They were teammates during the Brisbane Lions’ golden era and now Brad Scott and Jonathan Brown share something else in common; retirement from AFL.

The North Melbourne coach reflected on a stunning career and labelled Brown’s decision to retire as ‘smart’.

“Initially it’s disappointing because it’s another one of the great champions exiting the game but these are the times when you forget about all the hardships and the concussions and the big hits and focus on all the highlights of his career,” Scott told NMFC.com.au.

“It’s smart. I don’t think he’s got a lot to gain from playing on. In a perfect world I’m sure he would have liked to have gone out on a high like Marcus Ashcroft did by playing his last game in a Grand Final and winning a premiership, but he’s contributed to premierships, he’s contributed to the rebuild of that football club and he’ll go down as one of the legends of the game.

“So regardless of the circumstances of why he’s retiring, I think it’s time to celebrate his career.”

Looking back, Scott says the Lions knew they had something special when a young Brown walked through the doors in 1999.

“We knew straight away that he’d make an immediate impact. With young hey-forwards you expect them to take three or four years, whereas the first training session we knew that he would come into the senior team really quickly and make an impact.

“He was such a big kid and I remember thinking, “he won’t be able to run”, but doing a running session with him when I was at my best physically, I had this big six foot five bloke running next me in Browny and I thought after the first five minutes, “this won’t last”. Ten minutes later, he was still there…twenty minutes later he was still there and he just didn’t go away, he ran like a midfielder, he was a remarkable athlete.”

Brown and Scott played in two premierships together in 2001 and 2002. Scott remembers times when he would sit back and watch his team-mate tear games apart and ‘win games off his own boot’.

“I remember when he came back from suspension against Essendon one year, I was playing on the wing but felt like I was in the grandstand. Mainly because the ball would come out of the centre and go straight down to Browny and he’d kick a goal. He kicked eight goals on Dustin Fletcher that day and just dominated the game. I reckon I spent half a game literally just watching, I did nothing. I was like one of the people I the crowd that day and watched this guy put on a master class.

“It was always about setting the game up around Browny and Vossy. When we needed something to happen we looked to them and they go the job done more often than not.”

Scott believes Brown will be remembered as one of the greatest players of all time.

“One of the great centre-half forwards of not only our generation, but of all-time. A really unique player with unbelievable endurance, unbelievable strength, great power, penetration in his kicking…he was everything you’d want in a centre-half forward and more.

“He combined everything. He obviously had great physical attributes and great football capability but his mental toughness and resilience was probably his best trait which is saying something because he had fantastic natural abilities in all aspects of footy. Mentally he was as strong as anyone I’ve played with.”