There was a famous American blues singer and guitarist in the early 1900’s named ‘Sam Collins’. Born in Louisiana and best remembered for his first hit song ‘Jailhouse Blues’, he was sometimes known as ‘Crying Sam’.
His namesake, the SUNS vice-captain, will never be called ‘Crying Sam’. But there was a moment in October 2017 when the bearded backline strongman could have been excused for having a big-time sob.
After two years and 14 AFL games with Fremantle, the then 23-year-old was delisted.
It’s a decision that hasn’t aged well, and if he was totally honest would still irk then Dockers coach Ross Lyon, who is now in charge at St Kilda.
Fremantle had finished 14th in 2017 with an 8-14 record which included four wins by less than a goal, a 2-11 split from Round 10, and the second-worst percentage in the League at 74.4% - fractionally ahead of wooden-spooners Brisbane at 74.3%.
Only two defenders finished in the top 10 in their club championship – 2016 Bulldogs premiership player Joel Hamling, in his first season at the club at 24, was 6th, and Dockers veteran Michael Johnson, going into his final year in 2018 at 33, was 7th.
Collins, drafted at pick #55 in the 2015 National Draft and wearing jumper #40, had played the last 12 games of 2016 and two games in 2017 – Round 12 and Round 23. After three wins in his first four games he’d played in losing sides in the last 10.
Yet despite a key role with Peel Thunder in their 2016-17 WAFL premiership sides, and a win in their 2017 best & fairest, he found himself on the football scrapheap.
It wasn’t the first time. Originally from Donvale, 20km east of Melbourne, Collins had been overlooked in the 2012 draft when Oakleigh Chargers teammates Jack Macrae and Jack Viney went to the Western Bulldogs and Melbourne at #6 and #26 – Viney as a father/son pick.
And after playing with Box Hill in the VFL in 2013-14, and been elected to his team’s leadership group at 19, he was twice overlooked again.
Fast forward eight and a half years and Collins, who will turn 32 in June, is one of the premier key defenders in the competition, an Origin star for the Big V against Western Australia last month and set to play his 150th AFL game against Geelong at People First Stadium on Friday night.
Ironically, 24 hours earlier a player taken at #12 in the same draft and long regarded as one of the premier forwards in the competition will also play his 150th for Sydney. Who? Charlie Curnow.
Collins’ story is one of the AFL’s craziest. The youngest of four children to a local football legend in suburban Melbourne, he simply refused to give up on his football dream.
In 2018 Collins put the devastation of his Dockers’ dumping behind him and went back to the VFL to play with Werribee. He finished equal third in the Liston Trophy for the League’s best & fairest player, shared by Williamstown’s Michael Gibbons, later to play for Carlton, and Richmond’s ex-SUN Ashley Miles.
Also, he was named at centre half back in the VFL Team of the Year, which included Geelong’s Tom Atkins, now a 153-game AFL premiership player with the Cats, and James Tsitas, later to win the SANFL’s Magarey Medal, play five AFL games with the SUNS in 2022-23, and is now a development coach.
So good was Collins at the heart of the Werribee defence in 2018 that he earned a second AFL chance.
As the story goes, SUNS recruiters, armed with priority access to three mature-aged State League players ahead of the 2018 AFL Draft, had gone to Werribee to watch Josh Corbett, who would later win the Fothergill-Round-Mitchell Medal for the best VFL player aged 23 or younger.
They left committed not only to Corbett but Collins too, and later added West Adelaide’s Chris Burgess to complete this triumvirate.
Collins was the oldest of this trio yet is enjoying that best football of his life after Corbett, who played 36 games for the Gold Coast (2019-22) and five games for Fremantle (2023-24), and Burgess, who played 36 games for the Gold Coast (2019-23) and five games for Adelaide (2024-25), have departed the AFL scene.
Collins and Curnow will be the 21st and 22nd players from the 2015 Draft to play 150 AFL games.
It’s a list which includes SUNS teammate Daniel Rioli, originally pick #15 to Richmond.
1 – 205 - Clayton Oliver (draft pick #4)
2 – 204 – Jacob Weitering (#1)
3 – 203 – Daniel Rioli (#15)
4 – 201 – Harry Himmelberg (#16)
5 – 199 – Eric Hipwood (#14)
6 – 198 – Blake Hardwick (#44)
7 – 196 – Tom Papley (Rookie #14)
8 – 194 – Josh Dunkley (#25)
9 – 189 – Dan Houston (#R45)
10 – 177 – Jade Gresham (#18)
11 – 174 – Callum Mills (#3) & Bailey Williams (#48)
13 – 170 – Nathan Broad (R#67)
14 – 169 – Callum AhChee (#8)
15 – 165 – Jacob Hopper (#7) & Darcy Parish (#5)
17 – 162 – Ryan Burton (#19)
18 – 161 – Ben Keays (#24)
19 – 156 – Jordan Dawson (#56) & Darcy Tucker (#27)
Players from the 2015 Draft who have played fewer games than Collins despite his year out of the AFL system include pick #30 Mason Redman (143), #27 Matthew Kennedy (141), #10 Harry McKay (140, #36 Tom Cole (131), #53 Jack Silvagni (128), #20 Brayden Fiorini (123) and R#48 Hugh Greenwood (121).
Like a fog horn on the ground, so loud is his voice and so decisive is his leadership, Collins has been among the SUNS’ very best recruits all-time.
He played the first nine games of 2019 before missing the rest of his first season on the coast with a bad hip, but since then has played 126 of a possible 133.
Added to the leadership group in 2020 and a vice-captain since 2021, he’s finished 1-4-5-2-1-5 in the best & fairest and was chosen in the All-Australian squad in 2024-25.
And, in what has become something of a badge of honor for the irrepressible defender, he now ranks 7th in all-time AFL history for most games without a goal. The leaders are:-
182 – Ted Potter – Collingwood (1963-72)
172 – Gary Malarkey – Geelong (1977-86)
166 – Les Gardiner – Essendon (1943-53)
162 – Jamie Shanahan – StKilda/Melbourne (1992-99)
154 – Ian Synman (StKilda) – 1958-69
151 – Jim Gallagher (Footscray) – 1951-60
149 – Sam Collins (Fremantle/Gold Coast) – 2016-25
148 – Bill Perkins (Richmond) – 1940-49
136 – Harold Matthews (StKilda) – 1925-32
135 – Roy McConnell (Essendon) 1949-56
Keith Drinan (St.Kilda) 1946-57
Among current players leading into the 2026 season, Collins leads GWS’ Connor Idun (117), Port Adelaide’s Brandon Zerk-Thatcher (90) and Adelaide’s Jordan Butts (85) and Mark Keane (65).
And among those who have finished in the AFL, only two in history have played more than 150 games without a goal – 293-game Fitzroy/Sydney fullback Rod Carter was 214 games to his first major and Richmond 200-gamer Basil McCormack was 163.
Though he’ll never admit it, the man who makes black boots look ‘cool’ probably quite enjoyed Fremantle finishing 14th and 13th under Lyon in 2018-19, and St.Kilda place 12th under Lyon in 2024-25 after they were 6th in 2023.
Moreover, he would have enjoyed the ultimate ‘revenge’ last September when the SUNS, playing in their first AFL final against Fremantle at Perth Stadium, won by a point in spine-tingling fashion after a late behind from David Swallow.
He’ll happily say that’s all in the past now, and that the SUNS have more important things to worry about.
