Brendon Lade (born 10 July 1976) is a former

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

er with the

Port Adelaide Football Club Port Adelaide Football Club is a professional Australian rules football club based in Alberton, South Australia, Alberton, South Australia. The club's senior men's team plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), where they are nicknamed ...

in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL). He is currently a senior assistant coach with the Western Bulldogs Football Club.

AFL career

Early career (1992–1999)

Lade was born on Kangaroo Island and grew up playing football for the local Western Districts Football Club, where his father coached the A grade side. At the age of 8 Lade moved to the Wisanger Football Club, where he played the remainder of his football until he turned 16. Able to play as both a relieving ruckman and forward, Lade played for South Australian National Football League club South Adelaide before his recruitment to Port Adelaide in the lead up to their inaugural season in the AFL in 1997. Lade made his senior AFL debut for Port Adelaide in Round 1,

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

, Port Adelaide's debut AFL match.

Injury (2000–2001)

Lade missed just one game in his first three years, before he suffered a serious leg injury in Round 2 of

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

which sidelined him for the rest of the season and also caused him to miss the entire

2001 AFL season The 2001 AFL season was the 105th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured six ...

after a re-injury. However, he recovered from these injuries to become one of the best ruckmen in the league.

Career high (2004–2009)

Brendon Lade and Stefan Martin ruck contest, Melb

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

Lade had a great year, leading the club's hitouts statistics in the absence of injured Port Adelaide ruckman Matthew Primus, finishing second in the goalkicking to Warren Tredrea, and capping it off with a premiership medal when Port Adelaide won its first AFL premiership, defeating the Brisbane Lions. In

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

Lade won All-Australian selection and also took out the John Cahill Medal, Port Adelaide's Best and Fairest. In

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

Lade continued his career-best form, winning another All-Australia selection, and earning a rare 2 year contract with the Power at 31 years old. Lade retired at the end of the 2009 season. He and team-mate Peter Burgoyne, the last remaining members of Port Adelaide's inaugural AFL team, both played their final games in Round 22, 2009.

Coaching career (2010–present)

After ending his 234-game AFL career in 2009, Lade immediately joined

Richmond Football Club The Richmond Football Club, nicknamed the Tigers, is an Australian rules football team playing in the Australian Football League (AFL). Between its inception in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond in 1885 and 1907, the club competed in the Victo ...

to become the ruck coach, joining former Port Adelaide teammate Damien Hardwick, Richmond's senior coach. He later became the midfield stoppage coach, and held this position until the end of 2016, after which he returned to Port Adelaide as an assistant coach for the

2017 AFL season The 2017 AFL season was the 121st season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior men's Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season feature ...

. At the end of the 2018 season, Lade returned to Melbourne to become the senior assistant coach for

St Kilda Football Club The St Kilda Football Club, nicknamed the Saints, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Victoria. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier league. The club ...

after two seasons as an assistant with Port Adelaide. During the 2022 season, Lade temporarily stepped into the senior coaching chair with St Kilda senior coach Brett Ratten missing due to COVID, leading the Saints to a win over Gold Coast in Round 5. At the end of the 2022 season, Lade joined the Western Bulldogs as an assistant coach.

Statistics

: , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, , 20 , , 22 , , 14 , , 12 , , 156 , , 76 , , 232 , , 98 , , 16 , , 171 , , 0.6 , , 0.5 , , 7.1 , , 3.5 , , 10.5 , , 4.5 , , 0.7 , , 7.8 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

, , 20 , , 22 , , 20 , , 14 , , 182 , , 97 , , 279 , , 115 , , 28 , , 239 , , 0.9 , , 0.6 , , 8.3 , , 4.4 , , 12.7 , , 5.2 , , 1.3 , , 10.9 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

, , 20 , , 21 , , 10 , , 8 , , 167 , , 93 , , 260 , , 100 , , 11 , , 325 , , 0.5 , , 0.4 , , 8.0 , , 4.4 , , 12.4 , , 4.8 , , 0.5 , , 15.5 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, , 20 , , 2 , , 0 , , 1 , , 3 , , 3 , , 6 , , 3 , , 0 , , 11 , , 0.0 , , 0.5 , , 1.5 , , 1.5 , , 3.0 , , 1.5 , , 0.0 , , 5.5 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

, , 20 , , 0 , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

, , 5 , , 14 , , 12 , , 6 , , 57 , , 25 , , 82 , , 33 , , 8 , , 139 , , 0.9 , , 0.4 , , 4.1 , , 1.8 , , 5.9 , , 2.4 , , 0.6 , , 9.9 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

, , 5 , , 19 , , 12 , , 4 , , 129 , , 77 , , 206 , , 90 , , 25 , , 272 , , 0.6 , , 0.2 , , 6.8 , , 4.1 , , 10.8 , , 4.7 , , 1.3 , , 14.3 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, , 5 , , 24 , , 31 , , 10 , , 156 , , 120 , , 276 , , 110 , , 41 , , 382 , , 1.3 , , 0.4 , , 6.5 , , 5.0 , , 11.5 , , 4.6 , , 1.7 , , 15.9 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

, , 5 , , 24 , , 24 , , 15 , , 160 , , 98 , , 258 , , 112 , , 27 , , 306 , , 1.0 , , 0.6 , , 6.7 , , 4.1 , , 10.8 , , 4.7 , , 1.1 , , 12.8 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, , 5 , , 22 , , 18 , , 12 , , 253 , , 102 , , 355 , , 187 , , 32 , , 436 , , 0.8 , , 0.5 , , 11.5 , , 4.6 , , 16.1 , , 8.5 , , 1.5 , , 19.8 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, , 5 , , 25 , , 15 , , 5 , , 207 , , 102 , , 309 , , 131 , , 37 , , 517 , , 0.6 , , 0.2 , , 8.3 , , 4.1 , , 12.4 , , 5.2 , , 1.5 , , 20.7 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, , 5 , , 17 , , 10 , , 12 , , 121 , , 73 , , 194 , , 91 , , 25 , , 349 , , 0.6 , , 0.7 , , 7.1 , , 4.3 , , 11.4 , , 5.4 , , 1.5 , , 20.5 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

, , 5 , , 22 , , 16 , , 7 , , 142 , , 70 , , 212 , , 97 , , 24 , , 395 , , 0.7 , , 0.3 , , 6.5 , , 3.2 , , 9.6 , , 4.4 , , 1.1 , , 18.0 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 234 ! 182 ! 106 ! 1733 ! 936 ! 2669 ! 1167 ! 274 ! 3542 ! 0.8 ! 0.5 ! 7.4 ! 4.0 ! 11.4 ! 5.0 ! 1.2 ! 15.1

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lade, Brendon 1976 births Living people All-Australians (AFL) Australian rules footballers from South Australia Port Adelaide Football Club players Port Adelaide Football Club Premiership players Port Adelaide Football Club players (all competitions) John Cahill Medal winners South Adelaide Football Club players People from Kangaroo Island, South Australia One-time VFL/AFL Premiership players