Star Brisbane veteran Dayne Zorko is keen to emulate NBA superstar LeBron James by playing into his late 30s – and he has the lure of premiership success as his motivation.
Zorko will turn 35 on February 9, detik but says his body is feeling fresh and he has put no end date on his glittering career.
The former skipper has already racked up 250 AFL appearances – and never played fewer than 16 games in a campaign.
Brisbane’s heartbreaking four-point loss to Collingwood in last year’s grand final has only served to further fuel Zorko’s hunger.
James is still going strong for the Los Angeles Lakers at 39 years of age.
Zorko is keen to keep pushing his own body to the limit until he can no longer compete at the elite level.
“I will not be putting a limit on how long I play on. I feel great, the body’s feeling great,” Zorko said on Wednesday.
“We’ll just take it as it comes.
“How old’s LeBron, 40 odd? Yeah, we’ll just keep going until I’m completely broken down, or Danny (football manager Danny Daly) comes and taps me on the shoulder..
“But the way I’m feeling and pulling up after training, I feel fantastic.”
As for what still motivates Zorko?
“Pretty easy – still chasing that premiership,” he said.
“To come so close was disappointing, but it is what it is. We’ve got an opportunity to go around again and try to rewrite the script.”
Zorko said he moved on quickly from the grand final loss to Collingwood, and said there were important learnings to take from it.
“There’s no doubt you always want to stay ahead of the game, and on that day, Collingwood had a few tricks we hadn’t seen before,” Zorko said.
“It’s always important to have a trick up your sleeve, and credit to Collingwood, they had a couple we hadn’t seen, and it caught us out a little bit at the end.
“We need to take a leaf out of their book and look at different ways we can change things up and give opposition different looks.”
