After beginning his career in 2002, the year after Carlton last played finals football, Thornton must have been on the top of the world. Successful club – finals action - good debut – Thornton appeared to have it all ahead of him. But then the world crumbled away for both the Carlton Football Club and its players, with the Blues crashing in 2002 and only beginning to resurface in 2008 - 2009. With confirmation of finals football for the Blues, Thornton’s 148 games by the end of the year will be the highest games tally ever played by a Blue before playing in Finals.
Our readers will be well aware of Carlton’s outstanding history of success. Of Carlton’s 1122 senior league players (from 1897 to Yarran’s debut in Round 7), 434 have played in at least 1 final (38.68% - including 2 current players). The Blues have 181 Premiership Players at 16.6% of all Carlton players – ever! Outside of these stories of success, the other 688 or 61.3% haven’t, which includes most of our current players. Thornton’s story mirrors that of Ernie Walton, who played his first Carlton final in his 112th game (ended with 3 finals in his 120 games, started in 1897, first final in 1903 and finished in the 1904 GF), while John Chick played his first Carlton final in his 104th Carlton game (ended with 2 finals in his 119 games, started in 1952 final in 1959 and finished in 1960)
The only other Carlton players in our history who didn’t play in a final during their first 100 Carlton games are all current players in Stevens, Simpson, Wiggins, Waite and Scotland. (Note Stevens and Scotland both played finals at their previously league clubs).
| Player | Game No. for First Final | Total Finals v Total Games |
| Bret Thornton | 149* | N/A |
| Heath Scotland | 123* | N/A |
| Simon Wiggins | 116* | N/A |
| Jarrad Waite | 115* | N/A |
| Ernie Walton | 112 | 3 from 120 |
| Kade Simpson | 110* | N/A |
| John Chick | 104 | 2 from 119 |
| Nick Stevens | 104* | N/A |
| Jack Mills | 53 | 1 from 124 |
| Vin English | 56 | 1 from 115 |
NB * denotes assumption that current player will be picked for Rounds 21, 22 and that first final, with the exception of Jarrad Waite who will not be selected due to injury.
A link between Thornton and Walton is that they both played during Carlton’s two worst losing streaks, registered at 14 games and played at either ends of our history. Walton played in all of 14 games in our first streak (between 1901 - 1902), while Thornton played in 11 of the 14 games between Rd 12, 2007 and Rd 3, 2008 (missing Rds 20 to 22, 2007 due to injury).
The only current players to have played in a Final for Carlton, with both having played in 5 Carlton finals are Fevola (during in his first 32 games) and Houlihan (during in his first 36 games). The best by any Carlton player during their first 100 games are Billy Payne and Charlie ‘Spot’ Fisher who both played in 13 finals, while also on 13 finals in all of his 92 games is Gordon Green. Other notable players under 100 games are Jim Flynn (77 games) and Ted Brown (95 games) both with 12 finals, 11 finals for George ‘Mallee’ Johnson and on 10 finals are Doug Gillespie (90 games) and Brent Crosswell (98 games)).
Players who have played the most games for only one final during their Carlton career are Jack Mills (124 games) and Vin English (115 games). The player who played the most games for Carlton without a final is Bobby Walsh during his 78 games between 1897 and 1902.
From an AFL perspective, Thornton is not surprisingly a long way off the overall record given the records of success of other Clubs in their history. Three famous cases come to mind here; Robert Flower (Melbourne), Bobby Skilton (South Melbourne) and Trevor Barker (St Kilda).
Flower holds the record of the most games before playing in a final - he played 269 games before playing in his first final in 1987, but his last 3 league games were finals and ended on 272 games in that season’s preliminary final. In another famous case, South Melbourne's Bobby Skilton played his only final in his 218th game and would play another 19 games the next season (1971) and end on 237 games. The history buffs will note that both of their ‘finals’ games occurred when Carlton won the premiership. St Kilda’s Trevor Barker played 230 league games and holds the record of the most games without ever playing in a final, followed by his teammate Geoff Cummingham 224 games.
Thornton's 149 games is thankfully a good 4 full seasons or so away from this record, so whilst we're sure he may have been getting frustrated at not making it, he should be over the moon his time has now come! To top it off, he hits finals football in the best form of his career and at a time when the Blues are rising, promising the chance to lift that overall average.
