Doncaster’s ‘heartbeat’: Eastern league legend Chris Annakis set for 250th match
Doncaster’s Chris Annakis reflects on a career of dizzying heights ahead of his 250th match – with the milestone man revealing an unexpected mentor’s role in his meteoric rise.
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HE’s one of just 15 legends among the Eastern league’s six-decade history.
And Saturday marks yet another milestone in one of the competition’s most decorated football CVs this century, with Doncaster’s Chris Annakis set to notch game 250.
Making his senior debut in 2006, the modern-day marvel’s career has taken in three premierships, four club champion awards, 376 goals and three league best and fairests to go with a myriad of accolades.
Pulling on the Doncaster guernsey for 17 years has been among the current playing-coach’s most treasured achievements, despite the best efforts of rival clubs circling with offers over the journey.
It’s little wonder he’s revered as the “heartbeat” of the club.
“I always wanted to be a one-club player and I’ve done that – it was an easy decision to make,” Annakis says.
But achieving a “common goal” with an unwavering band of Sharks would turn into his proudest accomplishment – taking a middling club to the top.
Breaking a 15-year premiership drought in 2011 in Division 3 to move up a flight, the Sharks were relegated the next season before slingshotting back, winning the cup in 2013.
The most coveted of the three flags came in 2015 in Division 2, lifting the club into the league’s Premier Division.
“To be part of a group of being able to take the club from Division 3, up to Premier and playing competitive footy and also finals has probably been the biggest accomplishment and what’s kept me at Doncaster,” Annakis says.
“Having the people around me, both players and committee, we had that common goal … which we wanted to achieve, which we did.
“There’s great people at the club and I’ve made lifelong friends playing in three premierships with the core group of players and the core committee that have all been involved along the way.”
Eastern league legend status is awarded to those who win three senior-competition best and fairests.
Annakis earned the title in 2018 after snaring the top-flight prize – the Sir Gilbert Chandler Medal – for a second consecutive year.
It capped a golden four-year period for the smooth-moving midfielder, who took home the first of his league gongs in 2015, winning the Kenneth Wright Medal in Division 2.
It’s no surprise the flags rate ahead of the individual honours, but the 34-year-old admits they’re achievements he’ll raise a glass to once all is said and done.
“I don’t hold it up there with the premiership success and the premiership medallions, but it will be something that once I do hang up the boots, I’ll be keen on sharing with the kids as they get older,” Annakis says.
“Great coaches”, Annakis declares have been central to his success when reflecting on the biggest influences of his career.
“Andrew Tranquilli”, is remarked first and without hesitation – the club’s longest-serving coach who oversaw its climb with the last two premierships.
But an unexpected mentor would emerge in former Collingwood midfielder Ben Johnson, a prized recruit to the Sharks in a bid to fast-track the club’s youth in the early-to-mid 2010s.
Annakis credits the 235-game premiership Pie in his leap into the league’s history books.
“He wasn’t in a coaching role, but he really fine-tuned my game and helped me – I thought he was nit-picking at me a bit, but it turned out to really take my footy to the next level,” Annakis says of 2015 flag teammate Johnson.
“He’s a very good friend of mine now and we’ve stayed in touch and he’s one that was pretty massive for me to take that leap of taking my game from where it was to a higher standard.”
Playing alongside the best of the best has been a common theme for Annakis.
Johnson was part of a wealth of ex-AFL names landing at Schramms Reserve last decade to help the club’s rise.
Ex-Hawthorn and North Melbourne forward Nathan Thompson and former Collingwood and Carlton midfielder Heath Scotland were among the contingent.
Then there’s a long line of celebrated club stalwarts, headlined by brickwall defender Matt Schimmelbusch – who the league legend reveres in the company of the greatest.
“Matt Schimmelbusch has always been a superstar in my eyes, with the way he played his footy and his consistency he showed for 15 years,” Annakis says.
“Heath Scotland is another one that was a class above when he came back at his age … then having the chance to play with Ben Johnson and Nathan Thompson, everyone came back and played with something special which is what we needed to achieve the success that we did.”
And as a four-time Eastern representative, Annakis took the field with the best of rival clubs – helping the league to the No. 1 ranking in the state at the AFL Victoria Community Championships in 2018.
Played under the roof at Docklands as a curtain-raiser to the AFL match between St Kilda and Collingwood, Eastern dethroned the top-seeded Geelong FL to the tune of 42 points.
“It was always good to go down and have a run with the best players of the competition, to see how they train and move, it always interested me,” Annakis recalls.
While a senior playing-career stretching almost two decades is never without its share of hurdles, Annakis’ move into coaching also hasn’t been without its challenges.
Doncaster missed the finals in his first season in charge last year, finishing in 10th spot of the division’s 12 teams with five wins.
But the top job is one Annakis continues to embrace.
“To be able to do a playing and coaching role would be impossible if you didn’t have the right support around you,” he says.
“Credit to the club and the people that have come on board in Paul O’Connell, Pete Randall and our other coaching staff as well that make my job easier.”
He’ll toast his 35th birthday on Saturday as he runs out for the 250th time, under no illusions the end of his playing days could be nigh.
“I think I know that this will probably be the last year, so however much I can get on the park this year, I’d like to go out playing some good, consistent footy, but it’s all going to be about how the body’s going,” Annakis says.
“If I can’t string many games together this year then I’ll know the end is pretty near, but if I can get a solid season where the body feels OK, then we’ll reassess at the end of the season.”
None other than cross-town rival Doncaster East awaits this weekend – the feeder club to Beverley Hills, where Annakis played his junior football.
He admits he could have “quite easily” ended up at Doncaster East, had it fielded an under-18s side at the time – instead crossing into Doncaster’s ‘18s program at the end of juniors.
But there are no regrets about landing at Schramms Reserve.
“We brought the best out of each other and expected high standards of each other,” Annakis says of his countless mentors.
“There’s been a lot of people along the way that I really owe a big thanks to and I wouldn’t be here without them.”
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