North Melbourne GM Football Brady Rawlings penned the following tribute to Hall of Fame inductees Simon Black and Lenny Hayes.

After 13 years in the AFL, mostly as a tagger, I had the privilege of playing on some of the best players in the competition.

When you’re a ‘run-with’ player, you find out a lot about individuals – more so than if you were just loosely lining up on them. Players that would constantly whinge to the umpires used to get on my nerves the most. I would always try to play within the rules and tag them to the best of my ability. If that meant giving them no lip for the duration of the game, that was my preference. So, if a player started to whinge it was open slather; I couldn’t help myself getting stuck into them and the sledging ultimately led to some heated clashes. Other players would get physical and could go outside the rules to get away from a tag – I liked that because it showed they were competitors and wanted to win.

Overall, the players I respected most were the ones that didn’t need to go outside the rules or whinge, but just tried to beat me on their merits and prove they were simply a better player.

When I think of those types of players, two recent Hall of Fame inductees come to mind; Simon Black and Lenny Hayes. While they don’t make the top two hardest players I have ever played on, they are certainly two I respect most.

Simon Black was an absolute star and achieved so much from a team and an individual perspective. I got to play on ‘Blacky’ a fair few times. The Brisbane Lions had so many good players and I had to tag several of them including Black, Luke Power, Jason Akermanis and Nigel Lappin.

When I played on Blacky, he never said a word to me. He didn’t need to engage in a slanging match, he would try to beat me by being too hard to play on. I had a night on him at Marvel Stadium once, and managed to keep him very quiet to half time. He was so quiet it was mentioned in our half-time meeting by the coach (I hated it when the coach would do that because I wanted to stay focussed, not get pats on the back).

In the third quarter I continued to keep him in check and he went into three-quarter-time with no influence on the game. We were well ahead and well placed to win. But in the last term, it all went awry. He completely got away from me, had run me off my feet, and ended up with more than ten possessions in quick time. Teaming up with Akermanis, he dragged the Lions over the line. The most impressive part was he was playing poorly but kept grinding away until it turned for him. I will always have the upmost respect for Blacky; he worked as hard as anyone and I never heard him sook.

Lenny Hayes was similar, but I only played on him a few times despite being drafted in the same year. He lasted 16 years in the game - a great achievement. Adam Simpson would usually go head-to-head with Lenny and I would play on Nick Dal Santo. I took Luke Ball a lot later in my career and would occasionally play on Stephen Milne in a small defender capacity.

I recall a game in 2006 at Marvel, when I had the job on Hayes. At that stage he was a two-time All Australian and genuine star of the competition. I hadn’t played on him before so I did a lot of homework and went in with a plan to nullify him. The plan had worked to the point the Saints took him out of the midfield and stuck him at half forward for the last quarter and a half of the game. I hadn’t seen this happen before to Lenny, so I was keen to finish off the job and make sure he had no influence as a forward, which I achieved.

Following the game, I received a few pats on the back and my teammates were full of praise for the job I’d done for the team. On Tuesday following the game, it came out that Lenny needed a knee reconstruction; he had injured it in the early stages but continued to play the game out. The respect I gained for him, playing on one leg with a torn ACL was unparalleled. He never complained, whinged to the umpires or used it as an excuse.

I want to congratulate both players for being inducted into the Hall of Fame.