Now that Kade Simpson’s glorious run of 158 consecutive matches is at an end, the great Bruce Doull remains the keeper of Carlton’s club games record of 162 consecutive senior appearances.
 
Or does he?
 
Doull’s unbroken 162-game tally between Round 16, 1971 and Round 12, 1978 actually includes two Victorian matches both fixtured on the same day as Carlton’s club games. It’s but one of a number of such anomalies which has forced the AFL to make a definitive ruling.
 
Editor of the AFL Record Season Guide Michael Lovett said that with the planning for next season’s publication looming, “we’ll take it to football operations to get a determination”.
 
“There’s more than 20 players affected across the board in terms of state representation,” Lovett said. “They include Footscray’s John Schulz, who played more than 100 consecutive games, eight of which included Victorian games.”
 
Lovett did not want to pre-empt the ruling, but appreciated the argument “that if you were good enough to represent your state you obviously would have been good enough to represent your club”.
 
Another former Carlton footballer for whom this anomaly impacts is the great John Nicholls, Victoria’s most capped footballer. Nicholls completed his senior tenure for Carlton on game No. 328, but the League may see fit to extend the tally to 331 as three of his state appearances fell on the same day as his Carlton matches. Then there’s Geoff Southby, who was also unavailable for three Carlton matches due to his state commitments and is listed as having played 268 club games all up when the total may well be extended to 271.
 
With Simpson having suffered concussion and a broken jaw in a frightening collision in the Collingwood match last Friday night, that unbroken 158-game stint over seven seasons from Round 15, 2005 to Round 15, 2012 is now consigned to the history pages. But it’s worth noting that Denis Pagan was Senior Coach and Anthony Koutoufides captain when the run began and only six other current-listed senior players took to the field for that one - Andrew Carrazzo, Jordan Russell, Heath Scotland, Bret Thornton, Jarrad Waite and Andrew Walker.