Sam Collins will have a private special mission in the back of his mind this week as he becomes the 19^th member of the Gold Coast SUNS 30-Plus Club.

Having celebrated his 30^th birthday last Saturday, Collins will play his first game in the ‘oldies’ brigade against his former club Fremantle at Perth Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Oddly, his 104^th game for the SUNS will be his first against the Dockers in Perth.

He has a sweet 3-1 win/loss record going into his fifth meeting with the club which showed him the door at the end of 2017 after just 14 games, but nothing will be as sweet as a visiting ‘W’ in a game crucial to the finals prospects of both sides.

It’s one of those classic eight-point games as the 10^th-placed SUNS, with a 7-6 record after a heart-breaking three-point loss to St.Kilda in Round 13, take on the 8^th-placed Dockers at 7-1-5 after they copped a 67-point away hiding from the Western Bulldogs last Saturday.

And while Collins will say it’s all about team and not at all about him, there is a strong personal undercurrent over and above the “W” he so desperately craves.

It was significant as the SUNS enjoyed a mid-season bye that the media turned their collective focus to the 2024 All-Australian debate.

Mark Robinson, senior football writer at The Herald Sun and AFL360 regular, named Collins at fullback in his mid-season team. Brisbane’s Harris Andrews and Carlton’s Jacob Weitering completed the ‘talls’, with Fremantle’s Luke Ryan the “mop-up guy” and Carlton’s Nic Newman and Sydney’s Nick Blakey the ball-getters in the back half.

Robinson said of the SUNS vice-captain: “He’s rated the No.1 key defender and specifically is the  No.1 interceptor at nine per game, which is what you want from your big guys. He’s also had only 19 goals kicked on him in 13 matches and clearly doesn’t get enough recognition from the greater football public, either.”

Collins wasn’t picked in everyone’s team, with afl.com.au preferring Fremantle captain Alex Pearce at fullback and opting for GWS’ Sam Taylor at centre half back over Weitering.

There will be others in contention for the key defensive posts, too, but Collins is unquestionably in it to the tip of the bushy beard he didn’t have while playing at Fremantle in 2016-17.

Interestingly, wearing the same number in purple on Sunday and standing at the opposite end to Collins on Sunday will be the player who indirectly prompted then Fremantle coach Ross Lyon to send the SUNS’ #25 packing.

Pearce had joined Fremantle two years ahead of Collins in 2014, and played 13 games in the back end of 2015.

In 2016 they shared the same position – and not much else. Pearce played Rounds 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9, and after he broke his leg Collins played Rounds 10-11-12-13-14-16-17-18-19-20-21-22. Round 15 was a bye.

Pearce didn’t play at all in 2017 as his leg problems continued, but still Collins played only twice in Round 12 and Round 23. That was it. The Dockers put their faith in Pearce to be their No.1 defender and Collins was delisted.

That they are now rival candidates for a 2024 All-Australian blazer is one of football’s great sidebars. A bearded big man with a rich football pedigree from suburban Donvale in Melbourne in red, and a bearded big man who played cricket and football as a junior in Launceston, Tasmania, in purple.

Collins will most likely face a tough match-up on Sunday with Fremantle spearhead Jy Amiss, who kicked 41 goals in a breakout 2023 but with 19 this year has played second fiddle to Josh Treacy’s 26.

At the other end the SUNS strongman won’t be too disappointed if teammate Ben King can get up from injury and kick a few goals on the similarly dour Pearce, who is four days short of one year younger than Collins despite being drafted two years earlier.

In four games for the SUNS against the Dockers Collins has had three home wins by three points in 2019, 13 points in 2020 and 36 points in 2022, before a 10-point loss at Norwood in Adelaide in Gather Round 2023.

In 2019 and 2020 King and Pearce didn’t play. In 2021 King was missing again but Mabior Chol took Pearce for four goals in 2022, and last year King took Pearce for two and Amiss kicked three playing notionally on Collins, although Collins split his time on other opponents.

Externally those games will be seen as the collective undercard to Sunday’s main event between the opposition fullbacks, but to suggest it’s a grudge match for Collins is a stretch.

The Fremantle side last weekend contained only two players who played with Collins in his last game in purple - Nat Fyfe and Luke Ryan. And the entire coaching staff has changed.

Oddly, in the same game Lachie Weller, now at the SUNS, played his 47^th and last game for Fremantle, and ex-SUN Harley Bennell his 2^nd and last game for Fremantle in what seemed like the end of his career before a five-game comeback with Melbourne in 2020.

Other Dockers ‘survivors’ from that game still at the club are Brennan Cox, Ethan Hughes and Matt Taberner, who have only played a combined 11 games this year due to injury.

The cross-club connection goes further, with ex-SUN Jaeger O’Meara now 33 games into his time at the Dockers after 44 games with Gold Coast (2013-14), two years on the injury list at Gold Coast (2015-16), and 99 games at Hawthorn (2017-22).

And another ex-SUN Jeremy Sharp set to play against the SUNS for the first time. He played 23 games with Gold Coast in 2020-21-22 before requesting a trade after spending the entire 2023 season on the outer.

Collins will join a SUNS 30-Plus Club in which foundation player and games record-holder Jarrod Harbrow and 2022 recruit Levi Casboult are top of the class. Both have played 44 games in red and yellow after their 30^th birthday.

Gary Ablett (42) is next on the list from Nick Malceski (34), Michael Rischitelli (32), Pearce Hanley (24), Matt Rosa (24), David Swallow (23), Jarrod Witts (21), Zac Smith (9), Alex Sexton (8), Brandon Ellis (7), Matthew Warnock (5), Rory Thompson (3), Sam Day (3), ex-Docker Michael Barlow (3), Nathan Bock (2) and Josh Fraser (2).