West Coast Eagles luminaries Ben Cousins and Chris Mainwaring shared more than connection.

They loved to surf, they both were contracted to Channel 7 and they both brought up their 200^th games in round 16 matches. That ensures they are the headline feature in this edition of the flashback series as they celebrated the milestone more than a decade apart.

The Mainwaring and Cousins milestones are the highlights of round 16 achievement, with Mark LeCras’ 12-goal bag against Essendon in 2010.

Mainwaring, a WAFL premiership player with East Fremantle at 19 in 1985 before the birth of the Eagles ’87, was the fifth Eagle to 200 games in round 16, 1999. He was 33 and his body was almost gone. He limped to the line. Literally.

After missing just 13 games in his first six years Mainwaring had injury woes after each of the Eagles premierships in 1992 and 1994. He played 12 games in ’93 and nine games in ’95.

Then, after an All-Australian season in 1996 season in which he was runner-up by a vote to Drew Banfield in the Eagles Club Champion Award, he blew out his knee in round one, 1997. In typically courageous fashion that injury was sustained as he backed into an avalanche of players and the resultant injury was likened to that of a car accident victim.

He didn’t play again until round 20, 1998 and cruelly, after returning for the last three games of the home-and-away season, missed the finals with a groin strain.

He’d played 196 games to the end of 1999. His profile in 2000 AFL Guide said it best: “Deserves to make his likely swansong season a great one after giving the club so much since making his debut in the original squad of 1987 … A superb wingman who personifies leadership, poise and pride”.

He got there. Just.

A thigh problem didn’t help his preparation and after being a round one emergency he played in the WAFL in rounds two and three. He missed round four with a hamstring, played rounds five and six in the WAFL and missed round seven with a calf. He played rounds eight and nine in the WAFL and was an AFL emergency in round 10.

Finally the golden-haired boy from Geraldton got his chance off the bench in round 11. He had 19 possessions in a loss to North and started against Port Adelaide in round 12. But after eight possessions and a goal early he suffered a hamstring and missed rounds 13-14. He was on 198 games.

He went straight back into the AFL side in round 15 against Richmond when Cousins missed with a minor quad strain and Chad Fletcher made his debut at the expense of Paul Symmons. The Eagles lost by 29 points but Mainwaring had 21 possessions off the bench and got through unscathed to reach 199.

Round 16 was derby #10. The Eagles, on top of the ladder, had won the first nine. Fremantle were 15^th. Or second-last. It was all set up for Mainwaring’s 200^th in front of a sell-out Sunday afternoon crowd at Subiaco.

But first the man of the moment had to get through selection. Cousins was cleared to return, and Peter Matera likewise after two weeks out with a calf. For Mainwaring to play two players had to miss out. It was tense.

But coach Mick Malthouse voted with the WA football public and left out Fletcher and Andrew Williams to allow Mainwaring to play.

Perhaps Malthouse remembered the scenes at the end of 1992 grand final when Mainwaring ignored a broken ankle and threw away his crutches to join in the celebrations. It meant that much to him.

All went to plan until they bounced the ball.

Fremantle, coming off their third win of the year over 1998 semi-finalists St Kilda, led 7.5 to 4.0 at quarter-time. There was no catching them. They won 17.11 (119) to 11.6 (72).

Mainwaring played again in round 17, when the Eagles copped a 100-point hiding from Brisbane at the Gabba, and he was dropped the following week. He played one last game in the WAFL and retired. His battle-weary body had had enough.

It had carried him to premierships in 1992-94 and all-Australian selections in 1991 and 1996 and five top three finishes in the Eagles Club Champion voting. He was third in 1987-88 and runner-up in 1989, 1992 and 1996.

It could have been worse. He could have been stranded one game short of his milestone as Symmons was when he was delisted 12 months later. He’d played 99 games.

Cousins had no such problems. Like Mainwaring he raced to 100 games, missing only nine games in posting his ton in the last game of 1998. But unlike Mainwaring, he didn’t ease up. He played every game in the next three years and 85 of the next 91.

Going into 2005 he needed 15 games for 200 in what had been a football fairytale for a player who 10 years earlier had been one of the hottest recruiting targets in the country.

Born in Geelong in 1978 when father Bryan was playing with Geelong in the then VFL, Cousins moved with his family back to Perth at 18 months and played at Bull Creek-Leeming Junior Football Club and later Wesley College.

In his last year at school he joined East Fremantle and combined school football with WAFL football while being courted by not one or even two AFL clubs under the father/son rule but three.

He had barracked for Geelong, where his father had played 67 games in the middle of a 240-game WAFL career with Perth. The Cats tried desperately hard to land him, but he preferred to stay in the west and chose West Coast over Fremantle.

He could have gone to the Cats under the 50-game father-son qualification, was eligible for Fremantle as a local product and was also in the Eagles sights because Perth was an aligned WAFL club to West Coast

In his 10^th season in ’05 Cousins missed round two with a finger problem and then played 14 straight to his milestone game in round 16 against Brisbane at Subiaco.

Cousins was to be the Eagles’ 10^th 200-gamer behind Guy McKenna (1997), Chris Lewis, John Worsfold (1998), Dean Kemp, Mainwaring, Peter Matera (1999), Glen Jakovich (2000), Ashley McIntosh (2001) and Drew Banfield (2003).

As they had been when Mainwaring was set for his 200^th the Eagles sat on top of the ladder. Brisbane, 2001-02-03 premiers and 2004 grand finalists, had slid to eighth but were coming off a 78-point win over Collingwood.

Only four of the first nine 200-games had celebrated with a win. It went LWWLLLLWW.

But a win was never in doubt for the Cousins 200. He made sure of that, kicking three first-quarter goals as the Eagles jumped out of the blocks 8.3 to 1.3. They won 17.9 (111) to 13.10 (88) despite conceding seven Brisbane goals in the fourth quarter.

Cousins had a blinder with 30 possessions and four goals, team-high in both, to collect three Brownlow Medal votes. Chris Judd and Michael Braun took the minor votes.

Cousins, six days beyond his 27^th birthday, was the Eagles youngest 200-gamer at the time, slipping 94 days under Glen Jakovich. Fifteen years on he retains that distinction from Jakovich, Andrew Gaff (28/4), McKenna (28/8) and Jack Darling (28/14). Mainwaring, 33 years and 203 days old in his 200^th, remains the oldest.

At the time Cousins also had most career possessions for his first 200 games at 4420. He now ranks fourth behind Andrew Gaff (5346), Matt Priddis (5256) and Luke Shuey (4767). Significantly, given the changing nature of the game, Mainwaring ranks fifth for 200-game possessions at 4317.