Levi Casboult’s 47th senior game for the Carlton Football Club this week takes him past the former wingman Peter Rohde, the previous record holder in the No.41 guernsey – and for the big bloke from Beaconsfield it’s just another little win along the way.
“It’s a nice thing I suppose, to get to 47, and I have met Peter Rohde before,” Casboult said after training at Ikon Park on Tuesday.
“I met him at the 150th anniversary function last year. He actually introduced himself to me and told me that he wore 41 in the ’80s.”
Rohde’s record 46 games in the No.41 has stood for some 28 years, and incredibly, only eleven others in Carlton history (amongst them 1979 Premiership full-forward Peter Brown) have worn 41 – in order, the late Ron Auchettl, Tony Smith, Brown, Luke O’Sullivan, Jeremy Smith, Jacob Anstey, Ben Thompson, Jon McCormack, Jesse Smith, Ross Young and now Casboult.
Casboult was first handed the 41 dark Navy Blue guernsey when he was rookie-listed at Carlton in 2010, and it now sits comfortably on his broad back. Admittedly there were opportunities to switch numbers along the way, but Casboult, without hesitation, resolved to stick with it.
Levi Casboult is showered in Gatorade after his debut. (Photo: AFL Photos)
“By the time I’d played my first couple of games I’d already spent three years on the list and I was comfortable with 41,” Casboult said.
There’s a nice synergy in respect of that number also. As fate would have it, Casboult wore 41 on debut in the Round 17, 2012 match against the Western Bulldogs at Etihad and it is against the Dogs on that very ground this Saturday night that he edges past “Rocky” Rohde.
Beyond the Bulldogs, game number 50 beckons for Casboult, and of course, game 100. The No.41 locker is yet to carry the name of a 100-game Carlton player, but hopefully Casboult’s moniker makes it there.
As he said: “I’d be pretty proud to get my number on the locker, but the most important thing is that I play my role for the team”.
