Brett Kirk

Personal information
Birth	25 October 1976 (1976-10-25) (age 33)
Recruited from	North Albury Football Club (NSW)
Height and weight	184cm, 80 kg
Playing career¹
Debut	Round 19 1999, Sydney Swans vs. Kangaroos, at SCG
Team(s)	Sydney Swans (1999 - ) 217 games, 84 goals
¹ Statistics to end of 2009 season
Career highlights
Sydney Best and fairest 2005, 2007 All-Australian 2004 International Rules Series (Australia) 2003, 2004 Premiership player 2005 Sydney Captain 2006 Robert Rose Award 2006 Paul Kelly Players’ Player Award 2008

Brett Kirk (born 25 October 1976) is an Australian rules football player with the Sydney Swans of the AFL, and is known colloquially as "Kirky", "Captain Kirk", during the 2005 AFL Finals Series, "Captain Blood" and by teammates as "Hippy". Kirk is a hard working and onfield leader who has played in a premiership with the Sydney Swans.

[edit] Early career

Kirk grew up in Albury, New South Wales. He was a standout for the North Albury Football Club in the highly competitive Ovens & Murray Football League before being drafted to the Sydney Swans as a rookie.

[edit] AFL career

Brett Kirk in action for the Sydney Swans

Kirk was elevated from the Swans rookie list and made his senior debut in 1999, despite having previously been cut from the supplementary list.

For a while, he struggled to cement his place in the team, but since Paul Roos replaced Rodney Eade as coach, his career has blossomed. He has gained a reputation as a tough player, willing to put his body on the line and full of determination. He is usually ranked highly by number of handballs and hard-ball gets, and led the competition in tackles for 2004 and 2005.

He was runner-up for the clubs best and fairest award in both 2003 and 2004, making the All Australian Team in 2004. After the resignation of Stuart Maxfield from the Sydney captaincy in the early rounds of the 2005 premiership season, Kirk was one of the six players in the captaincy rotation. He captained the club for 4 games and was later named the best and fairest in the 2005 premiership winning team.

In 2006, Kirk amassed 142 tackles (second-highest in the league) and was awarded the AFLPA's Robert Rose Award for most courageous player jointly with Glenn Archer.

In 2007, Brett Kirk has won his second best and fairest award. Kirk polled in all the 23 matches he played in 2007, amassing a total of 461 votes.

Kirk is arguably the most prolific tackler amongst active players. He currently has the second-most tackles in recorded history (recorded since 1987, and behind only Tony Liberatore), holds the record of 149 tackles in a single season (2007), and holds a total of four of the top seven positions in that statistic.[1]

During the first half of the 2008 season, former Collingwood legend, now Fox Sports commentator Tony Shaw, praised Brett Kirk for his consistency as a leader and a player over the past few years, and rated him as the best captain in the league. He noted that with the departure of great team leaders and club legends like Nathan Buckley for Collingwood, Michael Voss for the Brisbane Lions and James Hird for Essendon, the AFL had lost much of its leadership, and did not hesitate to name Brett Kirk as one of the few who has taken the mantle of the league's most influential and consistent leaders, alongside players such as that of Brisbane's Jonathan Brown. Shaw said that though Kirk may not have the speed or skills to rival players like Chris Judd, Gary Ablett, Sam Mitchell and Sydney Swans teammate Adam Goodes, he certainly had the toughness, strength, fitness, consistency and leadership skills to be considered as one of the AFL's best leaders since his debut.

Brett Kirk is widely known as a tagger. He has shadowed players like, Chris Judd, Sam Mitchell and Brisbane Lions Simon Black, the elite players of the league and kept them shut out of the game. He is one of the most respected players of the AFL and will continue to tackle hard and lead the Swans in 2009.

As of the end of the 2009 AFL season, Kirk has played 176 matches in succession, the 8th longest such streak.

[edit] Controversies

During a Round 18, 2006 game against Essendon, Kirk was booked for rough conduct against Ricky Dyson in the opening moments of the game. He was cleared the following Monday.

In 2007, Kirk was booked for rough conduct against Port Adelaide tagger Chad Cornes, but was also again cleared.

More recently, in 2009 he was sent straight to the tribunal following a clash with an umpire in the Swans' match against Hawthorn, this time though he was found guilty but not suspended due to his good tribunal record.

[edit] Season Statistics

[edit] 2008

[edit] Personal life

In 2008, Kirk was given the honour of meeting with the Dalai Lama during his Australian tour in which he presented the Dalai Lama with a signed Swans guernsey. His nephew Sean Beath is a young star on the rise and Sydney are looking to draft him at the end of 2009.^[1] Kirk is known as a practicing Buddhist and wears a tattoo of a Buddhist symbol on his back.^[2]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Brett Kirk profile on the Official AFL Website of the Sydney Swans Football Club
• Captain Kirk leads next generation - Sydney Morning Herald