Brett Montgomery (born 1 June 1973) is a retired

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 ...

player and current assistant coach 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 ...

Early life

Montgomery, known as "Monty", was originally recruited from South Croydon, and was recruited by Essendon Football Club (U19's & reserves) but was dropped from their list in 1991. Montgomery was also a talented cricketer, and had captained the under-19s Victorian team. In 1992 and 1993 he played club cricket in the Durham League and Middlesex League in England, before returning to Australia to refresh his

career. He played with VFL side Springvale, playing in a premiership, then being picked up by Footscray, on their supplementary list. He won their reserves

best and fairest In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

, and finally at the end of 1996 was recruited to the Bulldogs' senior list (who had, by the time Montgomery first played in 1997, changed their name to the

Western Bulldogs The Western Bulldogs are a professional Australian rules football team that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition. Founded in 1877 as the Footscray Football Club, and based in West Footscray in the o ...

) for his chance to play at

AFL AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

level. 'Monty' is married to Terri Montgomery and has four children, Owen, Harper, Louie and Willow Montgomery.

AFL career

Western Bulldogs career (1997–1999)

He made his AFL debut in Round 2, 1997, beginning his career at the relatively late age of 23. He quickly adapted to AFL level, becoming a consistent and highly skilled half-back or running defender.

Port Adelaide career (2000–2005)

After 3 seasons at the Bulldogs, he was traded to the

, where he won the

John Cahill Medal The John Cahill Medal, named after the Port Adelaide Football Club's ten time premiership coach and inaugural AFL coach John Cahill, is awarded to the club player adjudged best and fairest for the season. The voting system as of the 2017 AFL ...

in his first season there in 2000. He won

All-Australian The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules football in Australia, Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-perf ...

selection in 2002, also playing in the

International Rules International rules football ( ga, Peil na rialacha idirnáisiunta; also known as international rules in Australia and compromise rules or Aussie rules in Ireland) is a team sport consisting of a hybrid of football codes, which was developed ...

series of that year. Montgomery won a premiership medallion when his team won the 2004

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 ...

to win their first premiership in the

, capping off another solid season. In 2005, despite another strong year and finishing 6th in the

, Montgomery was delisted by

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 ...

coach Mark Williams, citing a focus on youth in the club's rebuilding phase. But he wasn't keen on retiring. He had only played 9 seasons at the elite level.

Western Bulldogs return (2006–2007)

The

, the club he started his AFL career with, picked him up in the 2005 AFL Draft, and he became an important player in the 2006 season. In the Elimination Final win against Collingwood, he came back from a hard bump in the opening seconds from

Brodie Holland Brodie Holland (born 3 January 1980) is a former professional Australian rules footballer and model best known for his playing days at the Collingwood Football Club in the Australian Football League. Brodie Holland is also known for his med ...

and kicked an important career-best haul of four goals.

Retirement

On 25 May 2007, Montgomery announced his retirement after 204 games. He received a knock to the back area in round 1, 2007, against

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, ...

and had not played a match since. After being told that his recovery would take 6 to 18 months, he immediately announced his retirement, and has since joined ABC Local Radio as a special comments commentator. After the close of the 2007 season, Montgomery signed as an assistant coach at the

Carlton Football Club The Carlton Football Club, nicknamed the Blues, is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's top professional competition. Founded in 1864 in Carlton, an inner suburb of Mel ...

, where he assumed the role as the defence coach until the end of the 2010 AFL season. In September 2010, Montgomery made a third return to the

, this time as an assistant coach, taking over the role vacated by

Leon Cameron Leon Cameron (born 2 September 1972) is a former Australian rules footballer who is the former senior coach of the Greater Western Sydney Giants (GWS) in the Australian Football League (AFL). His AFL playing career lasted from 1990 to 2003 an ...

who defected to the

Hawthorn Football Club The Hawthorn Football Club, nicknamed the Hawks, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Mulgrave, Victoria, that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club was founded in 1902 in the inner-east suburb of Hawt ...

. In September 2018, Montgomery returned to the Port Adelaide Football Club as an assistant coach.

Playing statistics

:Brent Montgomery's player profile at AFL Tables
/ref> , - , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 10 , , 16 , , 18 , , 18 , , 139 , , 48 , , 187 , , 79 , , 15 , , 1.1 , , 1.1 , , 8.7 , , 3.0 , , 11.7 , , 4.9 , , 0.9 , - ! 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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 10 , , 21 , , 22 , , 14 , , 191 , , 128 , , 319 , , 123 , , 32 , , 1.0 , , 0.7 , , 9.1 , , 6.1 , , 15.2 , , 5.9 , , 1.5 , - 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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 10 , , 23 , , 14 , , 8 , , 195 , , 144 , , 339 , , 115 , , 27 , , 0.6 , , 0.3 , , 8.5 , , 6.3 , , 14.7 , , 5.0 , , 1.2 , - ! 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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 3 , , 22 , , 16 , , 15 , , 242 , , 148 , , 390 , , 142 , , 35 , , 0.7 , , 0.7 , , 11.0 , , 6.7 , , 17.7 , , 6.5 , , 1.6 , - 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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 3 , , 24 , , 5 , , 7 , , 229 , , 191 , , 420 , , 140 , , 37 , , 0.2 , , 0.3 , , 9.5 , , 8.0 , , 17.5 , , 5.8 , , 1.5 , - ! 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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 3 , , 24 , , 11 , , 1 , , 222 , , 164 , , 386 , , 145 , , 30 , , 0.5 , , 0.0 , , 9.3 , , 6.8 , , 16.1 , , 6.0 , , 1.3 , - 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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 3 , , 19 , , 5 , , 2 , , 162 , , 136 , , 298 , , 122 , , 26 , , 0.3 , , 0.1 , , 8.5 , , 7.2 , , 15.7 , , 6.4 , , 1.4 , - ! 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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 3 , , 14 , , 5 , , 3 , , 123 , , 110 , , 233 , , 85 , , 20 , , 0.4 , , 0.2 , , 8.8 , , 7.9 , , 16.6 , , 6.1 , , 1.4 , - 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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 3 , , 23 , , 9 , , 2 , , 208 , , 149 , , 357 , , 159 , , 35 , , 0.4 , , 0.1 , , 9.0 , , 6.5 , , 15.5 , , 6.9 , , 1.5 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 43 , , 17 , , 14 , , 7 , , 110 , , 90 , , 200 , , 77 , , 23 , , 0.8 , , 0.4 , , 6.5 , , 5.3 , , 11.8 , , 4.5 , , 1.4 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 43 , , 1 , , 0 , , 0 , , 0 , , 2 , , 2 , , 1 , , 0 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 2.0 , , 2.0 , , 1.0 , , 0.0 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 204 ! 119 ! 77 ! 1821 ! 1310 ! 3131 ! 1188 ! 280 ! 0.6 ! 0.4 ! 8.9 ! 6.4 ! 15.3 ! 5.8 ! 1.4

References

External links

Brett Montgomery's profile
at AustralianFootball.com * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Montgomery, Brett 1973 births All-Australians (AFL) John Cahill Medal winners Port Adelaide Football Club players Port Adelaide Football Club Premiership players Port Adelaide Football Club players (all competitions) Western Bulldogs players Casey Demons players Living people Australian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia) Sturt Football Club players Australia international rules football team players One-time VFL/AFL Premiership players