Brent Moloney holds a special place in AFL history on two counts… he is the most recent of 14 players to play for both Brisbane and Melbourne, and was the game’s first free agent.

Now in his fourth season coaching Wilston-Grange in the QAFL, 39-year-old Moloney is more than nine years into AFL retirement, having played his 21^st and last Lions game, and his 166^th game overall, in Round 5 2014.

The Lions hosted Richmond at the Gabba on Easter Thursday in what was Jonathan Brown’s 250^th game, Darcy Gardiner’s debut, Luke McGuane’s Lions debut and coach Justin Leppitsch’s fifth game at the helm.

Otherwise, it was a forgettable farewell for Moloney, who was subbed out before halftime in a 43-point Tigers win with an achilles problem that would end his career.

But Moloney, who played 23 games with Geelong (2003-04) and 122 games with Melbourne (2005-12) had already stamped his mark on the Lions when he headed north over the 2012-13 off-season.

Melbourne vice-captain in 2011, when he won the best & fairest and polled 19 votes to finish ninth in the Brownlow Medal, he had played only 15 games in an up-and-down 2012 season under first-year coach Mark Neeld and found himself in a public contract dispute with the club.

He was the first player to exercise newly-introduced free agency rights, announcing on 4 September 2012, three days after the club’s last game of the season, that he would quit the Demons. He later signed a two-year deal with the Lions.

Also working now as a coach with the Simon Black Football Academy, Moloney will have a foot in both camps on Friday night when the third-placed Lions face the fourth-placed Demons at the MCG.

The Other Thirteen?

The combined Brisbane/Melbourne Past Players Club is light on numbers – lower than all non-expansion clubs except Carlton and Richmond - but heavy on interesting connections. 

Three-time Brisbane premiership player Martin Pike began his four-club AFL career at Melbourne in 1993 and played against the Brisbane Bears at the Gabba in his third game in Round 3.

Led by six goals from captain Roger Merrett, Brisbane won by two points after leading by 26 points at halftime and trailing by 17 points at three-quarter time.

Adrian Fletcher, father of Lions newcomer Jaspa Fletcher, and Michael Murphy, later to have a long stint as Lions commercial sales manager, played their second game for the club, while Justin Leppitsch, Nathan Chapman and Nathan Buckley played their third game in Brisbane colors.

Fletcher had 23 possessions and a goal for three Brownlow votes, while a 20-year-old Pike, wearing jumper #22 and complete with hair, had eight possessions before going on to split his 247 AFL games between Melbourne (24), Fitzroy (36), North Melbourne (81) and Brisbane (106).

Mark Withers, second winner of the Bears club championship in 1988, played 36 games for Brisbane (1988-1990) after 32 games with Melbourne (1985-87).

Dale Dickson, later to serve for 18 years as CEO of the Gold Coast City Council, was one of two ex-Demons in the very first Bears game in 1987 on his way to 30 games for the club. The other was John Fidge, who played 27 times for the Bears.

Daryl Cox, whose son Nik is playing at Essendon now, played in the Bears’ second game and never played again after he’d played previously at Melbourne and Fitzroy.

Jamie Duursma, too, was a Bears one-gamer after a short stint at Sydney and before two years at Melbourne, which included the 1988 grand final.

Rod Owen, formerly of St.Kilda and Melbourne, played only nine games for the Bears in 1992 but wrote himself into the club record books when he kicked eight goals against Fitzroy at Princes Park – a record for Brisbane against Fitzroy.

The last of the cross-over players in the Bears era was Fabian Francis, whose step-son Jason Horne-Francis is now playing at Port Adelaide. Fabian Francis played one game for Melbourne in 1991 and 22 games for Brisbane 1993-94 before 86 games for Port.

Nick Carter, one of Fitzroy ‘Chosen Eight’ who headed to Brisbane via the merger, played five games for the Lions in 1997-98 before three games for the Demons in 1999.

After Pike came to Brisbane in 2001 Travis Johnstone did likewise in 2008. Grandson of ex-Fitzroy star Norm Johnstone, the 1997 #1 draft pick played 160 games for Melbourne before 49 games for the Lions.

Local junior Joel Macdonald played 80 games for the Lions from 2004-2009 before 44 games for Melbourne from 2010-13, and Mitch Clark played 82 times in Lions colours from 2006-2011 before 15 games for Melbourne (2012-13) and nine games for Geelong (2015-16).

Stefan Martin was an outstanding pick-up for Brisbane, playing 133 games for the Lions from 2013-20 and sharing the 2015 Merrett/Murray Medal after 57 games for Melbourne from 2008-2012 and before a 13-game cameo at the Western Bulldogs in 2021-22. Moloney closed out the list.