Senior Brandon Starcevich (2017-)

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Lions defender expects 'pretty fiery' Demons semi-final

JUST three weeks after its controversial final-round match, Brisbane defender Brandon Starcevich expects another "fiery" encounter against Melbourne in Friday night's semi-final.

When the teams met in round 23 at the Gabba, the Demons walked away with second place after belting the home team, while all the Lions walked away with was dented pride and unwanted headlines for Dayne Zorko.

Brisbane's captain was at the centre of a sledging controversy involving Harrison Petty, that the two clubs resolved without requiring AFL intervention after the Demons defender was left in tears.

Starcevich said he expected emotions to run high at the MCG, but not be over the top.

"I think it'll be pretty fiery," he said.

"I think the intensity of the finals will ramp it up a little bit, it always does.

"I think a bit of banter here and there is fine, but obviously there's things you can and can't say."

Starcevich is one of Brisbane's quieter players, preferring to let his actions do the talking, and will have his hands full defending either Bayley Fritsch or Kysaiah Pickett.

The rugged 23-year-old was one of the Lions' best in their elimination final win over Richmond, keeping Shai Bolton to two goals from just 10 disposals (and one of those goals came from a deliberate out of bounds free kick).

Starcevich said defending Pickett had similarities to defending Bolton.

"They've got similar traits," he said.

"It's pretty hard to stop him, he's so dynamic and always moving and when the ball hits the deck he can do some freakish stuff, so it's all about trying to keep him away from the drop of the ball, which, with a guy that agile and quick it's pretty hard to do at times.

"Hopefully the ball doesn't fall his way."
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All The Winners 2022 Club Champion

10:12pm - Brandon Starcevich is our Alistair Lynch Trophy Winner - Third place

A top-three finish from Brandon Starcevich will come as little surprise to many, with the defender beyond deserving of the Alastair Lynch Trophy.

Starcevich received 51 votes to finish just eight beyond runner-up Hugh McCluggage.

The 23-year was rarely beaten this season despite having the tough task of taking the opposition’s most dangerous forwards on a weekly basis.

Not only did he shut down his opponents, Starcevich still found a way to often find plenty of the football himself - including a season-high 26 disposals against Essendon.
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9:42pm - Brandon Starcevich locks away the Shaun Hart Trademark Player of the year Award

Brandon Starcevich has been awarded the Shaun Hart Trademark Player of the Year award for 2022.

The Trademark Player of the Year recognises the Lions player who best exudes competitiveness both out on the field and in their week-to-week preparation.

Presented with his award by namesake, Shaun Hart, Starcevich was the ultimate competitor in 2022 and one of Brisbane’s most reliable players.

The 23-year-old lost just six contested defensive efforts this season, a testament to his competitiveness.

Tasked with the most dangerous opposition small forward every week, the 23-year-olds strong season flew under the radar to some, averaging 14.9 disposals and 4.5 marks a game.
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Brandon Starcevich: “We believe we can get the job done anywhere”

Brandon Starcevich will be adding a WA flavour to this year’s AFL Grand Final with Brisbane through to face Collingwood next Saturday.

The Mount Lawley-Inglewood product spoke to the 6PR call team following the win and was bullish as the Lions head to the MCG, a ground which hasn’t been a source of success of late.

“We take a lot of learnings from the last four or five years. We’ve been close.”

“We believe we can get the job done anywhere. Our style of footy holds up pretty well against the Pies.”

Asked if he would receive an influx of ticket requests, Starcevich has delegated that role to his family manager.

“I’ve got the Grand Final tickets sorted already, Mum’s been all over that.”
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Brandon Starcevich Prelim Final Post Match - 6PR Football

West Aussie Brandon Starcevich joined the 6PR call team following Brisbane's Prelim Final win against Carlton.
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Starcevich extends until 2025

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Brandon Starcevich will remain a Brisbane Lion until at least the end of 2025.

The defender has moved quickly to sign a one-year extension despite already being contracted for the 2024 season.

Starcevich put pen to paper following a season which saw the Lions play off in the Grand Final and him finish equal fifth in the Club’s Best and Fairest.

The 24-year-old said he was happy to have re-committed to the Club ahead of the Christmas break and is determined to help the Lions experience further success.

“After playing in the Grand Final and getting so close to a premiership, it shows the Club is on the verge of something special and I want to play a part in that,” Starcevich said.

“We have an exciting list made up of a great group of guys who I love playing with and I am glad to get to do that for at least the next two years.

“Although we were grand finalist this season there’s still plenty of improvement in myself and the team, so I can’t wait to get to work and see what we can achieve.”

The contract extension sees the former Western Australian, who was selected with pick 18 in the 2017 AFL Draft, continue to call Brisbane home.

This is news that has the Lions excited about the future as they prepare for their premiership pursuit in 2024.

“Brandon has played a key role in helping the Club get back to the top end of the ladder and we are thrilled to have re-commit as we aim for future success,” Lions General Manager Football Danny Daly said.

“He is coming off another strong season where he finished top five in our Best and Fairest as a key player in our defensive end.

“Keeping players and people like Brandon at our football Club is very important to our future so having him extend his time here is great news.”

Starcevich is the second Brisbane Lions player to put pen to paper since the Grand Final, with former captain Dayne Zorko signing a new one-year deal last month.
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Brisbane Lions Announce Updated Leadership Group

The Brisbane Lions have also selected a nine-person leadership group for the 2024 season.

Rounding out the group is Charlie Cameron, Cam Rayner, Brandon Starcevich, Jarrod Berry and Oscar McInerney.
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Starcevich Slims Down For Brisbane's Premiership Push

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Portion control and a razor have helped Brandon Starcevich slim down for Brisbane's premiership push.

But the defender knows he might have a bit more on his plate now that they're without a key ingredient of the Lions' back six.

Keidean Coleman will miss the rest of the season after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in last Friday's loss to Carlton.

The 23-year-old had emerged as one of the AFL's most incisive kicks out of defence and his absence will hit last season's grand finalists hard.

"It's going to be tough; Kiddy's become a very important player for us in the last couple of years," Starcevich said of Coleman ahead of Sunday's clash with Fremantle.

"He can really tear apart defences and kickstart our movement.

"It'll take all of us to bridge the load."

The imminent return of Conor McKenna (hamstring) and arrival of Adelaide key defender Tom Doedee means the Lions aren't without options.

Dayne Zorko, Jarrod Berry, Cal Ah Chee and even Cameron Rayner have also spent time in the back six.

Either way it likely means a tactical shift for Starcevich, who has primarily served as a lock-down defender but may now be asked to push the tempo.

"I try and do a bit of both anyway, but might have to try and switch my focus a bit more," Starcevich, sporting a shaved head since late last year, said.

"I'll try and get involved as much as I can."

The 24-year-old placed an emphasis on his diet in the off-season in an effort to trim down.

"Just feeling better moving around; moving better and still feeling strong," he said of his motivations.

"Just a little shift in diet stuff, a bit more diligent and focused on that.

"Nothing obscure, just watching how much I ate."

He said Doedee, who is mere weeks away from a comeback from his own ACL tear, had slotted in seamlessly and applied selection pressure.

"It puts the pressure on you to perform and hopefully you're not the guy that misses out," Stacevich said.

"His best is really good.

"A character like Tom ... a really smart footballer who can slot in easily."

Perth native Starcevich said his mother had requested "30 or 40" tickets to Sunday's clash with the Dockers, who will be playing their first game of the season.

"It's a good trip to have, to Perth against a Freo team building," he said.

"They've been preparing all summer for this one, we had our eye on last week."

He said Monday's review of the one-point loss to the Blues was lengthy but not demoralising.

"Watching both parts of the game; what we did really well and the 25 minutes that wasn't so good," he said.

"It's good for those things to happen in March and learn from it."
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Starcevich's Journey To 100

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There are sliding doors moments all the time in football recruiting – some more important than others. But one critical moment that beat a deadline by a matter of seconds will prompt a major milestone at the Gabba on Thursday night.

Brandon Starcevich will play his 100th game for the Lions against Collingwood all because in the last few minutes of the 2017 trade period list management and recruiting pair Dom Ambrogio and Steve Conole followed their instincts.

In an example of the complicated process that is the AFL trade system, the Lions were sitting on an offer from the Western Bulldogs to trade pick #25 and pick #40 in the 2017 National Draft for former #2 draft pick Josh Schache, who had played 27 games and kicked 25 goals for the club in 2016-17.

It had already been a busy time for the 2017 wooden-spooners, who had snared Charlie Cameron from Adelaide in exchange for pick #12, which was a carryover from the 2016 trade that sent Pearce Hanley to the Gold Coast.

They’d picked up Hawthorn veteran Luke Hodge in an exchange for a late pick the Hawks would not even use, and were given an end-of-first-round pick by the AFL in compensation for the loss of ex-captain Tom Rockliff to Port Adelaide as a restricted free agent.

So they had pick #1 and pick #18 at the front of a draft in which Ambrogio and Conole were convinced the talent likely to be available in the back end of the first round was too good to ignore.

So, as the clock ticked down, they made two critical decisions. First, they did the Schache deal, and then hurriedly on-traded pick #20, their original second-round pick, and pick #25 to Richmond for pick #15 and pick #52.

So they went to the draft, held in Sydney on 24 November 2017, armed with three first-round picks – #1, #15 and #18 – and snared Cam Rayner, Zac Bailey and Starcevich.

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History says it was an unusual draft, with three of the top 20 choices already out of the AFL system, two of them after moving clubs, and six others now at different clubs.

At face value Starcevich is the beneficiary of the Lions’ late trade as the third of their early picks, but in reality the Lions have been the beneficiaries of the gut instincts of the recruiting pair.

Conole had always been a big fan of Starcevich of the multi-talented Starcevich, who is the nephew of Lions AFLW coach and ex-Collingwood and Brisbane player Craig Starcevich.

“He was a bit of a late bloomer. He wasn’t in the original WA side (in his draft year) and it wasn’t until a Possibles v Probables game that he stamped his mark. And then in the last game at the championships they played him in the midfield and he gave them a real lift,” Conole recalled.

But the Lions always rated the multi-talented sportsman, who in his last year at Trinity College in Perth he was captain of the First XI cricket team, vice-captain of the First XVIII and Deputy Head Prefect.

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It’s a school that has produced a raft of prominent citizens, including ex-WA Premier Ray O’Connor, WA Supreme Court judge Jeremy Allanson, Test cricketers Simon Katich, Craig Serjeant and Beau Casson, AFL players Andrew Embley, Michael Brennan, Mitch Duncan and Nic Martin, Tour de France cyclist Hank Vogels, and athlete John Steffensen.

“We watched him a lot in the lead-up to the draft, in school footy and club footy (East Perth), and it just confirmed what we’d always thought – he was going to be a very good player.”

So much so that the Lions, who took Queenslander Jack Payne at #54 in the same draft, took Starcevich in preference to Oscar Allen, who was in the same conversation. He is in his first season as West Coast co-captain.

After an injury-plagued start in which he played only five AFL games in his first two years at the Lions, Starcevich will be the 17th player from the 2017 Draft to post 100 games.

Oddly, it is a games list headed by Melbourne’s pick #31 Bailey Fritsch (128), Collingwood rookie pick #22 Brody Mihocek (128) and Geelong turned West Coast pick #24 Tim Kelly (125).

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Then follows Naughton (124), Brayshaw (124), Bailey (120), Cerra (118), Rayner (115), Sydney pick #33 Tom McCartin (112), Richmond rookie pick #18 Liam Baker (112), Gold Coast pick #42 Charlie Ballard (112), Stephenson (111), Geelong pick #57 Gryan Miers (107), Richards (105), Hawthorn pick #45 James Worpel (103) and Higgins (103).

There was nobody more pleased when Starcevich consolidated his place in the Brisbane side than ‘Uncle Craig’, because until then he was forever being asked about the potential of his “son”.

Off the field Starcevich takes after his father Troy, who is pretty quiet and reserved. Not like mother Cheree, who was described anonymously as “a bit of a chatterbox”.

Ask people around the club about him and you get a lot of blank looks. He keeps mainly to himself and doesn’t have too many stories that find their way into 100th-game profile pieces.

Having taken over this year from Daniel Rich as Lions’ representative on the AFL Players’ Association, he lives by himself, preferring to share his time with golden retriever ‘Billy’ despite being joined in Brisbane recently by twin sister Jamee, who is a teacher at Brisbane South State Secondary College and the chatty one of the pair.

But on the field Starcevich is nothing like quiet, and something of a coach – like ‘Uncle Craig’. If you’re close to the ground his booming voice is one you will hear as much as any, more than most, as he fulfills an important leadership role in the back half.

He is also the club’s games record-holder in jumper #37 across the entire Lions ‘family’. It was worn most often for Fitzroy by Keith Bromage, who played 41 games from 1958-61 after 28 games at Collingwood (1953-56), and has been worn for Brisbane by 1988 club champion Mark Withers (36 games), Rudi Frigo (8), Nick Carter (5), Darren Bradshaw (1), Daniel Pratt (3), Matt Austin (8), Bryce Retzlaff (11) and Jacob Allison (5).
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www.lions.com.au

Milestone Moments Presented by TAB

Brandon Starcevich will notch up game 100 in round 3 against Collingwood. Take a look back on his career at the Brisbane Lions
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