DARREN MEAD was a football warrior and a loyal Port Adelaide servant. As loyal as they get. A 100-game player for the club in the SANFL and AFL who twice resisted the temptation of rival AFL clubs in the prime of his career to stay at Alberton.

He typifies what Port Adelaide is all about. And 21 years ago he claimed a unique place in club history as the inaugural winner of the John Cahill Medal.

Remarkably, while Mead was the last player signed to the inaugural Port Adelaide AFL playing list, he was the first player to play 100 AFL games for the Power.

At 26, after playing every game in the club’s first AFL season in 1997, the 193cm centre half back beat Matthew Primus for the very special first AFL club champion award, the John Cahill Medal.

Stephen Paxman and Michael Wilson shared third spot, with Shane Bond, Brayden Lyle and Adam Heuskes equal fifth and David Brown and Brendon Lade equal ninth to complete the inaugural top 10.

Among 179 players on the all-time Port Adelaide AFL playing list, 14 have won the club’s highest individual honor.

Warren Tredrea and Kane Cornes have won four each and Robbie Gray three. And there have been 11 one-time winners - Mead, Adam Kingsley, Paxman, Brett Montgomery, Matthew Primus, Gavin Wanganeen, Brendon Lade, Travis Boak, Jackson Trengove, Chad Wingard, and Paddy Ryder.

Montgomery, set to rejoin the club next season as an assistant coach, is the only player to have won the Port club championship in his first season at Alberton. He did so in 2000 after playing his first three years in the AFL with the Western Bulldogs.

Who will it be in 2018?

In 21 years, there has been one almost infallible pointer to the likely winner.

Only once in that time has the club champion missed more than one game.

Fifteen times the winner has played every game, and six times the winner has played all but one.

The exception was Robbie Gray. He won his third consecutive John Cahill Medal in 2016 when he played only 19 of 22 games. And he still won comfortably enough, polling 230 votes to beat Ollie Wines (206) and Jasper Pittard (190).

But if playing every game, or every game but one, is a guide, then contenders in 2018 will be captain Travis Boak, vice-captain Ollie Wines, Brad Ebert, Dan Houston, Jared Polec and Justin Westhoff (22 games) and Darcy Byrne-Jones, Robbie Gray, Steven Motlop and Chad Wingard (21 games).

Interestingly, only four times has the player who has topped the Port vote in the Brownlow Medal also won the Cahill Medal - Wanganeen in 2003, Tredrea in 2005, Lade in 2006 and Robbie Gray in 2016.

In the early days, the Brownlow was anything but a guide. Mead polled three Brownlow votes when he won in 1997, and was followed by Kingsley and Paxman, who did not poll a vote in 1998-99, and Brett Montgomery, who polled only one vote in 2000.

In fact, even in more recent years, Jackson Trengove did not poll a Brownlow vote in 2011 when he shared the club championship with Travis Boak, who polled four votes.

All-Australian selection has been a mixed pointer to the Port club championship.

Among Port’s 26 All-Australians and four All-Australian squad members, 10 have won the club championship - Tredrea and Robbie Gray (twice), Primus, Wanganeen, Lade, Kane Cornes, Wingard and Ryder.

Sixteen of the other 20 have finished top five in the club championship and three finished top 10.

Only once has a Port All-Australian choice missed the top 10 in the Cahill Medal- Lade in 2007.

On that basis, Robbie Gray and Jonas, members of the 2018 All-Australian squad before they missed the final 22, will be right in the mix.

The top 10 last year were Ryder, Dixon, Jonas, Robbie Gray, Brad Ebert, Wines, Sam Gray, Wingard, Boak and Westhoff.

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