Port Adelaide veteran Travis Boak will play on for a 19th season in 2025.
Boak, who played his 350th game this season, will join fellow 36-year-olds Scott Pendlebury and Todd Goldstein as the last men standing in 2025 after Tom Hawkins’ retirement this year.
Boak finished the 2024 campaign on 371 games so would have to play on for a 20th season in 2026 to join Pendlebury on 400 games. Pendlebury is seven months older, was drafted in 2005, and debuted a year earlier than Boak.
Travis Boak.Credit: John Donegan and AFL Photos / Getty Images
Boak had a good season in 2024 after doubts about whether he should play on. Like his team, he had a poor preliminary final, but his season had been so good the club was happy for the former captain and three time All-Australian to make the decision to play on.
“It’s not about one result and losing that game – it’s about how I felt. Could I still impact the game? Did I still feel comfortable in the game? Did I still have my speed and ability to impact? And I felt I did,” said Boak, who was runner-up in the 2020 Brownlow at the age of 32, the oldest player to finish that high in the Brownlow.
“Performances will go up and down – they always have in my whole career, so it is not about one game. You know when you are an athlete in the arena if you still feel like you can impact a game.
“I didn’t want to go around just making up the numbers, so you ask yourself: ‘Can I be someone making an impact, and can I do that and face the scrutiny of being a footballer?’
“There are always people who have opinions on your career – that is part of football. But I am not playing on to hang around to win a premiership. Don’t get me wrong, yes I want to win a flag, but I am more interested to impact the group – to get better as a footballer and help the club continue to grow on-field and off the field, and if that results in a flag, then amazing.
Port Adelaide’s AFL games record holder Travis Boak was an All-Australian as recently as 2020.Credit: Getty Images
“I am out there to make an impact.”
Port has undergone significant list change already this off-season, with Dan Houston traded out, veteran forward Charlie Dixon and key back Trent McKenzie retiring while former top draft pick leading forward Jack Lukosius was traded in from Gold Coast and small forward Joe Richards brought in from Collingwood.
Boak by the numbers
Born: August 1, 1988
Games: 371
Goals: 209
Draft: #5, 2006 AFL National Draft (from the Geelong Falcons)
Debut: Round 12, 2007 v Essendon at Football Park
AFL honours
– All-Australian (2013, 2014, 2020)
– Brownlow Medal runner-up (2020)
– AFLPA MVP runner-up (2020)
– AFLCA Champion Player of the Year runner-up (2020)
– Showdown Medal (2013, 2020, 2021)
– Jim Stynes Community Leadership Award (2021)
– International Rules (2014, 2017)
Club honours
– John Cahill Medal (2011, 2019)
– John Cahill Medal runner-up (2013, 2014, 2020, 2021, 2022)
– Power captain (2013-18)
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