Dillon O’Reilly is the WAFL’s first 21st century footballer.

The 17-year-old made his East Fremantle debut this week, marking him as the first player born in the 2000s to reach league ranks.

Disregarding those horological pedants who claim 2000 was the last year of the previous millennium, rather than the first of the current one, O’Reilly should become a quiz night staple.

But he should have another, and far more significant, claim to fame.

Based on his one handy league appearance, and his standing as the leading colts goal-kicker whose 39 majors will not be overtaken in the final round this weekend, O’Reilly has a powerful case to be Fremantle’s second father-son selection but the first one whose father actually played for the Dockers.

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Stephen O’Reilly was a Fremantle stalwart in the club’s tough early days, playing 98 matches mostly under siege in the defensive goal square, amid a career that started at Swan Districts, detoured to Geelong and ended at Carlton.

He has been a Fremantle director since 2009, giving him 14 years of direct involvement at the club.

Yet under the AFL rules, Dillon O’Reilly is ineligible as a father-son selection because Stephen fell two matches short of the 100-match cut off.

And his 41 games for Swans were 109 short of the exceptionally onerous requirement that fathers had to play 150 WAFL matches for their sons to enter the national league.

Play Video Mark Readings, Dale Miller and Bridget Lacy recap the highlights and talking points from the penultimate week of the season. The West Australian Video Mark Readings, Dale Miller and Bridget Lacy recap the highlights and talking points from the penultimate week of the season.

Fourteen years at the Dockers, five at Swans and a lifetime of service to the game are insufficient for the O’Reillys to automatically qualify to play for the same club under the most quirky but cherished tradition in the game.

Father-son qualification makes little logical sense in a fully professional industry but it does recognise that family links are an essential part of the game’s fabric.

And it is one mechanism that maintains a valuable link between national and State leagues that appear to be drifting further apart every season.

That is why it made sense for Brett Peake to be chosen by Fremantle as a father-son selection given that his father Brian was an East Fremantle champion who played a record 305 games for the club.

Stephen O’Reilly might not be in the same playing class as Bomber Peake but his contribution to WA football should be enough to allow his son – if he is good enough – to receive an automatic invitation to join the Dockers.

The same credit should have applied to another original Docker in Andrew McGovern whose two sons were surprisingly ignored at the draft by Fremantle and are now stars at West Coast and Adelaide.

McGovern played 63 Fremantle games, plus 55 at Claremont, and while his career may eventually be overshadowed by those of his sons, he can always point to the fact that he was drafted at No.4 in 1991 whereas Jeremy went at No.44 in the 2011 rookie draft while Mitch, astonishingly, slipped to No.43 in the 2014 main draft.

Rather than making it harder for father-son selections, by raising the eligibility bar, the AFL and football would be far better off with a lower entry point and one that recognises contributions to leagues such as the WAFL.

Why not a father-son qualification of 50 games? Or 25? Or just one as is proposed in the women’s league?

Dillon O’Reilly’s potential Dockers debut might not generate as much excitement as Josh Daicos did at Collingwood recently but it would create a buzz and help the AFL achieve its aim of world domination.

Now that would be 21st century thinking.

Tuesday hero

The football world feels for East Perth player Beau Chatley who faces a life-long battle after being badly injured in a WAFL reserves game last year.

Mitch Antonio was the other player in that fateful incident and he won considerable sympathy after being suspended for 10 games over the tackle that broke Chatley’s neck.

Few would have been surprised had Antonio given the game away as he dealt with the aftermath of the incident but supported by his family and West Perth, he plugged away at training, served his ban without complaint and waited patiently for an opportunity to play league football.

That chance came last week and Antonio responded with a strong debut performance that should see him hold his spot this week and look forward to a solid future in the game.