Over the past 12 months, the Brisbane Lions have farewelled the final three members of those premiership sides from the early 2000s in Simon Black, Jonathan Brown, and Ash McGrath.

Black and Brown, in particular, depart having achieved more than most throughout the Club’s history – combining for 578 games, 765 goals, six premiership medals, six Club Champion awards, five All Australian guernseys, a Brownlow Medal, a Norm Smith Medal, a Coleman Medal, and countless other honours.

But in their absence, Vice-Captain Tom Rockliff has emerged as the Lions’ most decorated current-day player.

Rockliff stamped himself as one of the competition’s elite following his inaugural selection in the AFL All Australian side on Tuesday night.

After six seasons, the 24-year-old now boasts a football resume that includes two Merrett-Murray Medals (2011 and 2014), a Marcus Ashcroft Medal (2012), a sixth placing in the Brownlow Medal (2013), and a podium finish in the AFL Rising Star Award (2010).

Rockliff has also spent the past four seasons as a valuable member of the Club’s Leadership Group, and you get the impression he’s being groomed to one day take over the reins as skipper at some stage in the not-too-distant future.

His record is obviously still a far cry from Black and Brown’s, but very few AFL careers in history can stack up with theirs.

However, despite all Rockliff’s recent individual accolades, the one thing that has so far escaped him is team success.

In fact, he is yet to get a taste of September action, after missing out on the Lions’ 2009 Finals campaign in his debut season.

But at 24, he still has plenty of time ahead of him, and Lions fans have every right to get excited about what he, and the team, could potentially achieve in the future.