Ball-magnet Jack Macrae has set a new league record for the longest streak of consecutive games with 30 or more disposals.
Macrae collected 31 touches in Sunday’s win over North Melbourne to make it 15 straight games of at least 30 possessions, overtaking previous leader and Hawk Tom Mitchell with 14 games in 2018.
Remarkably, he has registered more than 35 disposals on eight occasions this year, and scalps of 40-plus in rounds two, six and ten.
Bulldogs’ captain Marcus Bontempelli praised the 26-year-old for his efforts.
“(Jack) reckons he didn’t know he was close to the record or a chance to get it, but there was a free kick and he took the advantage, so we reckon he might’ve had the counter going,” Bontempelli joked on RSN 927 radio on Tuesday morning.
“In the locker room (post-match) everyone said to him ‘we’re not buying that Jacko’.
“He’s been an incredible contributor for this football team, from really day dot but particularly over the last few years. I feel like he probably has gotten that recognition more and more…his strengths are so good that it does make it difficult for teams to try and (repel) that because he works so bloody hard.
“He’s been enormous for us this season and previous seasons. He definitely gets the recognition internally.”
Macrae has seven games left of the 2021 home-and-away season to try and extend his streak, with the ladder-leading Bulldogs’ next challenge facing the sixth-placed Swans on Sunday afternoon.
