IT HAS taken him longer than most but after nine years, Scott Lycett will finally reach his 100-game milestone on Sunday against Carlton.
The Port Adelaide ruckman, who was initially drafted by West Coast in 2010, has seen others drafted with him bring up 200 games this year but says he never felt frustrated or jealous, instead choosing to savour every time he takes the field.
"It's (playing 100 games) something that's pretty special to me and my family," Lycett said.
"I came from a small country town on the west coast of South Australia – the middle of nowhere pretty much in Smoky Bay.
“I’m just happy that all the kids back there and all the coaches and everyone can see that no matter where you come from you can still play a lot of AFL footy.”
Lycett grew up playing with Port Adelaide in the SANFL, winning the 2010 Reserves premiership and featuring in six league games before being drafted by the Eagles with pick 29 later that year.
He returned to Port Adelaide as a free agent in 2018.
But he says playing his 100th AFL game would have been special whichever guernsey he had brought up the milestone in.
“It would have been special no matter what,” he explained.
“I’ve been in the game for nine years now and I’ll play 100 this week but guys I got drafted with up at West Coast like Gaff and Darling have played 200 so personally it just goes to show you never know how many games you’re going to play when you get drafted so every game is special.
“Everyone has their own journey. My journey I’ve had a few injuries and I think everyone in their career has had ups and downs.
“To play 100 is obviously special with Port and would have been at West Coast as well.
"I'm stoked that I got to triple figures and hopefully I can keep building. Hopefully I'll get to 200 (games) one day."
The 203cm ruckman joked that his Port teammates would be thankful for social distancing protocols after the game this week.
"Lucky the guys don't have to carry me off because I don't think they'd be able to," Lycett laughed.
As for this week’s opponent, Lycett knows the Blues are back in the top eight and playing strong football.
“Obviously, Carlton are an up and coming team and they’ve got some exciting players,” he said.
“Their forward line has kicked a lot of goals. We’ve not been known as a team that kicks a lot of goals but we’ve changed that around this year and hopefully it’s a good game for everyone to watch.
“We’re not going out there to underestimate Carlton so we know we’ve got a game on our hands so we’ll do all our prep and be ready like we have all this year.”
With Port Adelaide top of the table, Lycett is not yet daring to dream about winning a second AFL premiership to go with the 2018 success at West Coast.
But the 27-year-old said there was a belief and a strong connection among his teammates that would serve them well.
“I think every team should believe they can win it, you don’t go into a season thinking you can’t,” he said.
“But we’re just trying to build momentum. Winning against GWS on the weekend was a massive step for us.
“We got tested in the last quarter there and in the past, we could have easily fallen away and it probably would have affected us in trying to play finals.
“We’re starting to build belief and there’s still ten more games to go – we could win ten or we could lose ten – but we’ve given ourselves every chance and we’re staying connected and just enjoying being out there.”
