IF YOU love Geelong, this is the game you don’t miss.

To be there for Corey Enright’s 300th game at Simonds Stadium on Sunday is something you will always remember. I know I’ll be there, not in a work capacity, but enjoying a beer in the crowd to celebrate an amazing achievement from my old teammate.

So make sure you come and celebrate. I hope the place is sold out, because that is the least that we owe Boris as passionate Geelong people.

Boris has done it all in his career. Five-time All-Australian, triple premiership player, a future Hall of Famer, but in terms of individual accomplishments, what stands out for me is the two best and fairests he won in premiership years — 2009 and 2011.

When you consider he shared it with Gary Ablett in ’09 when Gazza also won the Brownlow and outright in 2011, it shows just how good Boris was and just how highly he is rated internally at the club.

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His career has been built on old-fashioned hard work. He definitely wasn’t the most gifted player to ever be drafted. In fact, he couldn’t hit the side of a barn with his kicking because he dropped the ball from near his ear. But Boris was always a player who was willing to do the extra work to improve.

It was a trait shared by his great mates Darren Milburn and Matthew Scarlett. When you talk about driving standards in a club, these three were always right up there.

Boris worked hard on his kicking technique and turned himself into one of the most reliable kicks in the club’s history. For the best part of 10 years, he has been ridiculously efficient by foot and has long had the reputation for being one of the best decision makers in the game.

Even watching him last Friday night against Port Adelaide with Fox Footy, we were talking on our coverage about how smart he still is. He had 16 intercepts for the game. Put simply, no one understands better than Boris when to leave his man, knowing that he is not going to be used.

That is another reason why Scarlo loved him so much.

Boris is also a super brave player, and you couldn’t count the amount of times he has stood in the hole in front of Scarlo’s leading opponent.

It took a while for me to learn that premiership teams are built from defence. Being a forward, I considered we were the matchwinners, but Bomber Thompson taught us differently.

media_camera The great man Corey Enright.

He insisted that we learnt to defend first and he desperately wanted a back six or eight that he could trust. Scarlett, Enright, Milburn, Tom Harley, Josh Hunt, then Andrew Mackie, formed the cornerstone of a stable back six for years. The relationship those boys had was amazing and once they got settled they became the most attacking backline in the comp.

Personally, I just loved when I saw Boris go near the ball, because he would invariably win it and you knew that the right decision was going to be made.

As a forward, that is what you want, a defender who is going to make a quick, smart decision that more often than not opens up the game.

He would do this while also shutting down the best small forwards in the game. Rarely would his opponent kick more than two goals on him and he would regularly have more than 25 touches. The issue for the forwards was that their focus had to be on curbing his influence.

Boris was always very quiet with the media, but that doesn’t mean he is a quiet and shy bloke. In fact, over a couple of beers, he is the life of the party and definitely not shy. He and Max Rooke are a bit off-centre at times, but always make the group laugh. Whether at the club or socialising, they are just naturally funny.

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So, there wouldn’t be an argument anywhere when I say that Boris is one of the most popular players I have played with.

I always said that if you walk into a footy club, the forwards have the fur coats and the bling, the midfielders have a bit of bling but are also a bit dour, while the defenders are just plain dour.

They are the ones who rock in in their tracksuits and Dunlop Volleys.

That was Boris, Dasher and Scarlo to a tee. They were such a down-to-earth, tight-knit group.

I thought Boris would definitely hang up the boots this season after the start he had. It looked like the game might have just been passing him by.

But the way he has turned his own form around in the past six weeks is testament to him. He looks like he could go around for another year, but we’ll wait and see.

Boris is not the sort of guy who will dwell on this milestone while he is still playing, but when he does finally hang up the boots, I know he will look back on it with a lot of pride.

Well played, mate, you’re a true champion of the club and the game.