Brady Rawlings Life Membership Speech
Brent Harvey Medal Presentation
Brent Harvey and Shannon Grant IV's
Adam Simpson Speech
Shannon Grant Retirement Speech
Jess Sinclair Retirement Speech
Dean Laidley Speech
HAVING played his entire career with Brent Harvey, Brady Rawlings is a fair judge of the four-time Syd Barker Medallist’s impact on the game, his club and his teammates.

Rawlings polled 671 votes to finish third to Harvey (759) and Drew Petrie (731) in Friday night’s count, and believes “it would have felt a bit wrong if Boomer didn’t win it”.

“He’s such a champion and you see some of the games he wins for us and he does it year in, year out and it’s just such an honour to play with him,” he said.

“You love having him in your side.”

Harvey was North’s stand-out player of 2008, its sole All-Australian, but Petrie’s rich vein of form from the halfway mark of the season saw the big man hold a narrow lead after 16 rounds.

“He was a special player this year, that’s for sure,” Rawlings said of Petrie. “He stood up in big games, took big grabs, [he was] tough.

“Just everything that I think North Melbourne encapsulates, I think Drew Petrie’s got it all. I loved seeing him come second tonight, I knew Boomer would win it but I was pretty happy to see Drew come second because he puts everything into his footy and you wouldn’t see a more professional bloke.”

But Rawlings, who was awarded life membership at the function, reserved special praise for 30-year-old Harvey.

“I’ve pretty much played every game of my career with Boomer,” he said. “When you speak about greats of the club, when you speak back to the past, it’s hard to know what those players were like.

“You can only read their credentials and that sort of thing, but I can’t see how many people could [overlook] Brent Harvey.

“I’ve been joking with him for the last year or two that he’ll play until he’s 36 or 37. He just loves footy with an absolute passion, he’s professional, does everything right and is in career-best form at 30.

“I think he can play for a lot more years to come.”

Harvey became the fourth player in North Melbourne’s history to win four Syd Barker Medals, joining Noel Teasdale, David Dench and Wayne Carey.