WA Football Hall of Fame: Matthew Pavlich gets worthy honour after glittering Fremantle Dockers career

Curiosity set Matthew Pavlich apart from his peers and it was the eventual expiry of that trait that told the Fremantle games record-holder and multiple All-Australian that his time in football was up. “I was always curious about getting better and curious about how the team would find ways to improve,” Pavlich said. “Curiosity about how to be elite and excellent was the thing that drove me. “When we had been through our cycle as a team and that had started to wane, my curiosity and motivation also started to wane. “That is why you have to respect those players who keep going on and on when they are not going to feature in finals. “It is an admirable trait to keep fronting up and applying yourself mentally week in and week out.” Pavlich’s capacity to apply himself week in and week out for the best part of two decades underpinned his longevity in the game that saw him become the first WA-based AFL player to reach 300 games. MORE WA FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME: He also travelled 855,000km to play – or to the moon and back with plenty left over – and has now flown into the WA Football Hall of Fame in the first induction for which he is eligible. Pavlich and three other WA greats, including commentator Dennis Cometti and champion rover Jim Krakouer, will be inducted into the hall of fame during a joint function with the centenary Sandover Medal count on September 28. “The past and the present coming together,” Pavlich said. “I like it.” There might have been more brilliant players appear for Fremantle – Nat Fyfe has won two Brownlow medals after all – but there has surely not been a better prepared nor more versatile footballer ply his trade in the State in the modern era. Pavlich was selected as an All-Australian at full-back, full-forward, centre-half forward, on a half-forward flank and several times on the interchange bench when he was clearly among the best 22 footballers in the country but had no clear best position. Pavlich will join former teammates Peter Bell and Paul Hasleby as the third Fremantle alumni in the hall of fame and said he appreciated the significance of the honour. “I am a great traditionalist and I love looking back at great players and great people within our game,” he said. “I have always had a keen eye on history, no matter whether it was growing up in South Australian and looking at the VFL or AFL or now looking at WA. “To be recognised in this company is a great privilege and a serious honour.” Pavlich mirrored previous hall of fame luminary Chris Judd in playing one WAFL match before forging a brilliant AFL career. “South Fremantle seems such a long time ago,” he said. “I remember that game well because I played at centre-half forward alongside Travis Gaspar and Peter Sumich was the coach. “Although I played my role, I didn’t fire too many shots but I must have showed enough to be the travelling emergency thereafter and pretty quickly got my way into an AFL side.”