So, having been added to the 2026 All-Australian selection panel on Tuesday, he will be armed with a broad understanding of what is involved when he walks into his first selection meeting in Melbourne on Friday.
Black joined the panel headed by AFL CEO Andrew Dillon (Chair), Eddie Betts, Jude Bolton, Abbey Holmes, Glen Jakovich, Laura Kane, David Mundy, Joel Selwood and ex-Lions CEO Greg Swann, now the League’s Executive General Manager – Football Performance.
They are responsible for the selection of the AFL All-Australian squad and team, the AFL Mark and Goal of the Year, and the AFL Rising Star Award.
Black has filled a vacancy created by the resignation of Kane Cornes and his short-lived replacement Luke Hodge due to their commercial connections with AFL betting agencies.
There was a strong push, too, for ex-Lion Alastair Lynch, but it was considered he, too, had a perceived conflict in his role as Football Director with the new Tasmanian AFL side.
Black will be the first ex-Brisbane player to sit on the All-Australian panel, filling a long time void which has caused much long-term discontent among Queenslanders.
“I got a call from Swanny and thought ‘why not?’. It’s a great honor and I’m looking forward to being part of it,” said the triple premiership hero and 2002 Brownlow Medallist.
It’s a three-part process, he explains, with the panel to meet on Friday at what is effectively the mid-point of the season before further discussions at Round 21 and just before the end of the home-and-away season.
His All-Australian duties will join a football workload which could hardly be more varied. He also does radio commentary most weekends with Brisbane’s Triple M, providing expert comments for Lions and Suns home games, and coaches his son Lucas’ Mayne Under 13s.
“I’m not sure which job is going to be tougher – picking an All-Australian side or keeping a bunch of 12-year-olds under control,” he quipped.
Black and wife Catherine have a heavier Saturday morning workload this season after older son Lachy, 14, transferred from Mayne to play with some mates at Wilston-Grange, although, in a freak coincidence, both boys are the injured list after suffering broken wrists in the past fortnight.
Black, the 2002 Brownlow Medallist and a key member of the Lions’ 2001-02-03 premiership sides, won All-Australian selection in 2001-02-04 and was a member of the All-Australian squad in 2006, when a preliminary squad was introduced for the first time.
But it remains a mystery to long-time Lions fans how the now 47-year-old missed out in 2003, when he was runner-up to skipper Michael Voss in the Merrett/Murray Medal and won the Norm Smith Medal on grand final day.
Only four Brisbane players have won more All-Australian blazers than the Brisbane Lions Hall of Fame Legend and an Australian Football Hall of Famer - Voss (5), Jason Akermanis (4), Nigel Lappin (4) and Lachie Neale (4).
Harris Andrews and Justin Leppitsch sit alongside Black on the Brisbane All-Australian Honour Roll, ahead of Jonathan Brown, Dayne Zorko and Charlie Cameron (2), Chris Johnson, Craig Lambert, Luke Power, Daniel Rich, Tom Rockliff, Hugh McCluggage and Zac Bailey (1).
Voss and Zorko are five-time winners of the Merrett/Murray, ahead of Neale (4), Black and Brown (3), but when it comes to placings in the club’s most prestigious award he is #1.
He has a club-high 13 top 10 finishes to head Zorko (12), Voss and Andrews (11), Lappin (10), Marcus Ashcroft and Power (9), Brown, McCluggage, Rich, Shaun Hart and Jed Adcock (8), and, in a 322-game career from 1998-2013, was runner-up five times and third twice.
