Lachie Neale will become the 112^th player in history to reach 300 AFL games on Sunday – and will go into the game with the worst case of ‘leather poisoning’ among this elite group.

Neale, who will post his triple century against Melbourne at the MCG, already has had most possessions by any player at 300.

His 299-game total of 8186 puts him ahead of a superstar group of Scott Pendlebury (7971), Robert Harvey (7914), Sam Mitchell (7902), Gary Ablett Jnr (7609), Scott West (7589), Joel Selwood (7584), Kevin Bartlett (7438) and Tony Shaw (7421).

Such is the quality of this list that Dustin Martin (7297) sits outside the top 10.

Neale, who will hit 300 games about 30 hours after Geelong’s Mark Blicavs does likewise on Friday night, is also ranked fourth for Brownlow Medal votes at 300 games – even without votes in the first six games of this year being counted

At 294 games to the end of last year he had 225 votes to trail the 300-game totals of Patrick Dangerfield (236), Gary Ablett Jnr (232) and Gary Dempsey (229).

He can expect three votes in Saturday’s Gather Round win over North Melbourne, having polled maximum votes in the Coach’s Player of the Year Award, and he was judged third-best by the coaches in the Opening Round loss to Western Bulldogs, which points to one more medal vote.

So, one vote in his 300^th this week would see him draw level with Dempsey in outright third, and two votes would put him ahead of the ex-Bulldogs/North Melbourne champion, who finished his career playing at Southport.

It wouldn’t surprise, too, if Neale pulls out a three-vote game for his 300^th – as he did in his 200^th for Brisbane against Collingwood in the 2022 Easter Thursday game at the Gabba. And in his 100^th game for Brisbane against Richmond at the Gabba in 2023.

Neale already ranks fifth in Brownlow votes all-time with 225 – behind Ablett Jnr (262), Dangerfield (259) and Dempsey (218.5), remembering that votes awarded in 1976-77 are halved for comparison purposes because in those years two umpires each voted 3-2-1.

And to the end of 2025 he was equal 10^th on a votes-per-game basis at 0.84.

Nick Daicos, with 109 votes from 88 eligible games at 1.24 votes per game, heads a top 10 which includes a split of current players and old-timers. Haydn Bunton, Fitzroy’s 1931-32-35 Brownlow Medallist, is second at 1.04 votes per game ahead Essendon 1976 winner Graham Moss (0.95), Carlton captain Patrick Cripps (0.91), and St Kilda’s Harold Bray, who finished 2^nd in 1947 and 3^rd in1949-52. He averaged 0.88vpg.

Bulldogs captain Marcus Bontempelli (0.87) is next from Essendon 1952-53 winner Bill Hutchison (0.86), and the two players who shared the 1940 Brownlow - South Melbourne’s Herbie Matthews and Collingwood’s Des Fothergill – at 0.85.

Neale, the 2020-23 Brownlow winner, shares 10^th spot with Richmond’s 1948 winner Bill Morris.

Adding further to an extraordinary career which has blossomed since his move from Fremantle to Brisbane in 2019, Neale has polled 54 three-vote ratings, fewer only than Dangerfield (56) and Ablett Jnr (55).

And he’s polled 97 times overall – behind only Ablett Jnr (122), Robert Harvey (111), Sam Mitchell (108), Dangerfield (107), Dempsey (106), Scott Pendlebury (105), Joel Selwood (101) and Dustin Martin (99).

It’s all part of a journey which began at Narracorte, a tiny town 330km east of Adelaide on the Limestone Coast of South Australia where he was born, and nearby Kybybolite, where he played junior football before joining SANFL club Glenelg with long-time best mate and current Lions teammate Lincoln McCarthy.

In the 2011 AFL Draft Neale went to Fremantle at #58 and McCarthy to Geelong at #66.

While McCarthy played 29 games in seven years due to an horrific injury run, Neale flourished. He played 135 games including the 2013 grand final, finished 6^th-1^st-2^nd-1^st in the best & fairest from 2015-18 and polled 55 Brownlow votes.

The Neale/McCarthy reunion in Brisbane in 2019, sparked by McCarthy’s need for a fresh start, has taken Neale to a new level and made him an automatic Australian Football Hall of Famer as soon as he is eligible.

Traded from Fremantle with pick #30 in the 2018 Draft for picks #6-19-55 in what hindsight says was bargain-plus deal, he’s won the Merrett/Murray Medal four times to join Ablett Jnr, Bontempelli, Matthew Pavlich, Zach Merrett and Nick Riewoldt as the only players this century to win six club best & fairest awards.  And he’s been All-Australian four times and was 2024-25 premiership co-captain.

Armed with arguably the quickest and most reliable pair of hands in history, a direct result of countless hundreds of extra hours’ working on ground balls, Neale will be as short as or shorter than all but all but four other 300-gamers.

According to official statistics, 170cm Tony Shaw is the shortest, followed by Shane Crawford and Eddie Betts at 174cm, and Dayne Zorko at 175cm. Equal with Neale at 177cm are Brent Harvey, Kevin Bartlett, Jason Akermanis and Paul Williams.

Neale will also be one of the AFL’s most-travelled 300-gamers as the 17^th player to hit this mark having played exclusively outside Victoria.

Only Fremantle’s David Mundy and West Coast’s Shannon Hurn played 300 while living in Perth. Brisbane’s Marcus Ashcroft, Simon Black and Dayne Zorko did the soon-to-be Olympic City equivalent, and triple premiership Lion Luke Power split 300 between Brisbane and Sydney, finishing his career with GWS.

Sydney’s Adam Goodes, Jarrad McVeigh and Jude Bolton played 300 games in the Harbour City, and Port Adelaide’s Travis Boak did likewise living in Adelaide with the Crows’ Andrew McLeod, Mark Riccuito, Ben Hart, Tyson Edwards, Kane Cornes and Taylor Walker.