“A FEW seasons ago I used to have quite high skinfolds believe it or not, but now they’re down to the lowest they’ve ever been in my career.’’

For the rest of us, the idea of rake-thin Dustin Fletcher talking about carrying a bit of flab is like hearing about Mick Jagger’s struggles to find a date.

But the champion Essendon defender persists in making his case. “The most I ever weighed was 102 or 103 kilo, whereas I just weighed myself this morning and I was 90,” Fletcher says. “It definitely helps you get across the ground and play out games. They’re the little sorts of things that all add up.’’

Fletcher, a veteran of 393 AFL matches, is offering reasons why he is in a position to embark on a remarkable 23rd consecutive season.

His sinewy frame, which has managed to avoid serious injury, is his first assertion.

“And obviously my dad (former Essendon captain Ken Fletcher) played for a long time, 260-odd games, so I think it’s got a lot to do with what’s in your genes,’’ he says.

“It’s also about knowing your own body and physically what’s too far or not enough. If you can know that within yourself you can nail exactly what you need to do over the pre-season, or even in a game, and I think that helps.

“And I think, too, just keeping my speed. My speed hasn’t really changed from when I started. Maybe a fraction, but when I have to sprint I can still match it with most of them.’’

media_camera Dustin Fletcher will turn 40 next season. Picture: Kris Reichl

When Fletcher blows out the candles on his birthday cake next May, between Rounds 5 and 6, he will become only the second footballer in the game’s history to play league football in his 40s.

The other was “a tall thin stripling” named Vic Cumberland, a ruckman in Melbourne’s 1900 premiership team. Cumberland also had stints with amateur powerhouse Collegians and played in New Zealand and South Australia, interspersed with 126 league games for St Kilda. Upon returning from France, where he had served in the Australian army in World War I and been wounded three times, Cumberland make a football comeback in 1920 — five years after his last game for the Saints. Ten games later he played his final match, at age 43 years and 50 days.

Fletcher says his own decision to push on beyond 40 seemed a simple and natural one: “I thought my performance and the way I got through pre-season last year, if my body held up I’d play on for another season.’’

But given the scrutiny and attention around his age, he decided to seek counsel from his family and “a few people who had helped me along the way and who knew me more as a person and also as a footballer’’.

He sought the opinion of the man who had coached him to two premierships, Kevin Sheedy, as well the men who captained those teams, Mark Thompson and James Hird — coincidentally his past two coaches.

“I obviously kept in contact with Hirdy while he was overseas,’’ Fletcher says. “And I also sat down and spoke to ‘Bomber’ (Thompson). I’ve learnt a lot off Bomber this year, with his footy brain and the way he sees the game.

“It’s funny, in my first year of playing, as a schoolkid, I’d get dropped off at Windy Hill at 4 o’clock by my old man and then I’d hang around after training to wait for a lift from Bomber, who lived out at Greenvale, too. Because he was captain there were times when he had match committee or whatever else and we wouldn’t get home ’til 9 or 10 o’clock.’’

media_camera Fletcher is as light as he’s been and has maintained his speed.

In the most part the feedback from all parties was that Fletcher’s form was solid enough to warrant playing on. “There might have been one or two who wondered whether time was up and maybe I’d done enough, but in the end I wasn’t one who thought that.’’

Still, Fletcher did not want to charge at a decision, so at season’s end he went to Bali with his wife Suzie and sons Mason and Max, in part to clear his head and remove himself from talk about football. He found himself going for a run each day and using the hotel gym, and realised he was looking forward to another summer of preparing for Round 1.

“The pre-seasons are tough and all that sort of stuff, but to be honest I really enjoy that time when all of the players are together, because you get to enjoy the company of the 40 other blokes without the mental worry about the next game,’’ he says.

He knows that the eyes of the football world will be upon him; some to celebrate achievements, others to watch for signs he is faltering.

Seven more games will bring him to 400, 10 more will draw him alongside Richmond great Kevin Bartlett.

“If those milestones come along you’re probably best just rolling with them and enjoying what’s happening. I’ve never been one to speak in the media, but it might be time for me to relax a bit and take those sorts of things in and enjoy them.

“I still get nervous about games and wanting to perform. So I’ve always tried to block out the media and those outside things because I feel it allows me to play better.

media_camera The veteran says he’s happy to have James Hird back, but has also learnt plenty from Mark Thompson.

“The (400-game mark) seems to be something that people want to talk about, so you can’t hide away from it, but I said to Hirdy in one of our chats that I’m not going to be remembered any differently as an Essendon player if I play 394 or 415. That’s never really been my thing, but I’ll just roll with it. And it’s good for the club.’’

The flip side is that if Fletcher plays a couple of average games in a row, he will not be afforded the anonymity of a low-profile 23-year-old teammate. The critics will begin to shout “past his use-by date’’.

“Then the outside pressure starts to mount and that just comes with people looking at your age. I’ve never been one to worry about the goals kicked on me, or any of that, but that becomes people’s focus. That’s just the way it goes and you have to cop that, even though sometimes it’s hard to wave it away. To me it’s more about listening to your coaching staff and the people who respect you as a footballer. And you know yourself how you’re tracking.’’

To give himself every chance of playing well in 2015, Fletcher is pumped about putting in a solid block of training over summer. “I’ll be doing every training session like when I was an 18-year-old,’’ he says.

“It’s good to have Hirdy back, because you know that as soon as he’s back in the door he’s straight into it. The boys will be up and about and when pre-season starts they’re going to want to impress him.’’

Some of them will even have their lowest skinfold level in years.

media_camera Fletcher is again likely to play a key role in the Essendon backline next year. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

SAGA NO FACTOR IN DECISION

ALTHOUGH he is finding it tiresome, Dustin Fletcher said the Essendon supplement saga was never a factor in weighing whether to play on or retire.

“It’s dragged on and that hasn’t been ideal, but I have no doubt what it’s done — like especially when we were at Windy Hill through the main part of it — is that when you drove into the carpark at the club, you were all together, 40 blokes mucking around, doing the weights, training or in the change rooms.

“There’s no doubt it’s brought us all closer together because no one else has gone through what we’ve had to go through.

“To be honest, the past two years or whatever it’s been has been tough, but when you’re playing football and trying to do your best, you just get on with it.

“It’s hard to explain. It gets frustrating because we know things that the media and the public don’t. So you’ll see something get reported, or hear something when you flick on the radio and all you can do is shake your head because you know it’s just not true.

media_camera Pre-season 1993 ... Fletcher (centre) with Tony Delaney (left) and Kieran Murrihy. Picture: Kaine Pinder

“It’s not really up to us to ring in or speak to someone and say that’s not the case. You’ve just got to let it wash over you.

“The boys I speak to, or in the locker room, we don’t speak about it a real lot at all. Football’s hard enough and demanding enough as it is, with all the strategies and the computers and statistics and going through all vision, so there’s no point wasting your energy on other stuff.’’

Others, though, have been worn down by saga, with ruckman Paddy Ryder this week saying he needed a fresh start and requesting a trade to Port Adelaide.

“Everyone’s got their own feelings,’’ Fletcher said.

“Obviously being next to him with the lockers you spend a fair bit of time together. Paddy’s a great kid — well he’s a man now with his own kids — and I’d love for him to stay and be part of Essendon because I see this club going in the right direction.

“All I hope for him is that he makes the right decision for himself and what’s going to make him happy.

“But I just see him as an Essendon person.”