Joel Patfull is a member of two exclusive clubs at the Brisbane Lions. Well known is the fact that he’s one of just seven players to have won multiple club champion awards, but what is the other one?

He is one of just three players to have played for Brisbane and this week’s Round 6 opponents, the GWS Giants.

Now living in Sydney, the 39-year-old former centre half back played 38 games with the Giants in 2015-16 after 182 games with the Lions from 2006-14.

Patfull was the second member of this group after Lions triple premiership ace Luke Power, who played 282 games in Brisbane (1998-2011) before 20 games in a mentoring role with the Giants in their first season in 2012, and Jake Barrett, a one-game Giant in 2015 who added 22 games with the Lions in 2017-18.

And yet Patfull’s stellar career could have gone in an entirely different direction but for a decision made in 2004 by Mark Williams which the Port Adelaide premiership coach of that year admits in hindsight was wrong.

Originally from SANFL club Norwood, Patfull was a rookie at Port in 2003-04 but was delisted without playing an AFL game after the Power beat the Lions in the 2004 grand final.

“I wasn’t totally surprised at the time – I was playing full forward at Norwood in those days and not doing much damage,” he said, before revealing a chance conversation with Williams 12 years later which threw some light on his exit from Port.

“The year I finished in the AFL I did the lap of honour at the grand final and bumped into Choco (Williams). He told me of all the players he delisted I was the one he regretted, which did give me a little satisfaction.”

Port’s loss was Brisbane’s gain 12 months later when they snared him with pick #56 in the 2005 National Draft after having earlier claimed Mitch Clark at #9, Wayde Mills at #25 and Rhan Hooper at #41.

The long-striding defender played more games for the club than the three earlier picks combined and won the coveted Merrett/Murray Medal in 2012-13 after four top 10 finishes in 2007-08-09-11. He missed just 11 games in nine years at the Gabba and was a wonderfully consistent contributor through a period in which wins were hard to come by.

His move to GWS “just happened” when he was “looking for a change” after nine years in Brisbane.

“I always wanted to live in Sydney and I was starting to think about the next stage of my life. A few things fell into place, the Giants got wind of it, and it ended up the right fit. There was no big reason ... it was just the next thing and I really enjoyed it. We had a bit of success and played a couple of finals.”

Now running his own business in the beauty and fashion industry at Bondi with fiancée and social media influencer Elle Ferguson, Patfull has been pretty much invisible in a football sense in recent years - except one for one short-lived venture into reality television.

He and Elle appeared briefly in the 2022 series of “The Block”, a home renovation show, and were unfairly vilified when they left three days into the show. The reason? Joel’s mother had broken her neck and was in intensive care, he said.

While he’s more than happy to live without the football spotlight he still follows the fortunes of the Lions and the Giants and made his once-a-year visit to Brisbane recently for the “lights went out” game against Melbourne.

“For a while I didn’t follow the football much – I wanted to get away from it and see what else there was out there – but I’m back now and enjoy watching when I can.

“The great thing about football is the people you meet and the friendships you make, and I like to keep in touch with old mates,” he said, planning to get married ‘later this year or next year’.

And for the trivia buffs, who are the other six multiple winners of the Merrett/Murray Medal? Michael Voss and Dayne Zorko have five apiece, Simon Black, Jonathan Brown and Lachie Neale three, and John Gastev, Michael McLean, Jason Akermanis and Tom Rockliff two.