Brisbane Lions star Joe Daniher set to make his 200th AFL appearance

Brisbane Lions star Joe Daniher wants to be remembered as someone his teammates “loved playing” alongside.

Joe Daniher will make his 200th AFL appearance on Saturday. Picture: Josh Chadwick/AFL Photos/via Getty Images

Mercurial Lions star Joe Daniher isn’t concerned that he “divides opinions”, with the only people that he wants to impress being his Brisbane teammates.

Heavily scrutinised in a senior career that started 11 years ago at Essendon, Daniher will make his 200th AFL appearance – fittingly against the Bombers – at the Gabba on Saturday night.

“It’s something that has crept up a little bit,” the 30-year-old forward said.

“Probably when my career ends it’s something that I’ll look back on and be quite proud that I toiled away long enough to get to the milestone.”

When his footballing days are over, Daniher also wants to be “proud” that he was a player whose peers loved going into battle with every weekend.

“For me it’s about my teammates and hopefully I’ve been a real enjoyable player to play with for them,” he said.

“That’s something that I try to do week in, week out, whether it’s on the training track or on the field.

“I want to be a player that my teammates remember for being someone that they loved to play with.

“Hopefully, I’ve got some teammates that think that, and that’s really what’s important to me.”

Lions coach Chris Fagan had no doubt Daniher was highly regarded by the rest of Brisbane’s playing roster because he had a “good heart and always put the team first”.

For Joe Daniher, it’s all about his teammates. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

“He divides opinions, Joey, but … at the Lions, in his career here so far, we’ve seen a lot of good stuff from Joey, and he’s helped us win a lot of games,” Fagan said.

It’s perhaps Daniher’s natural ability to produce such “good stuff” that sometimes leaves the wider football community bewildered when he misses an easy kick for goal or takes the wrong option in attack.

However, Fagan said the mistakes came from a “good place”.

“He’s just trying to help the team and every now and then he gets it wrong, as do a lot of players,” the Brisbane coach said.

“He seems to pay a larger price for that than some. A backline player can try to pull off the kick that’s risky and make a mistake, and we never criticise those guys, but Joey can make a decision to take a shot from goal when maybe he should have passed it, and we’re all over him like a ton bricks.

“I try to remain even and level with him, and he appreciates that.”

Despite his enigmatic nature, Daniher rises for the big occasions.

He was one the best players on the ground in the Lions’ heartbreaking four-point grand final loss to Collingwood last year.

“It was a real highlight to get the opportunity to play in a grand final,” Daniher said.

“It was obviously such an incredibly disappointing result to take, but I’m so proud of where the group got to last season, and hopefully those experiences hold us in good stead.

“You hear a lot of people say it was such a fantastic game, but that doesn’t help us too much, but it was a proud moment to get that far in a season.”

Daniher and the Lions want another chance to play in decider this year, and despite an “up and down season”, he’s confident Brisbane can fire when it matters next month.

“I’m tremendously excited about what we can achieve,” he said.

“Our best football is going to be hard to stop, but we need to find it more consistently, and we’ve been working really hard on that.

“I’m confident over the next few weeks we can really launch ourselves in the back end of the year and have some good, exciting times.”

Originally published as Brisbane Lions star Joe Daniher set to make his 200th AFL appearance