Travi Boak played his first SANFL game in nearly two decades on his way back from a back injury. Image: Sarah Reed.

TRAVIS BOAK keeps writing history. This year the former Yartapuulti captain has rewritten the club record for most senior games played - and now he has the record for the longest gap between SANFL matches.

From his debut season in 2007 (when the SANFL draft tied his State league duty to Glenelg) to the SANFL Showdown at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night there was an 18-year gap ... a remarkable note in Boak's grand resume considering very few players would have 18 years to their tenure in senior football.

But it was the attitude - before, during and after - the SANFL derby that tells so much of Boak, the player, the man, the devoted club servant whose commitment to the Yartapuulti Football Club marked the renaissance at Alberton after the dark chapter.

"I had a lot of fun," said Boak after he collected his first black-and-white bars jumper for an SANFL game. "A lot of fun ... putting the 'Maggies' jumper on for the first time in the SANFL.

"What I enjoyed most was playing so our young group that are coming through and just seeing how excited they are to be part of the football club. It made me feel young ... which is good. My role was to help them as much as I could ... but it was their enthusiasm that made it a lot of fun."

Boak lines up one of his game-high 35 possessions against the Crows. Image: Sarah Reed.

Boak, now 36, takes from another club captain the record for the longest gap between SANFL games. Gavin Wanganeen had left the count at 16 years when, at age 32, he returned to the SANFL on May 20, 2006 - after leaving the league for Essendon after the 1990 SANFL grand final triumph against Glenelg at Football Park. The game marked the end of Wanganeen's playing career as he suffered cartilage damage to his right knee and soon after retired.

It is an Alberton theme to the record of long absence from SANFL league action. Club legend Sampson "Shine" Hosking notably made two comebacks as a player - the second time after a nine-year gap.

The Magarey Medallist had played 160 senior games when he retired in 1921. He returned six years later in 1927 for two games. And on June 6, 1936 - after a nine-year gap - Hosking, at age 48, took off his suit and put on the black-and-white bars to sit as the 19th man on the bench at Alberton for the home clash with West Torrens.

Gavin Wanganeen went 16 years between SANFL games after starring in the 1990 Grand Final and then playing his final game in 2006. Image: Ray Titus.

"Long time ... long time," said Boak who rose to AFL ranks on June 17, 2007 against Essendon after starting the season in the SANFL reserves. "And yet it does not feel that long ago that I played in the SANFL. I still feel young, so it is alright."

Boak's return to the SANFL put him under the coaching orders of his former vice-captain Hamish Hartlett who last played in 2021.

"It was different, it was different," Hartlett said of the experience. "I ran into Trav's mum Chicki just prior to the game and she gave me some advice. She said, 'Put him in the midfield'. I said I was planning to do that anyway. It was quite funny."

Hartlett paid tribute to Boak's willingness to step back from the AFL - and his attitude to playing at a lower level.

"Travis has been an amazing player around the group for the past couple of days. He has thrust himself into the Magpies program and enjoyed every second of it and created great energy for the young guys he is surrounded by and he tried his guts out in the game," Hartlett said. "That is what he has done for us since he came to the club.

"It just typifies the guy Travis is that he has come back wanting to try as hard as he can. He invests in the group as much as he possibly can. It speaks volumes for the person Travis is, his character and the type of people we want around the footy club.

"And he had plenty of the ball," added Hartlett of Boak's games high 35 disposals.

Boak resumed in competitive football at the weekend after a concentrated recovery program to deal with an annoying back complaint.

"The body felt good," said Boak of the test he endured for more than two hours on Adelaide Oval. "I was able to put on my shoes without pain for the first time this year which is nice. 

The tables turned on Travis Boak and Hamish Hartlett, as the former club captain's deputy became his coach on Saturday afternoon. Image: AFL Photos

"I was 'gassed' early. Bit more at the start of the third quarter. The body pulled up really well."

A noted professional for his fitness work in the off-season - with his annual trips to the USA for intense training - Boak has been battling a back complaint since late in the pre-season.

"We tried everything to settle the back pain," said Boak who played five of the first six AFL games, notably rewriting Russell Ebert's 392-game club record in the second AFL match this season.

"I tried to push through it, but it reached the point where it was getting a bit too much. So I had a few weeks off which has helped a fair bit."

Almost two decades between SANFL games offers an insight to his football changes under the elite level of the AFL.

"It definitely has," says Boak, who since 2014 has been aligned to Yartapuulti on SANFL ties. "It was good level of footy ... and the only (SANFL) rule I did not know was the out-of-bounds one."

Boak's collection of football guernseys now includes the SANFL black-and-white bars at first denied to him by the AFL-SANFL agreement that put non-South Australian draftees in a "mini-draft" to assignment them a State league club.

"It's nice," said Boak of wearing the most traditional club guernsey. "It felt good to put it on - and to play with a young group, that was the most enjoyable part."