Brad Ottens (born 25 January 1980) is a former professional

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 who played for the

Geelong Football Club The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition, and are the 2022 ...

and

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 ...

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).

AFL career

Richmond: 1998–2004

Selected at pick 2 in the 1997 AFL Draft, Ottens rose to prominence at

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

as a strong overhead marker, with an accurate and long kick for goal. He was also a part-time ruckman. However a season ending ACL knee injury (and reconstruction) posed a major setback to his career. In subsequent years he struggled to regain his form. He kicked 47 of his goals in 2001 for Richmond

Geelong: 2005–2011

In search of a ruckman and key forward target,

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...

picked up Ottens in a trade for the 2005 season. After debuting in Round 1, and becoming the one thousandth player to play a game for Geelong, he again struggled to have a major impact in the first year at his new club. He was the subject of an infamous post-match press conference by Mark Thompson in 2005. Here Thompson defended Ottens by saying "For some silly reason, you people want to assassinate him. It's just rubbish. You people, all of you, ALL OF YOU, leave him alone!" Some see it as a defining moment for Brad. Since then Ottens has been Geelong's preferred first ruckman. In 2006 Ottens showed signs of improvement, particularly in the ruck. He also took the

Mark of the Year The annual Australian Football League Mark of the Year competition (currently also known as the Four'N Twenty AFL Mark of the Year) is a sporting award that celebrates each season's best mark. A mark is the action of a player cleanly catchin ...

in round 5 against Sydney. He played all 22 games 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 ...

. The week after Geelong's exit from the 2006 AFL season, Ottens was involved in a drink driving incident which saw him have his licence cancelled for 11 months. 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 ...

Ottens was in near career best form. He played a majority of the season as Geelong's main ruckman rather than as a forward where he had played mostly since joining the club. During the Cats' five-point preliminary final win against Collingwood Ottens was voted best-on-ground after giving a game-winning performance in the ruck. The following week he capped off a stellar season, among the best players in his side's record breaking

grand final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final (sometimes colloquially abbreviated to "grannie") is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Sy ...

victory over

Port Adelaide Port Adelaide is a port-side region of Adelaide, approximately northwest of the Adelaide CBD. It is also the namesake of the City of Port Adelaide Enfield council, a suburb, a federal and state electoral division and is the main port for the ...

. He noted that it was the highlight of his career. Despite missing most of 2009 with injuries, Ottens made a late comeback and played in another Geelong premiership side. An injury interrupted season in 2010 resulted in a muted effort for the club's disappointing

2010 AFL finals series The Australian Football League's 2010 AFL finals series, finals series determined the top eight final positions of the 2010 AFL season. The series was scheduled to occur over four weekends in September 2010, culminating with the 2010 AFL Grand F ...

. In the

2011 AFL season The 2011 AFL season was the 115th 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 s ...

a relatively injury free Ottens had led to him being able to improve his output on recent years. He retired at the end of the 2011 season.

Statistics

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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 ...

, , 5 , , 12 , , 2 , , 2 , , 30 , , 33 , , 63 , , 29 , , 5 , , 70 , , 0.2 , , 0.2 , , 2.5 , , 2.8 , , 5.3 , , 2.4 , , 0.4 , , 5.8 , - ! 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 ...

, , 5 , , 22 , , 21 , , 15 , , 110 , , 96 , , 206 , , 82 , , 9 , , 266 , , 1.0 , , 0.7 , , 5.0 , , 4.4 , , 9.4 , , 3.7 , , 0.4 , , 12.1 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

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 ...

, , 5 , , 21 , , 30 , , 12 , , 174 , , 113 , , 287 , , 117 , , 20 , , 317 , , 1.4 , , 0.6 , , 8.3 , , 5.4 , , 13.7 , , 5.6 , , 1.0 , , 15.1 , - ! 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 ...

, , 5 , , 24 , , 46 , , 21 , , 230 , , 124 , , 354 , , 166 , , 44 , , 321 , , 1.9 , , 0.9 , , 9.6 , , 5.2 , , 14.8 , , 6.9 , , 1.8 , , 13.4 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! 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 , , 20 , , 27 , , 16 , , 160 , , 114 , , 274 , , 102 , , 41 , , 377 , , 1.4 , , 0.8 , , 8.0 , , 5.7 , , 13.7 , , 5.1 , , 2.1 , , 18.9 , - ! 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 , , 12 , , 10 , , 5 , , 90 , , 93 , , 183 , , 71 , , 34 , , 240 , , 0.8 , , 0.4 , , 7.5 , , 7.8 , , 15.3 , , 5.9 , , 2.8 , , 20.0 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

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 ...

, , 5 , , 18 , , 16 , , 8 , , 102 , , 129 , , 231 , , 99 , , 38 , , 424 , , 0.9 , , 0.4 , , 5.7 , , 7.2 , , 12.8 , , 5.5 , , 2.1 , , 23.6 , - ! 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 ...

, , 6 , , 15 , , 23 , , 12 , , 81 , , 88 , , 169 , , 69 , , 29 , , 172 , , 1.5 , , 0.8 , , 5.4 , , 5.9 , , 11.3 , , 4.6 , , 1.9 , , 11.5 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, , 6 , , 22 , , 26 , , 20 , , 139 , , 104 , , 243 , , 104 , , 45 , , 319 , , 1.2 , , 0.9 , , 6.3 , , 4.7 , , 11.0 , , 4.7 , , 2.0 , , 14.5 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, , 6 , , 22 , , 21 , , 16 , , 133 , , 163 , , 296 , , 115 , , 69 , , 417 , , 1.0 , , 0.7 , , 6.0 , , 7.4 , , 13.5 , , 5.2 , , 3.1 , , 19.0 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! 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; ...

, , 6 , , 16 , , 14 , , 8 , , 73 , , 136 , , 209 , , 72 , , 52 , , 325 , , 0.9 , , 0.5 , , 4.6 , , 8.5 , , 13.1 , , 4.5 , , 3.3 , , 20.3 , - ! 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 ...

, , 6 , , 6 , , 2 , , 5 , , 28 , , 38 , , 66 , , 21 , , 21 , , 89 , , 0.3 , , 0.8 , , 4.7 , , 6.3 , , 11.0 , , 3.5 , , 3.5 , , 14.8 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

, , 6 , , 15 , , 8 , , 5 , , 40 , , 123 , , 163 , , 40 , , 54 , , 298 , , 0.5 , , 0.3 , , 2.7 , , 8.2 , , 10.9 , , 2.7 , , 3.6 , , 19.9 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

, , 6 , , 20 , , 15 , , 9 , , 87 , , 183 , , 270 , , 73 , , 70 , , 500 , , 0.8 , , 0.5 , , 4.4 , , 9.2 , , 13.5 , , 3.7 , , 3.5 , , 25.0 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 245 ! 261 ! 154 ! 1477 ! 1537 ! 3014 ! 1160 ! 531 ! 4135 ! 1.1 ! 0.6 ! 6.0 ! 6.3 ! 12.3 ! 4.7 ! 2.2 ! 16.9

Tribunal history

; ''Key:'' * PS – Pre-season competition * EF – Elimination final * QF – Qualifying final * SF – Semi-final * PF – Preliminary final * GF – Grand final

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ottens, Brad Geelong Football Club players Geelong Football Club Premiership players Richmond Football Club players 1980 births Living people All-Australians (AFL) Glenelg Football Club players Australian rules footballers from South Australia Australia international rules football team players People educated at Immanuel College, Adelaide Three-time VFL/AFL Premiership players