Shaun Playford Burgoyne (born 21 October 1982) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Port Adelaide Football Club and Hawthorn Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL).

Shaun Burgoyne
Burgoyne playing for Hawthorn in August 2018
Personal information
Full name Shaun Playford Burgoyne
Nickname(s) Silk, Burgers
Date of birth (1982-10-21) 21 October 1982 (age 42)
Place of birth Darwin, Northern Territory
Original team(s) Port Adelaide (SANFL)
Draft No. 12, 2000 national draft
Debut Round 3, 2002, Port Adelaide vs. St Kilda, at Colonial Stadium
Height 186 cm (6 ft 1 in)
Weight 89 kg (196 lb)
Position(s) Utility
Playing career1
Years Club Games (Goals)
2001–2009 Port Adelaide 157 (171)
2010–2021 Hawthorn 250 (131)
Total 407 (302)
Representative team honours
Years Team Games (Goals)
2005–2015 Indigenous All-Stars 4 (0)
2008 Dream Team 1 (1)
International team honours
2008–2017 Australia 4 (1)
1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 2021.
2 State and international statistics correct as of 2017.
Career highlights
Sources: AFL Tables, AustralianFootball.com

Burgoyne was the first Indigenous Australian player in elite Australian rules football (the VFL/AFL, the SANFL and the WAFL) to reach the 400-game milestone, as well as the fifth player overall in the VFL/AFL, and the seventh player overall in elite Australian rules football. He was also the first VFL/AFL player to have reached the milestone playing for two different clubs.

With 35 AFL finals appearances, Burgoyne also had the third-most finals appearances of any VFL/AFL footballer, behind only Michael Tuck's 39[1] and Joel Selwood’s 40. Burgoyne also played four finals matches in the SANFL, with his total of 39 finals appearances across the SANFL and AFL the third most in elite Australian rules football, behind Selwood's 40 and Peter Carey's 43.

Early life

edit

Burgoyne, of Kokatha and Awarai ancestry, was born in Darwin, Northern Territory the son of former Port Adelaide (SANFL) player Peter Burgoyne Snr and younger brother of former Port Adelaide player Peter Burgoyne. He was raised in Darwin, in a house in Leanyer that he still likes to drive past on trips back to the Northern Territory.[citation needed] Burgoyne moved away from Darwin when he was young and moved to the small city of Port Lincoln in the Eyre Peninsula region of South Australia. He played his junior football for Mallee Park in the Port Lincoln Football League where he played alongside AFL greats such as Eddie Betts, Lindsay Thomas, Byron Picket and Graham Johncock.

A proud Kokatha-Warai man, family is at the heart of everything Burgoyne does. He is of Indigenous Australian descent and his ancestry can be traced to the Kokatha clan.[2]

AFL career

edit

Port Adelaide career (2001–2009)

edit

Drafted with pick 12 in the 2000 national draft, Burgoyne would have to wait a year to make his AFL debut in round 3, 2002 against St Kilda.[3] He had been a steady contributor across the forward line for Port Adelaide, before becoming a rebounding defender to great effect.

In 2004, Burgoyne played every game for the season and was part of Port Adelaide's inaugural AFL premiership.

After a series of midfield performances that culminated with selection to the All Australian Team in 2006, he was described by retiring Port player Josh Francou as being "as good as Judd".[4]

Burgoyne was important in Port Adelaide's midfield in 2008, despite attracting the opposition's best tagger most weeks. While not reaching the heights of past seasons, he finished fourth in the best and fairest and was second at the club in centre clearances, tackles and inside 50s, and fourth in goals (23), contested possessions and bounces. 2009 was a disappointing year after injuring his knee in round three and missing three months of football. He was able to come back and play a few good games late in the year.

Burgoyne was Port Adelaide’s highest paid player and Vice-Captain at the end of the 2009 season.[5]

Hawthorn career (2010–2021)

edit

As vice-captain, he shocked Port Adelaide by requesting a trade to play for a Victorian team in 2010 after his brother retired. Port traded him to Hawthorn in a complicated deal involving four clubs, with Essendon and Geelong also involved. He was allocated former club champion Shane Crawford's No. 9 jumper.

After having surgery on his knee during the offseason that delayed his preparation for the 2010 season, Burgoyne suffered a broken jaw while playing for Box Hill, and later suffered a hamstring injury.[6] Despite these injuries, he made his debut against Richmond in Round 8, 2010, and played the last sixteen games of the season.

During 2011, Shaun Burgoyne played excellent football for Hawthorn, showcasing his disposal and running skills. He was part of a side that lost the preliminary final to eventual runners-up Collingwood by three points.

Burgoyne was part of Hawthorn's losing side in the 2012 AFL Grand Final. In 2013, Burgoyne's performance in the Preliminary Final against Geelong saw him kick three goals and also provide goals assists, with his final goal putting Hawthorn back in front late in the fourth quarter. The match ended the 11-game losing streak against Geelong that had been active since Hawthorns' 2008 Grand Final win over them.

On 28 September 2013, Burgoyne became a dual Premiership player after Hawthorn defeated Fremantle in the Grand Final in front of 100,007 fans at the MCG: Burgoyne was the only player to remain completely in his game outfit when the players were presented on stage following the conclusion of the post-match concert.

With Hawthorn's victories in the 2014 and 2015 Grand Finals, completing a hat-trick, Burgoyne became a quadruple Premiership player.

On 24 May 2017, it was announced that he would wear number 67 on his guernsey, rather than his usual 9, for the round 10 Sir Doug Nicholls Round (the "Indigenous Round") game against Sydney, to commemorate the 1967 referendum which allowed Indigenous Australians to be counted with the general population in the census.[7]

On 28 August 2017, Burgoyne signed a one-year contract extension with Hawthorn keeping him at the club until the end of 2018.[8] In November, he was appointed captain of the Australian international rules football team for the 2017 series.[9]

Burgoyne signed another contract extension to cover the 2019 season in August 2018.[10]

In 2019, Burgoyne was heavily linked to a move to the Gold Coast. Burgoyne himself addressed the speculation, admitting it had been stressful and that he had a big decision to make.[11] On 12 September, it was announced he would remain a Hawk for 2020.[12]

At the end of the 2020 season, Burgoyne signed a one-year deal extending his career into a twentieth season in the AFL, and announced that it would be his last.[13]

As of 2022, Burgoyne ranks third for most VFL/AFL games, behind Brent Harvey (432) and Michael Tuck (426),[14] while he ranks second for most premiership games in elite Australian rules football with 433 (including his 26 SANFL games for Port Adelaide), only behind Craig Bradley (464, including 89 games in the SANFL with Port Adelaide).

Post-playing media career 2022-

edit

On 7 March 2022 it was announced that Shaun would join Channel 7's commentary team as a boundary rider. On 26 October 2024 it was announced that Shaun would join Fox Footy's commentary team in an unknown capacity.[15]

Off-field representation

edit

Off the field, Burgoyne has become an important representative for the Indigenous Australian sporting community. He was an inaugural member of the Indigenous Players Advisory Board when it was established in 2011 and was appointed Chair of the Board in 2016.

He was also a regular guest on The Marngrook Footy Show.

Personal life

edit

Burgoyne is married to Amy née Phillips, who is the daughter of Port Adelaide legend Greg Phillips and sister of WNBA and AFLW superstar Erin Phillips. Together they have four children – Nixie, Leni, Ky and Percy.[16]

Statistics

edit
Legend
  G  
Goals
  K  
Kicks
  D  
Disposals 
  T  
Tackles
  B  
Behinds 
  H  
Handballs 
  M  
Marks
Season Team No. Games Totals Averages (per game) Votes
G B K H D M T G B K H D M T
2001 Port Adelaide 37 0 0
2002 Port Adelaide 8 17 24 11 86 58 144 32 41 1.4 0.6 5.1 3.4 8.5 1.9 2.4 3
2003 Port Adelaide 8 25 39 17 174 106 280 76 66 1.6 0.7 7.0 4.2 11.2 3.0 2.6 1
2004# Port Adelaide 8 25 18 14 215 130 345 77 79 0.7 0.6 8.6 5.2 13.8 3.1 3.2 1
2005 Port Adelaide 8 15 4 4 159 118 277 76 29 0.3 0.3 10.6 7.9 18.5 5.1 1.9 7
2006 Port Adelaide 8 22 20 16 265 193 458 87 115 0.9 0.7 12.0 8.8 20.8 4.0 5.2 15
2007 Port Adelaide 8 25 39 23 271 201 472 62 94 1.6 0.9 10.8 8.0 18.9 2.5 3.8 16
2008 Port Adelaide 8 19 23 12 216 168 384 66 81 1.2 0.6 11.4 8.8 20.2 3.5 4.3 6
2009 Port Adelaide 8 9 4 10 100 75 175 33 35 0.4 1.1 11.1 8.3 19.4 3.7 3.9 0
2010 Hawthorn 9 16 7 3 172 187 359 58 89 0.4 0.2 10.8 11.7 22.4 3.6 5.6 7
2011 Hawthorn 9 24 16 9 230 212 442 90 77 0.7 0.4 9.6 8.8 18.4 3.8 3.2 0
2012 Hawthorn 9 24 11 5 246 182 428 83 82 0.5 0.2 10.3 7.6 17.8 3.5 3.4 6
2013# Hawthorn 9 23 18 6 258 203 461 81 86 0.8 0.3 11.2 8.8 20.0 3.5 3.7 3
2014# Hawthorn 9 25 12 6 284 266 550 95 95 0.5 0.2 11.4 10.6 22.0 3.8 3.8 3
2015# Hawthorn 9 26 9 7 244 260 504 92 102 0.4 0.3 9.4 10.0 19.4 3.5 3.9 2
2016 Hawthorn 9 24 15 12 262 216 478 93 134 0.6 0.5 10.9 9.0 19.9 3.9 5.6 8
2017 Hawthorn 9/67 22 17 10 216 232 448 93 87 0.8 0.5 9.8 10.5 20.4 4.2 4.0 5
2018 Hawthorn 9 17 7 13 165 151 316 64 72 0.4 0.8 9.8 8.9 18.6 3.8 4.2 0
2019 Hawthorn 9 18 7 3 175 117 292 77 65 0.4 0.2 9.7 6.5 16.2 4.3 3.6 0
2020[a] Hawthorn 9 13 11 2 77 62 139 26 32 0.8 0.2 5.9 4.8 10.7 2.0 2.5 2
2021 Hawthorn 9 18 1 1 133 84 217 46 31 0.1 0.1 7.4 4.7 12.1 2.6 1.7 0
Career[17] 407 302 184 3948 3221 7169 1407 1492 0.7 0.5 9.7 7.9 17.6 3.5 3.7 85

Notes

  1. ^ The 2020 season was played with 17 home-and-away matches per team (down from 22) and 16-minute quarters with time on (down from 20-minute quarters with time on) due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Honours and achievements

edit

Team

Individual

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ "Burgoyne set to play 32nd final". Hawthorn Football Club. 8 September 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
  2. ^ "Hawks and Indigenous Round". Hawthorn Football Club. 15 May 2012. Archived from the original on 23 March 2014.
  3. ^ Founten, Loukas (16 June 2018). "Shaun Burgoyne reaches his 350th AFL game". Port Adelaide Football Club. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  4. ^ Capel, Andrew (23 August 2006). "Francou anoints Shaun". The Advertiser. Archived from the original on 13 August 2011.
  5. ^ Rielly, Stephen (15 September 2009). "Port Adelaide outs high price on Shaun Burgoyne". Retrieved 23 March 2020.
  6. ^ Vaughan, Roger (31 May 2010). "Hawks suit midfielder 'Silk'". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 23 March 2020.
  7. ^ "Players' number tribute to indigenous breakthrough". Australian Football League. 24 May 2017. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  8. ^ "Silk signs on for 17th season". Hawthorn Football Club. 28 August 2017. Retrieved 28 August 2017.
  9. ^ Gaskin, Lee (10 November 2017). "Silky veteran gets nod to skipper Australia". Australian Football League.
  10. ^ SportAL (6 August 2018). "Shaun Burgoyne signs contract extension with Hawthorn Hawks". Sporting News.
  11. ^ Waterworth, Ben (29 August 2019). "AFL trade news 2019: Shaun Burgoyne admits Hawthorn or Gold Coast decision is 'stressful'". Fox Sports.
  12. ^ "Silk's here to stay". Hawthorn Football Club. 12 September 2019.
  13. ^ "'I'll approach every game like it's my last': Burgoyne to play on in 2021, become advisor in 2022". The Age. 12 September 2020.
  14. ^ Most VFL/AFL Games played
  15. ^ "Four-time AFL flag-winner Shaun Burgoyne to officially join Fox Footy team in 2025". Fox Sports. 26 October 2024. Retrieved 26 October 2024.
  16. ^ Cherny, Daniel (23 March 2018). "How Shaun Burgoyne keeps beating Father Time". The Age. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
  17. ^ "Shaun Burgoyne". AFL Tables. Retrieved 29 August 2014.
edit