grand Final. Picture: Bruce Magilton Source: HWT Image Library
Ken and Rosemary estimate they have been to 340 of his 366 games, although as intrepid travellers who have visited 58 countries, they have plans in August to visit "the gorillas in the mist", as Ken says.
Hopefully Fletcher stays uninjured so they can witness him breaking Madden's club record.
Ken Fletcher is fiercely defensive of his son's perceived weaknesses his tribunal record and the fact he no longer plays on the best key forward.
"He played on all the good ones every single week - Modra, Ablett, Sumich, Dunstall. It is such bull. Such crap. He played on them all, and then he could play on Phil Matera, who was the leading goalkicker for West Coast. Matthew Scarlett and him have been the best full-backs and Scarlett never played on the best every time.
"Another one of my pet hates is the tripping stuff, the way every time he even vaguely tried to trip someone he would go out, and then every other player bar him got off. One week he was suspended and then the next week a Geelong bloke dived and grabbed Alwyn Davey's ankle and got off."
Yet if the Fletcher spirit is evident, he is mostly proud of a man who says little in foreign company but has a dry sense of humour those like Hird say is always on show among friends.
"I reckon if he doesn't get injured, and let's hope that doesn't happen, he will play again next year," Fletcher Sr says.
"I reckon if they wanted to do the right thing (to get him to 400) he could be a good sub player. Imagine him coming on in the last quarter. If they wanted to get him over the line they could do that."
Madden compares Fletcher to the AFL's games record-holder in Michael Tuck, who played 50 reserves games but also 39 finals to boost his AFL tally to 426 games.
Tuck has total admiration for Fletcher's deeds.
"He is quite good. He has a good bit of pace," he says in his own laconic way.
"I think it's a desire to want to play, because if you think you are old, you are old. He has done very well. He is a terrific kick, he has great skills and he is so flexible. Although a lot of people seem to trip over him. I don't know what happens there..."
In truth, Fletcher has eradicated the silly trips and sly punches from his game.
He has not been suspended since a kneeing charge against Hawthorn's Beau Muston in Round 13, 2010.
Dustin Fletcher goals from 60m out. Picture: Michael Klein Source: Herald Sun
Hird believes he has matured, and heeded the message from recent coaches.
"I think Sheeds talked to him a lot about those reflex actions which would cost him two or three weeks. He understood that as a leader, but he's more mature. He's 21 years more advanced than he was, so he's matured a bit."
Tuck would unashamedly like to keep his AFL record for a while yet: "To be honest with you, it's good. I won't kid you. I will be disappointed if someone gets there, but if they do they will have earned it. I would like to keep it, but one day he could have it."
But Madden will gladly hand over the baton as early as Round 14.
"It is lovely to be the record-holder, but records are there to be broken. I went past Dicky Reynolds and he played 320 games. I had the goals record too for a while (575 goals) and then a real full-forward came along in Lloydy and took it. I have had my time, let someone else have it."
Essendon says it doesn't often record the typical 20m dash speed, but in an era where anything under three seconds is quick Fletcher is lightning - definitely under 2.9 seconds.
His teammates talk about his love for football invigorating them in tough times, with the elder statesman of the club dropping his kids off at school then eating his toast in the car before clocking on to work.
"He just keeps going, this bloke," says former star ruckman/forward Madden.
"The two things he has that are paramount in modern footy is that he has kept his speed, and he has the judgement to know when to play off his man and work the angles to get back into position. He is extraordinary. Don't worry about my record, worry about Tucky's. We know so many blokes who had great ability but their body wouldn't let them continue to play the game.
"His resilience and his speed and his footy experience have made him extraordinary. I don't know if I have seen another guy of his size who can run that fast and play on so many players as he has."
Perhaps his situation is similar to that of Craig Bradley, who played 502 total games 98 with Port Adelaide, 375 with Carlton, and a raft of State-of-Origin encounters.
Like Tuck, he could have easily have played on another year, so believes it is not about whether Fletcher could get to 400, but whether he wants to.
"If you enjoy your footy and love playing, why not keep doing it? Footy is a great job. Crikey, you are paid to train and eat well and look after yourself, and if you love competing it's great."
AFL ELDER STATESMEN
Dustin Fletcher (Ess), age 37, games 366
Brent Harvey (NM) age 34, games 346
Dean Brogan (GWS) age 34, games 184
Ben Hudson (Coll) age 34 games 161
Simon Black (BL) age 33 games 314
Chad Cornes (GWS) age 33, games 255
Adam Goodes (Syd) age 33, games 320
Lenny Hayes (StK) age 33, games 264
Dustin Fletcher clears Essendon from defence. Source: Getty Images
FLETCH BY THE NUMBERS
HE has played 366 of a possible 465 matches. (215 wins, 146 losses, 5 draws)
IS ONE of 67 players to play 300 or more games
IS ONE of 12 players to play 350 or more games
IS ONE of only two players to play 21 seasons, sharing the record with Robert Harvey
ONLY four players have played 20 or more seasons: Harvey, Fletcher, Michael Tuck and Ted Whitten
IF HE plays all games up until Round 14 this season, he will break Simon Madden's club record of 378 games
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