It says a lot about a player when it comes to jumper number allocation. Especially when it’s jumper number 5 at Hawthorn.
Ryan Burton wore number 5 with the Hawks so you don’t need to know anything else about the Port Adelaide newcomer to know he’s special.
Traded to Port with ex-Brisbane utility Sam Mayes as part of the deal that sent Chad Wingard to Hawthorn, Burton was awarded the very special honour of wearing the jumper at Hawthorn through the last two years.
It is all part of the legacy of former Hawthorn captain and 176-game champion rover Peter Crimmins and one of the great football stories that proud Port Adelaide people will relate to.
A 1971 premiership player and club captain in 1974-75, Crimmins had been diagnosed with testicular cancer at the end of 1974 and after not playing throughout the ’75 season played five Reserves games before declaring himself fit to play in the 1975 grand final.
Legendary coach John Kennedy made the gut-wrenching decision not to play him, fearing a knock might have serious consequences, and after the Hawks lost to North Melbourne Kennedy said: “It was very hard, it was a unique situation ... Peter wanted to play. The committee was divided. He didn't play. We'll never know what might have happened if he had played”.
Twelve months later, after Hawthorn beat North to win the 1976 flag, six senior Hawthorn players took the Cup to visit a bed-ridden Crimmins at home. It was a fitting end. He died three days later.
At the time Hawthorn retired the #5 jumper, hoping that perhaps one of Crimmins’ sons would play, but when it became obvious that would not happen they allowed his family to allocate it to the player who best exemplified Crimmins.
The club also named the best & fairest trophy in his honour.
The #5 jumper was not worn again at Hawthorn until 1993 when it was given to 1988-89-91 premiership player Andy Collins, who had played previously in #4. He spent his last four seasons in it.
In 1997 it was handed on to 153-gamer Daniel Harford, who had started in #15, and then in 2004 to five-time Crimmins Medallist, four-time premiership player and Brownlow Medallist Sam Mitchell, who had started in #28.
When Mitchell retired at the end of 2016 the treasured #5 jumper was awarded to Burton, who had played his first four games with the club in 2016 in #35.
Burton did the number proud in 2017 when he had a stellar season across half back and was a runner-up to Essendon’s Andrew McGrath for the NAB AFL Rising Star Award.
In final voting McGrath (51) beat Burton (41), Port’s Sam Powell-Pepper (35) and Carlton’s Charlie Curnow (27), but there were many who suggested Burton could have won.
After missing selection in Round 1 he had earned the Rising Star nomination in Round 2 and played every game thereafter until he missed Round 23 with a foot problem.
Despite missing two games he finished fourth on a star-studded Crimmins Medal leaderboard behind Tom Mitchell, Ben McEvoy and Luke Hodge, and ahead of Isaac Smith, Jarryd Roughead, Jack Gunston, James Sicily, Shaun Burgoyne and Liam Shiels.
Only 20 at the time, he was one of just two Hawks to average more than 20 possessions and a disposal efficiency of better than 80%.
He played 23 of a possible 24 games in 2018, including two finals, and had been earmarked for a long career in the Hawthorn midfield until his holiday in the United States was interrupted by medical staff from Alberton and a frantic rush to finalise a move back home to Adelaide.
The 191cm 21-year-old is not exactly new to Port Adelaide. He was a Power fan growing up, and was a contemporary of new teammates Riley Bonner, Dan Houston, Aidyn Johnson and Will Snelling.
He made his SANFL debut with North Adelaide as a 17-year-old and kicked five goals for South Australia against Western Australia as a bottom-ager in the 2014 Australian U18 championships.
A badly broken leg in a school match late in 2014 was a setback he hadn’t counted on.
Leading Adelaide surgeon and former Adelaide player Matthew Liptak likened the injury to one sustained in a motorcycle crash and inserted a plate and 10 screws in his leg.
He spent 2015 in rehabilitation and by draft time he was something of a forgotten figure.
Prior to his injury, he was clearly South Australia’s top draft prospect and perhaps even a contender for the number one draft pick that eventually fell to Carlton’s Jacob Weitering, but he didn’t play another game in the 15 months before the 2015 National Draft.
In the lead-up to the Draft he was tipped to go to Adelaide with their second first-round pick at 17, but when the Crows opted from Tom Doedee and St.Kilda took Jade Gresham at 18 he was nabbed at 19 by Hawthorn.
Port, after trading away their first pick to secure Charlie Dixon, took Bonner at 37 and Johnson at 45.
In his first season at Hawthorn in 2016 Burton played two early games with Box Hill in the VFL before surgery to remove the screws and plate from his leg, and after two more VFL games debuted in Round 21 against North Melbourne.
He kicked a goal with his first kick and held his spot until the qualifying final, but a calf injury in that game ended his first AFL campaign.
The rest, as they say, is history, with Burton now set to add to his with Port Adelaide.
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