Michael Tuck

Michael Tuck (born 24 June 1953) is a seven-time premiership-winning player, Australian rules footballer with the Hawthorn Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) / Australian Football League (AFL), where he was the games record holder (426 games) until 30 July 2016 when Brent Harvey played his 427th game for North Melbourne Football Club.

Raised in Berwick, in Melbourne's outer south-eastern suburbs, Tuck joined Hawthorn in 1971 from the country zone club of the same name, and remained at the club for his entire career. Tuck initially played as a full forward and the understudy to the great Peter Hudson, kicking 63 goals in the VFL Reserves in 1971. He made his Senior debut against Richmond in the eighth round the following year and kicked goals with his first three kicks in senior football, but soon after lost form and was dropped from the senior side. Tuck would play in Hawthorn's winning 1972 Reserve grade premiership side.

In the following years Tuck was tried as a winger and defender before in 1974 finding his true niche as a ruck-rover and firmly establishing himself in the Hawthorn senior side. With Don Scott and Leigh Matthews Tuck came to form a following combination feared by every other VFL club and a crucial role in Hawthorn's 1976 and 1978 premierships. After a lapse as Hawthorn mined its rich country zone for new talent, Tuck played a critical role in Hawthorn's seven successive grand finals between 1983 and 1989. In the last four years of his career Tuck was moved from the ball to the less demanding role of a running half-back flanker, but he still continued to gain huge numbers of possessions right up to the end of his career.

Tuck was the natural successor to the Hawthorn captaincy in 1986 after Leigh Matthews' retirement. He captained them from that year until his retirement in 1991 at the age of 38. He won a total of seven VFL/AFL premierships with Hawthorn, captaining the club in four of them.