If you thought Connor Budarick sung the SUNS song with a little extra gusto on Saturday you’d probably be right. And justifiably so. It was his 50th AFL game.
But it was more than just an AFL games ‘half-century’. It was like a gold medal for perseverance and resilience. A reward for simply refusing to give up on a lifetime AFL dream.
Budarick’s personal milestone slid largely under the radar as the SUNS posted a 19-point win over Carlton at Marvel Stadium on Saturday night to claim a club record 14th win for the season and a notional fifth spot on the AFL ladder.
While the ladder as is it shown on the AFL website has the SUNS sixth, two games behind Adelaide, one game behind Geelong, Collingwood and Fremantle, half a game behind the Brisbane Lions and level with Hawthorn and GWS, they are in fact fifth on win/loss ratio.
Sydney, coming off an upset win over Brisbane last weekend and on a 7-2 run after a 4-8 start to the season, are an unassailable two wins and 40.1% behind the ninth-placed Bulldogs.
So, the nine sides that have filled the top nine spots on the ladder since Round 10 will remain in a state of desperate uncertainty until Round 24. And possibly until the final game of the season when Gold Coast plays Essendon at People First Stadium on Wednesday, August 27 three days after the rest of the home-and-away season is done.
Mathematically, only Adelaide, with 16 wins, and Geelong, with 15 wins and a percentage far superior to all but Adelaide and the Bulldogs, are guaranteed a spot in the top eight.
Exactly where each side might finish is too difficult to try to forecast, but for the SUNS the equation is simple - three wins in their last three games will guarantee a top six finish and a home final, and almost certainly a top four finish and a double chance. The proviso is they must retain a superior percentage to one contender – most likely Fremantle.
Barring any further upsets, it will all be decided in 10 games between the top nine sides.
Brisbane and Fremantle will finish the home-and-season against two other top nine sides, Adelaide, Collingwood, Gold Coast, GWS, and the Bulldogs will play one top nine side, and the Geelong no top nine sides – but they do face an improved Sydney at the SCG in Round 23.
The run home for the top nine is:
Adelaide – Collingwood (AO), North (Marvel)
Geelong – Sydney (SCG), Richmond (MCG)
Collingwood – Adelaide (AO), Melbourne (MCG)
Fremantle – Brisbane (OS), W/Bulldogs (Marvel)
Brisbane – Fremantle (OS), Hawthorn (Gabba)
Gold Coast – GWS (PFS), Port (AO), Essendon (PFS).
Hawthorn – Melbourne (MCG), Brisbane (G)
GWS – GC (PFS), StKilda (ES)
W/Bulldogs – WC (Marvel), Fremantle (Marvel)
But as much as this time of year is all about team, SUNS fans will happily spare a moment for Budarick, the 24-year-old StreetSmarts SUNS Academy graduate turned rookie who has defied two knee reconstructions to reach 50 games. And put himself within reach of a role in the club’s first finals campaign.
It’s been quite a journey for the son of Craig Budarick, a Glenelg SANFL player and 1989 Sydney Swans AFL draftee, who grew up in the small crayfishing town of Robe, on the Limestone Coast of South Australia.
Having relocated to the Gold Coast at age nine, he slotted beautifully into the local junior football scene at Labrador before joining the AFL Sport of Excellence Program at Helensvale State High, making his NEAFL debut for Southport at 16 and in 2019, as the SUNS Academy captain, winning the medal as the best player among the non-Victorian Academy sides in the Coates Talent League.
That it itself is a powerful draft recommendation – it’s an award won previously, albeit under different conditions, by Michael Voss, Grant Birchall, Mitch Robinson, Kade Kolodjashnij, Toby Nankervis, Isaac Heeney, Ben Keays, Nick Blakey and Jaspa Fletcher.
But later, after representing the Allies at the Australian Under-18 Championships, Budarick won a place in a star-studded All-Australian side which included the Victorian Metro pair of Noah Anderson and Matt Rowell, and Vic Country’s Sam Flanders. It was:-
B: Connor Budarick (Allies), Sam DeKoning (VC), Will Gould (SA)
HB: Lachlan Ash (VC), Fischer McAsey (VM), Hayden Young (VC)
C: Noah Anderson (VM), Deven Robertson (WA-capt), Matt Rowell (VM)
HF: Jackson Mead (SA), Elijah Taylor (WA), Sam Flanders (VC)
F: Luke Jackson (WA), Tom Green (Allies), Mitch O’Neill (Allies).
INT: Harry Schoenberg (SA), Jeremy Sharp (WA), Cody Weightman (VC), Trent Rivers (WA), Dylan Stephens (SA)
Every member of that side was drafted, and all but Mitch O’Neill, a Tasmanian taken at #25 in the 2019 Rookie Draft, have played at AFL level.
Budarick was a zone selection to the SUNS via the same rookie draft, officially listed at #16, and made his AFL debut with Anderson and Rowell in Round 1, 2020.
The SUNS trio were among 13 Round 1 debutants that year, who, within hours of fulfilling a lifetime dream to play at the elite level, went into an 81-day hiatus when the competition was put into lockdown due to Covid.
Still, all went to plan when, after the resumption, Budarick played the first 15 games of the shortened season before he was rested in Round 16. He even played Rounds 1-2 in 2021 which meant, among 93 first-time draftees in 2019, he was #2 for games. Only Anderson, who had played 19 of a possible 19, had played more.
Only seven others had played more than 10 games – Fremantle’s Caleb Serong and Melbourne’s Kozzie Pickett (16), GWS’ Lachie Ash (14), Hawthorn’s Will Day (13) North’s Jack Mahony (12), and Melbourne’s Trent Rivers and Fremantle’s Michael Frederick (11).
Rowell, whose first season had ended with injury in Round 5, had resumed in Round 1 2021 only to suffer another serious injury which left his games tally at this time at six.
And 11 others who are now established AFL stars had played fewer than 10 games - Luke Jackson (8), Mitch Georgiades (8), Tom Green 7, Keidean Coleman (7), Hayden Young (6), Chad Warner (4), Cody Weightman (3), Miles Bergman (2), Sam de Koning (0), Charlie Comben (0) and Josh Worrall (0).
But in Round 2, 2021, Budarick blew out his knee. Then, having returned to the AFL side in Round 6, 2022, he blew out his knee again in Round 16, and didn’t play again until last two games of 2023.
In 2024, while he played only Rounds 1-2-3 and Rounds 19-20-22-23-24 at AFL level, he at least played 17 games in total. And this year he’s been largely injury free, playing Rounds 1-3-4-5-6-7- in the AFL and, after four strong weeks in the VFL, he’s been a fixture since Round 15 to become the 45th SUNS player to 50 games.
Budarick, with a 26-1-23 win/loss record at 53.1%, ranks behind only Bailey Humphrey and Ben Long (27-23 at 54.0%) for the ‘winningest’ half-century.
At 24 years 125 days, he’s the oldest 50-gamer among those who debuted at the club and is 33rd on a list all-time on which Humphrey (20 years, 256 days), Swallow (20 years, 262 days), Lukosius (20 years, 307 days), Kolodjashnij (20 years, 308 days), Dion Prestia (20 years, 317 days) and Harley Bennell (20 years, 337 days) have been youngest and Gary Ablett (29 years, 18 days), Jared Brennan (28 years, 350 days) and Brandon Ellis (28 years, 340 days) have been oldest.
Interestingly, too, of the 13 debutants of Round 1, 2020 Budarick has outlasted three of the others and beaten two others to 50.
Western Bulldogs’ Ben Cavarra, pick #45 in the 2018 Draft, played four games in 2021-21 and was delisted in 2021, and Adelaide’s Fischer McAsey, pick #6 in the 2019 Draft, played 10 games in his first season and retired at the end of 2023.
Tyler Brown, a father/son pick #50 to Collingwood in 2015, played 27 games with Collingwood from 2018-22 and one for Adelaide in 2023 before his AFL dream ended.
Fremantle’s Sam Sturt, pick #17 in 2018, has played 31 games but none this year, while Brisbane’s Deven Robertson, pick #22 in 2019, played his 47th game on Saturday.
Ahead of Budarick are Anderson and Melbourne’s Kozzi Pickett (124), GWS’ Tom Green (112), Rowell (105), Port’s Mitch Georgiades (89), St.Kilda’s Max King (83) and Melbourne/GWS tagger Bedford (80).
Such has been the journey of Budarick, player #118 on the SUNS all-time list, that 13 players have come and gone in his time at the club – Brandon Ellis, Hugh Greenwood, Izak Rankine, Jeremy Sharp, Oleg Markov, Rory Atkins, Jacob Townsend, Levi Casboult, Mabior Chol, Charlie Constable, Hewago Oea, James Tsitas and Elijah Holland – and the most recent debutant, Ben Jepson, is player #154.
Having missed 77 games between game #1 and game #50, Budarick heads Darcy Macpherson (64 games), Alex Sexton (47), Jesse Lonergan (46), Charlie Dixon (43) in the longest ‘road’ to 50.
At the end of the scale among AFL debutants at the club, Ben King played 50 games without a miss, while Jack Lukosius (1), Anderson (3), Bayley Humphrey (3), Touk Miller (4) and Kade Kolodjashnij (5) were quickest of the rest. And among imports, Gary Ablett (4), Jarrod Witts (4), Lachie Weller (5) and Brandon Ellis (5) had the most blemish-free run.
There was another significant half-century on Saturday when Rowell posted his 50th SUNS win.
He was the 10th SUNS player to 50 wins – and the quickest - with his 105 games quicker than Sam Collins (119), Anderson and Wil Powell (120), Nick Holman (130), Jarrod Witts (145), Ben Ainsworth (152), Alex Sexton (176), Touk Miller (180) and David Swallow (186).
With the SUNS to host GWS Giants in a crucial finals qualifier at People First Stadium on Saturday afternoon (12.35pm) another SUNS 50-game celebrations beckons, with Malcolm Rosas having played his 49th game last weekend in his first game of 2025.
