Ben Ainsworth was 10 when Socceroo Archie Thompson represented Australia at the 2008 Olympics. He was 12 when fast bowler Peter Siddle claimed his Test hat-trick at the Gabba in 2010, and 14 when motor racing driver Paul Morris won the Bathurst 1000 in 2012.

And he wasn’t even born when Vin Waite won AFL premierships with Carlton in 1970-72 and Paul Abbott did likewise with Hawthorn in 1986-88, or when boxer Rocky Mattioli won the 1977 world little middleweight title.

But on Sunday afternoon when he plays his 150^th AFL game for the Gold Coast SUNS against the Adelaide Crows at Adelaide Oval Ainsworth will stand alongside this famous sporting sextet as a proud product of the Victorian country town of Morwell.

Located in the Latrobe Valley 150km east of Melbourne, with a population of 14,389 in the last census in 2021, it is one of Victoria’s major energy production centres via coal mining and the fossil-fuel power generation.

And it’s home to the now 27-year-old forward/utility, who will be the seventh SUN to 150 games after joining the club via the Gippsland Power and the 2016 AFL National Draft.

He’ll be the ‘winningest’ and the second-youngest SUN to this mark behind Touk Miller while ranking 2^nd for goals at this mark behind only Alex Sexton, and 4^th for possessions behind Miller, David Swallow and Jarrod Harbrow.

But all that will count for nothing unless he does what only Miller and Jarrod Witts have done and won a 150^th milestone game that traditionally qualifies him for life membership.

Needing four and possibly even five wins from their last seven games to qualify for the finals for the first time, it’s a dual opportunity for the fifth-placed SUNS coming off a monumental home win against ladder leaders Collingwood last week.

They can not only pick up four precious premiership points but deny four points for the third-placed Crows, who are in a similar position having played one extra game but with an advantage of 14.3%.

Ainsworth, soon to become a first-time father with partner Olivia, will reach 150 AFL games after an up-and-down 10 years in the football spotlight.

He was identified in 2015 by then Gippsland Power coach and ex-Carlton player Peter Francis as an AFL player in the making 18 months before he was eligible to be drafted, and such was his potential he joined the SUNS via pick #4 in the 2016 National Draft after a top-age season disrupted heavily by injury and a controversial four-week suspension.

Yet he is the only ‘survivor’ from eight SUNS draftees that year.

Pick #7 Jack Scrimshaw, who played four games with the club in 2017, is now a 110-gamer at Hawthorn, while pick #9 Will Brodie, who played 25 SUNS games in five years on the coast, played 29 games in 2022-23 at Fremantle but hasn’t played at AFL level since Round 7 2023 and is reportedly looking for a third club.

Pick #10 Jack Bowes played 83 SUNS games from 2017-2022 and has since added 51 games at Geelong, and #67 Brad Scheer, from Palm Beach Currumbin via the SUNS Academy, played 13 games from 2017-19.

Also from the Class of 2016, rookie pick #4 Keegan Brooksby played 15 SUNS games from 2015-17, spent 2019 at West Coast without an AFL opportunity and had one game at Hawthorn  in 2020, while rookie #22 Cameron Loersch, from South Fremantle, had two years at the club without a senior game, and Category B rookie Max Spencer, from Palm Beach Currumbin via the SUNS Academy, played eight games in 2017-18.

Ainsworth will be the 13^th player from the 2016 AFL Draft to reach 150 games, with Brisbane’s pick #3 Hugh McCluggage, who will play his 200^th at the Gabba tonight (Friday), top of the ‘class’.

It’s been a mixed journey since he debuted in Round 1 2017 with Bowes and four players recruited from opposition clubs – Pearce Hanley, Michael Barlow, Jarryd Lyons and Jarrod Witts – when he had 14 possessions, six tackles and two goals in a two-point home loss to Brisbane.

Curiously, he is one of only five members of that side still at the club. The others are Sean Lemmens, who is stuck on 149 games, Touk Miller, Alex Sexton and Witts.

Yet, in a fact southern clubs manage to overlook when questioning the worth of the Suns Academy, no less than seven teammates from Ainsworth’s first game are now playing elsewhere – Callum AhChee (Brisbane), Bowes and Jack Martin (Geelong), Tom Lynch (Richmond), Steven May (Melbourne), Adam Saad (Carlton) and Peter Wright (Essendon).

Ainsworth, 7^th in the SUNS best & fairest in 2022 and 10^th in 2023, has a year-by-year game count that reads 15-17-21-22-17-16-12-16-13 despite missing more than 30 games with injury and having a stint in the Reserves in 2017-18-19-21-22.

Yet in the side that posted arguably the club’s greatest win last weekend he was seventh oldest, ranked sixth for experience, and had kicked more AFL goals than all but Ben King. And will be a key figure in the race to the 2025 finals.

In statistical highlights of Ainsworth’s journey to 150 games:-

He polled two Brownlow Medal votes in his 55^th game in Round 14 of the 2020 Covid season against North Melbourne at People First Stadium, when he had 23 possessions and a goal and the SUNS won by 63 points.

He polled one vote in his 87^th game in Round 14 2022, when he had 20 possessions and kicked three goals in a 43-point PFS win over Adelaide.

He had a career-high 28 possessions and kicked two goals in his 132^nd game in Round 16 last year, when the SUNS beat Collingwood by 11 points at PFS.

And he kicked a career-high four goals all the way back in his sixth game in Round 15 2017, when the SUNS beat North at PFS by 19 points to celebrate Gary Ablett’s 300^th AFL game.

Having worn jumper #9 since 2018 after beginning his career in #27, Ainsworth is part of a SUNS side looking to claim another slice of club history with their first win at Adelaide Oval.

While Ainsworth is 0-9 at the famous cricket ground turned SA football headquarters, the club is 0-11 having gone 0-6 there against Adelaide, 0-4 against Port Adelaide and 0-1 against Hawthorn in the Covid season of 2020.

This is after the SUNS went 1-3 at Football Park in Adelaide from 2011-13 after posting their very first win there in Round 5 2011, when famously came from 28 points down at three-quarter time to prevail by three points when Port’s Justin Westhoff missed a long shot after the siren.

Only twice in 18 visits to Adelaide Airport has the club flown home winners – against Port in 2011 and in Round 5 earlier this year, when they beat North at Barossa Oval by 52 points in Gather Round. They’ve also gone 0-1 at Norwood Oval and 0-1 at Mt.Barker.

Among just nine Brownlow Medal votes earned by the club at Adelaide Oval David Swallow has four, Touk Miller and Harley Bennell two, and Brayden Fiorini one.

This same group of players also have recorded the club’s six 30-possession games at Adelaide Oval – Swallow and Fiorini have had two, and Bennell and Miller one each – with Bennell’s 39 against the Crows in 2015 the club best at the venue.

Three players share the SUNS goal-kicking record at Adelaide Oval – all with bags of four. Tom Lynch (2015) and Ben King (2021) kicked four goals there against the Crows before Levi Casboult kicked four against Port Adelaide there in 2023.

It’s a ground that holds a special memory for King after he debuted there in 2019, and for Jy Farrar, who debuted there against Hawthorn in 2020, and Nick Holman, who played his 100^th SUNS game against Adelaide at Adelaide Oval in 2023.

Coach Damien Hardwick has an 8-11 career record at Adelaide Oval, but if he’s looking for someone to speak to the playing group about winning there he needs only to go to John Noble. He’s played there eight times for eight wins. And he’s a perfect 9-0 in his career against Adelaide.