You ever look at an elite professional athlete
and just think, there is absolutely no way that
guy plays sports for a living? Oh, all the time.
You see these guys. Right. Today we are looking
at someone who proves that looks can be incredibly
deceiving. We are exploring the life of a man
who completely defied, you know, every conventional
expectation of what a superstar should look like,
how they should act, and what they could actually
achieve. That's a truly unique profile. Yeah,
so welcome to another deep dive. Today we are
jumping into the life of Tony Lockett, widely
known to everyone as Plugger. He is the most
prolific goal kicker in the entire history of
Australian rules football. The absolute greatest.
Exactly. And our mission today is to uncover
exactly how this naturally media shy asthmatic
kid with wildly fluctuating weight became the
absolute savior of two completely different struggling
football clubs and how he literally changed the
sporting landscape of an entire major city. So
before we get into the wild stats and all the
controversies, set the stage for us. What are
we really looking at with this deep dive? Well,
we're looking at a story that goes way beyond
your standard sports trivia. This is a fascinating
look at the intersection of individual brilliance,
sheer physical intimidation and just extreme
pressure. Right. Because Tony Lockett is an incredibly
enigmatic figure. I mean, his entire career is
a study in contradictions. On one hand. You have
someone who possessed unparalleled, delicate
skill and finesse. Beautiful to watch. Exactly.
Right. But on the other hand, he played with
a brand of physical aggression that made him
one of the most genuinely feared men to ever
step onto a field. Yeah. So to really understand
his impact, we have to examine the immense weight
of expectation he carried, both literally and
figuratively, and how he navigated a sports culture
that was rapidly transforming into this massive
corporate machine all around him. Okay, let's
unpack this because Lockett's origin story doesn't
exactly scream future highly polished national
superstar. No, not at all. He grew up in Ballarat,
which is a regional city in Victoria, Australia,
and his roots were just deeply embedded in local,
really gritty sports. His family ties are actually
legendary in their own right. They really are.
Like his grandfather, Charlie, was heavily involved
in the local greyhound racing scene. He even
supplied the pacemakers for the local club. Yeah,
he's a fixture there. And his father, Howard
Lockett, was a local football champion. He played
an astonishing 500 games of country football.
500. He was even inducted into the North Ballarat
Football Club Hall of Fame. And that lineage
is crucial for you to understand. His mindset.
Tony Lockett didn't just stumble into professional
sports from a vacuum. He was steeped in a culture
of local, grassroots, uncompromising competition
from the day he was born. Oh, he was in his blood.
Literally. Yeah. He actually started playing
Australian football with the under -12s team
of his father's club, North Ballarat, back in
1974. He played 120 junior games right there.
Wow. So he was fully immersed in that regional
sporting environment. And regional Australian
football is often characterized by a very raw,
unpolished, and intensely physical style of play.
It is absolutely not for the faint of heart.
And since we are talking about his family, we
absolutely have to talk about the nickname, Plugger.
Oh, it's iconic. It is one of the most iconic
monikers in all of Australian sports. Now, looking
at pictures of him, you know, this massive guy,
most people probably assume he got the name because
he was this heavy set player who just sort of
plugged away at the goal face. Just this immovable
object. That's what everyone assumes. Yeah. But
the origin is actually so much better. It wasn't
originally about his physical size at all, was
it? Not at all. He actually inherited the nickname
from his father, Howard. And Howard got it from
his father, Tony's grandfather. Right. And why
was the grandfather called Plugger? Because he
used to just plug around in the garden. It's
basically a family heirloom. Exactly. A nickname
about gardening that serendipitously ended up
being the absolute perfect descriptor for a colossal
full forward. It is a wonderful piece of sporting
trivia. But it also highlights the central paradox
of Lockett's physical presence. Because when
we talk about his physique, we are talking about
a player who, throughout his career, fluctuated
between 95 and 112. man for those of you more
familiar with pounds that is over 240 pounds
at his heaviest And we should probably pause
right here to explain what that actually means
in the context of this specific sport. Because
Australian rules football is not like American
football, where the play stops every 10 seconds.
Right. There's no offensive and defensive line
swaps. Exactly. It is a grueling, continuous,
highly aerobic game played on a massive oval
field that is actually much larger than a traditional
soccer or NFL pitch. Players are essentially
running half marathons every single game. They
are constantly moving. And the position he played
full forward is traditionally the primary goal
score. They stay closer to the opponent's goal,
sure, but they still have to constantly sprint
out to catch the ball. Right, you can't just
stand there. No, you have to work for it. So
add to that massive 112 -kilogram frame the fact
that he suffered from severe chronic asthma.
Which is just crazy to think about. It is. He
even missed a crucial final match in 1991. Because
the club's medical staff warned him that playing
with influenza could trigger a severe, potentially
life -threatening asthma attack. Jeez. And later
in his career, he required constant painkillers
just to manage the ongoing effects of a completely
torn groin muscle. So I want you to just imagine
that for a second. Picture yourself trying to
sprint. jump and take high flying marks, which
for those who don't follow the sport, a mark
is when you catch a kickball cleanly out of the
air, often while jumping right over other players
just to earn a free kick. It takes incredible
athleticism. Imagine trying to do that and then
kick a ball through goalposts with pinpoint accuracy
while battling chronic asthma, dealing with a
torn groin and carrying 240 pounds of weight.
It completely defies logic. What's fascinating
here is how Lockett succeeded despite these immense
physical hurdles. It proves that his success
wasn't just a product of brute force, even though
he clearly had plenty of that. It points to an
incredibly high footy IQ. Yeah, his spatial awareness.
Exactly. He had an innate, almost genius level
understanding of the game's geometry, its timing
and positioning. Walk us through what that actually
looks like on the field. Like how does geometry
beat fitness? Well, he couldn't outrun the lighter,
fitter defenders over a long distance. So his
leading patterns, those short, explosive sprints
he'd make to get open to catch the ball, were
elite. He knew exactly where to go. He knew exactly
when to push off a defender at the exact millisecond
the ball was kicked. He used his massive body
to protect the drop zone of the ball so literally
no one else could reach it. Like a basketball
player boxing out for a rebound. Very much like
that. And his hands were incredibly safe. He
rarely dropped a catch, and his kicking technique
was just flawless. So he used his size to create
the space, but the execution of the mark and
the goal, that was pure, unadulterated skill.
And that sheer will and skill were desperately
needed when he arrived at the St. Kilda Football
Club in 1983, because this was a franchise that
was truly in the doldrums. They were struggling.
Big time. St. Kilda finished at the absolute
bottom of the ladder, which just means dead last
in the league standings for Lockett's first four
years. And here comes this teenager from Ballarat,
constantly homesick, suddenly thrust into the
spotlight in Melbourne. But he made an immediate
splash. He did. He made his senior debut in round
four against Geelong. The Saints lost the game,
but Lockett joined a very special, exclusive
club. He kicked a goal with his very first kick
in elite professional football. Which is just
an incredible way to start a career, but he wasn't
even supposed to be the main guy initially. Right.
The context of his early years at St. Kilda is
vital here. He was originally supposed to be
the understudy to a player named Mark Jackson.
Oh, Jack. Yes, who was an incredibly enigmatic
and eccentric full four himself. But when Jackson
was sacked midseason, The teenage Lockett was
suddenly handed the keys to the forward line.
He finished that first season with 19 goals in
12 games. Not bad for a rookie. From that point
on, he essentially became the man on whose shoulders
the entire club's fortunes depended. The psychology
of that is staggering. If Lockett played well,
St. Kilda had a chance. If he didn't, they were
almost guaranteed to lose. The pressure must
have been immense. But he absolutely delivered.
I was reading through the stats and I kept getting
stuck on the 1991 season. Can you explain what
happened there? Because the numbers seriously
look like a typo. The 1991 season is arguably
one of the greatest individual stretches in the
sports history. Early in the year, during a preseason
match, Lockett gets kneed in the lower back in
a severe collision. Ouch. He's sent to the hospital
and the medical staff initially misdiagnosed
it as a badly bruised back. But it wasn't just
a bruise. No. It turns out to be a cracked vertebra,
a fractured spine. That is insane. He misses
the first six rounds of the season. The team
is predictably struggling without him. Then,
in round seven against a team called Adelaide,
Lockett returns. Keep in mind, he is coming off
a cracked vertebra. Right. He kicks a goal from
the opening bounds. He has nine goals by halftime.
He finishes the game with 12 goals, and St. Kilda
wins by 131 points, which broke their club record.
For the greatest winning margin. That alone is
unbelievable. A dozen goals on a bad back. But
he didn't stop there. Not at all. He backed up
that spectacular return with 10 goals the following
week against the Brisbane Bears. Then the week
after that, another massive haul of 12 goals
against Sydney. So let's just do the math on
that. That is 34 goals in just three games. Coming
off a cracked vertebrae. It's like someone playing
a video game on the easiest setting. It really
is. But as incredible as those highs were, I
want to make sure we are looking at the whole
picture here, because the history is very clear
that Lockett played a deeply aggressive, intensely
physical brand of football, and it got him into
a lot of trouble. It absolutely did. And we need
to report on this aspect of his career impartially,
looking strictly at the record. Lockett was not
afraid. to use his massive size and strength
to completely unsettle opponents. However, that
sheer aggression frequently crossed the line
of the rules, resulting in him being reported
for striking and rough conduct time and time
again. Over the course of his career, Lockett
appeared before the AFL Tribunal, which is the
league's disciplinary sports court, 16 times.
He was suspended for a total of 23 matches. Hold
on. 23 suspended matches. That is more than a
full season of football just sitting on the sidelines
in street clothes. It makes you wonder, with
stats like that, was he just a brilliant player?
Or was he also somewhat of a bully who used his
size to hurt smaller people? Well, that is the
central debate of his legacy. His defenders argue
that as a massive forward, defenders were constantly
grabbing, scratching, and illegally blocking
him all game, and he just had to fight back just
to play the sport. Which makes sense. But his
detractors point to the sheer damage he inflicted.
And there is one incident from 1994 that really
stands out regarding that damage. It involved
a player named Peter Kaven. Yes, this is a highly
controversial moment. Yeah. St. Kilda was playing
Sydney at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Kaven, who
was a Swans defender, was sprinting backward
with the flight of the ball to take a mark. Lockett
was charging toward the ball from the opposite
direction. And the collision was absolutely brutal.
It was. The footage shows Lockett appearing to
hit Kaven directly in the face with a raised
elbow as they met. The impact knocked Kaven completely
unconscious. He suffered a compound fracture
of his nose and had to be immediately taken to
the hospital for surgery. And he missed 12 weeks
of football. Wow. Lockett pleaded not guilty
at the tribunal. He stated that he only saw Kaven
a split second before impact and raised his elbow
instinctively in self -defense to protect himself
from the crash. Because they were both running
full speed. Exactly. But regardless of intent,
the tribunal found him guilty of striking and
suspended him for eight weeks. It is a stark
reminder of the duality of his career. He was
undeniably a hero to his supporters, but the
sheer force he brought to the game had very real,
sometimes devastating consequences. And that
duality, that tension, extended off the field
as well. Very much so. Particularly with the
media, he was fiercely private. He hated the
intense fishbowl attention that came with being
a superstar in Victoria, which is essentially
the epicenter of the Australian rules football
universe. And this brings us to a famously bizarre
incident in 1988. that perfectly encapsulates
that tension. Lockett was at the Mercy Private
Hospital with his father, getting treatment for
a serious ankle injury. Right. What he didn't
know is that the St. Kilda Club officials had
actually tipped off the media, but they hadn't
bothered to tell Lockett they were going to be
there. Unbelievable. So Lockett walks out of
the hospital, he is in pain, he is on crutches,
and suddenly he is ambushed by flashing cameras
and microphones. Just a wall of press. And one
of the reporters shoving a mic in his face happens
to be a young Eddie McGuire, who would go on
to become one of the biggest media moguls in
Australia. Lockett, caught totally by surprise
and just furious at the intrusion, literally
hurls both of his heavy metal crutches. Both
of them. Directly at the cameraman. He just wanted
to play football and be left alone. Which, of
course, was an impossible request for someone
kicking that many goals in Melbourne. The media
mocked his weight. They analyzed his temperament
and they stalked his private life. It had to
be exhausting. This immense psychological toll
makes his eventual departure from Victoria all
the more significant. Right. And that takes us
to 1995, the big move. After 183 games and 898
goals for St. Kilda, Lockett transfers to the
Sydney Swans. If we connect this to the bitter
picture, the historical context of this transfer
is monumental. To understand the Sydney Swans
situation at the time, you have to understand
the cultural divide in Australian sports. It's
totally different up there. Melbourne is obsessed
with Australian rules football. Sydney is the
absolute heartland of a completely different
sport, rugby league. To put that into perspective
for a global audience, trying to sell Australian
rules football in Sydney in the early 90s was
a bit like trying to sell ice hockey in rural
Texas. That's a great comparison. The locals
just didn't care. It wasn't their game. Exactly.
The Swans were in dire straits. They had finished
at the absolute bottom of the ladder in 1994,
winning only one game. One game all year. But
more importantly, they were financially struggling
to survive. Lockett wasn't just brought in to
score goals. He was brought in to save the franchise's
relevance. He had to be so exceptionally entertaining
that he forced a hostile, indifferent city to
actually look at him. They needed a spectacle.
Here's where it gets really interesting because
he delivered immediately. I mean, he forced them
to pay attention. In 1995, he played a game against
Fitzroy and kicked 16 straight goals. No misses,
no minor scores, just 16 direct goals. But the
ultimate Hollywood script moment happened the
following year in the 1996 preliminary final
against Essendon. This is the moment that cemented
his legend in Sydney forever. So paint the picture.
The scores are dead tied. The final siren sounds
to end the game. Lockett has the ball. He has
a set shot, a free kick after the siren. If he
scores, the Sydney Swans go to their first grand
final since they relocated to the city decades
earlier. If he misses, they go into extra time.
And everyone is watching. Now, for those who
don't know the scoring system, if you kick the
ball cleanly between the two massive center posts,
you get six points. If you miss slightly and
it goes between the outer posts, you get one
point. And he was dealing with a severe groin
injury at the time. He could barely walk, let
alone kick from a distance. He limps up, kicks
the ball, and he misses the main goals. He kicks
a point. But that single point is all they needed.
They win by one point after the siren. It's one
of the most famous tension -filled moments in
sports history. That single kick essentially
justified his entire massive contract. It galvanized
the city of Sydney behind the team. And with
that success came a level of popularity that
bordered on the surreal. The intensely private,
media -hating kid from Ballarat became an absolute
cult figure in a city of millions. The plugger
cult was unbelievable. You had the release of
a hit song called One Tony Lockett, performed
by James Freud, sung to the tune of Guantanamera.
You had tens of thousands of Sydneysiders who
barely knew the rules of the game a year prior
singing this in the stands. But the most bizarre
artifact of this cult status actually happened
a bit earlier, in 1993, before he even officially
joined Sydney. he was still playing for St. Kilda.
Yes, the pig. You have to tell this story. So
St. Kilda was playing the Swans at the Sydney
Cricket Ground out of nowhere. A fan somehow
manages to smuggle a live piglet into the stadium
and releases it right onto the field during the
game. A live piglet. The piglet has the word
pliga spelled out in spray paint on its side,
along with Lockett's playing number four. The
television commentator Sandy Roberts famously
yells on the broadcast, there's a pig at full
forward. The sheer absurdity of sneaking livestock
into a professional sporting event is funny enough,
but the irony makes it legendary. The irony is
that Tony Lockett wasn't even playing that. He
wasn't there. He was back in Melbourne, out with
an injury. The fan who planned the prank apparently
just decided, well, I brought the pig, I might
as well release it anyway. It perfectly demonstrates
how large his mythos had grown. He was a massive,
chaotic presence even when he wasn't physically
in the stadium. But the crowning achievement
of his time in Sydney and his career as a whole
came in 1999. The record. Yes. The all -time
goal -kicking record of 1 ,299 goals had been
set by a player named Gordon Coventry 62 years
prior. It was a record many experts thought would
literally never be broken. because modern defenses
were just too sophisticated. But at the SCG in
1999, Lockett kicked his 1300th goal. And the
crowd absolutely lost their minds. It sparked
one of the biggest pitch invasions in the history
of Australian rules football. Thousands upon
thousands of fans stormed the field, halting
the game just to surround him and touch him.
An incredible scene. He eventually finished his
career with 1360 goals from 281 games. That is
an average of almost five goals every single
time he stepped onto a football field over a
16 -year career. It's staggering. But following
that absolute pinnacle, the way he transitioned
into retirement is just as telling as his playing
career. The man who had been the center of the
Australian sporting universe immediately retreated
back to total anonymity. Exactly. He moved to
a rural property near Barrow in the southern
highlands of New South Wales with his wife and
four daughters. He explicitly said in interviews
later that he hadn't become a recluse. He was
just genuinely enjoying the quiet rural life
away from the Victorian media circus that had
tormented his early years. He finally got some
peace. But getting out of the spotlight seemed
to finally let him relax. It really did. The
fiercely guarded, crutch -throwing player gave
way to a much more relaxed, almost jovial public
figure, though he still only engaged on his own,
very strict terms. And we started seeing him
pop up in places you'd never expect, embracing
some incredibly surprising hobbies. We mentioned
his grandfather, Charlie, earlier, and Tony clearly
kept that family passion alive because he became
a massive Greyhound racing fan and owner. That
makes sense. But even wilder than that, he started
competing in the Finco Desert Race. Which is
insane. For those who don't know, this is a notoriously
grueling, high -speed, multi -day off -road race
through the harsh Australian outback. Lockett
competed in the Open... in motorcycle class,
riding a KTM 500 EXC dirt bike well into his
late 40s and early 50s. Which is a remarkable
physical feat in itself. When you consider the
immense toll his football career took on his
joints and his back, to then willingly subject
yourself to the punishment of a desert rally
race shows a truly unique competitive drive.
He just couldn't sit still. Yeah. And then there
were his rare television appearances. He did
ads for advanced hair and memorably for Lowe's
menswear in Sydney. Oh, the Lowe's commercial.
There is this hilarious anecdote from a teeping
session for one of those Lowe's commercials.
Lockett gets into a friendly wrestle on set with
a guy named Adrian Mueller, who was a former
rugby player working for Lowe's. Now, Mueller
happened to be a highly trained expert in Krav
Maga, the Israeli military. defense system that's
the one you want to mess with exactly but according
to the reports this friendly wrestle got a little
competitive and locket the retired heavy set
ex -footballer with bad joints ended up easily
pinning the krav maga expert directly to the
ground you just can't teach that kind of natural
leverage you really can't so what does this all
mean we have a man who deeply hated the spotlight
but somehow commanded the biggest stage in the
country a player with chronic asthma bad joints
and constant To synthesize everything we've looked
at today, Tony Lockett was the ultimate walking
contradiction. He was an intensely private, media
-shy man who inadvertently became the biggest
sporting spectacle in the nation. Totally. He
was a physically compromised athlete who dominated
not just through brute force and presence, but
through unmatched, delicate, geometrical skill.
And perhaps most importantly, he was the literal
savior of two completely separate football clubs.
And that is the big takeaway for you as a listener
today. Lockett's story isn't just about compiling
big statistics. It is a testament to how singular,
raw talent, when it is deployed in exactly the
right environment, can entirely shift a cultural
landscape. He changed the game. He made Australian
rules football viable and profitable in Sydney,
a city that previously could not have cared less.
That is a legacy that goes far beyond a trophy
cabinet. It outlasts even his 1 ,360 goals. He
literally expanded the geographic and cultural
map of his sport. This raises an important question
for you to think about long after we sign off
today. When you look at today's era of highly
sanitized, media -trained, hyper -optimized athletes
with their teams of sports scientists, dietitians,
and carefully curated social media presences.
The modern machine. Exactly. Could a figure like
Tony Lockett a heavy -set, aggressively physical,
media -hating player with chronic asthma ever
exist, let alone dominate, in modern professional
sports? That is a brilliant question to ponder,
because athletes like him really do break the
mold, and I'm not sure we'll ever see anyone
like him again. A massive thank you for joining
us on this deep dive into the life, the stats,
and the legend of Plugger. Keep asking questions,
keep looking past the box scores, and above all,
stay insanely curious. We will catch you next
time.