My Hawk-loving, footy-going mate Angus is one of those supporters who does things in extremes, whether we’ve won or lost. There’s been more of the latter than we’d care to mention these past few months, which has only added a certain urgency to proceedings when cause for celebration has come along.

He’s always been a “when in Rome” kinda bloke, Gus, someone who’s very respectful of the land on which he walks and the people who were there before him. For example, when we’re in Tasmania he likes to draw inspiration from legendary locals. As he demonstrated during our taxi ride from the ground to the airport last Sunday, as he began harping on about David Boon's record 52 cans on a flight to London.

We’d had a good day, and the last thing we (or any fellow passengers, or our friendly airline staff for that matter) needed was Gus trying to recreate a scene from Hangover somewhere over Bass Strait. I knew I had to distract him, and fast, so I busied his brain with some numbers of a different kind.

“Did you know our Hawks have played 56 games at University of Tasmania Stadium?” I asked Angus. “And that Hodgey has played 46 of them, which means that in 120-odd years of AFL footy nobody has played more games in Tassie than L.Hodge?”

He liked the sound of this, and was soon stirring up our cabbie with the case for the greatest No.15 of all time (with all due to Kelvin Moore, and Aaron Lord, and Daniel Harford, and Ben Allan, and Russell Morris, and everyone else who’s worn a brown and gold jumper with 15 on the back) to take his rightful place in the Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame. When Gus opined that it was high time the name Hodge was mentioned in the same breath as Baldock, Stewart, Hart and Hudson, I caught the cabbie’s eye in the mirror and for a worrying moment thought we were about to be walking the rest of the way to Launceston airport. Thankfully our driver wasn’t as unhinged as one of his passengers.

Waiting for our flight a little while later, Angus carried on the numerical theme. “What are the top five things to come out of Colac?” he offered. I love a good “top five” game, but this one hit a premature end as we could only come up with Hodgey at one, Joffy Simpkin at two, Aaron Finch at three (captaining Australia at cricket will never put you ahead of a Hawthorn premiership player). When Angus suggested “the 7.11am train to Southern Cross” at No.4 it was clearly time to move on.

There was a bit of a diversion from “all hail Hodgey” mode at this point, as Gus took out his phone and started reeling off some other fascinating figures. “Tom Mitchell – yeah, the bloke who had 50 touches in a game – is on track to finish his first season as a Hawk having had more possessions in the home and away rounds than anyone in the history of the game. Anyone. Ever. Even Hodgey.”

I wasn’t about to argue (there’s no point when Angus gets on a roll), and he was soon fleshing out the picture with a rundown of Mitch’s 711 disposals after 21 rounds at an average of 35.5 per game, which if continued in our last two games will put him fourth on the all-time list behind Dane Swan (820), Dan Hannebery (802) and Josh Kennedy (787). “Who all played finals in those years and therefore had an inferior per-game average,” Gus added. By now he was becoming more than a little smug, but there was no stopping him.

Read: Tom Mitchell breaks another record

Then he tossed up another remarkable statistic which he was adamant that, in honour of one of the game’s all-time greats, required immediate action. As much as it pains me to admit it, I had to agree with him.

Angus said he’d taken a look at the list of most games played at the MCG, noted that Kevin Bartlett was at the top with exactly 200 (“yeah, but how many did he play in Tassie?”), and that Hodgey was right up there. And that he’s stranded on 149 MCG games (including four premierships, three as captain, and two Norm Smiths, not that we’re counting)!

“There’s only one thing for it,” Gus said. “They’ve gotta shift our Round 23 game to the `G. We’re talking history here, Ghost. Let’s make it happen!”

So if you see a bloke in a Hawthorn jumper parading up and down the footpath outside AFL House in the next week or so, holding up a sign saying “Hodgey 4 MCG”, give him a wave or a toot. And if he doesn’t have any joy, we’ll see you at Etihad next Friday night.

Go Hawks. And one last time, go Hodgey!