FIFTEEN years ago this month, with the air conditioners whirring through the vast expanses of The Dome, the diminutive kid from the Yarra Valley took his first few tentative steps down the Carlton players’ race.

It happened on the Queen’s Birthday weekend - Sunday, June 8, 2003 in the Round 11 match with Geelong - that Kade Simpson followed the then acting captain Andrew McKay out. ‘Macca’, you see, had taken leadership responsibilities eight days after Paul Hasleby dislodged Brett Ratten’s shoulder in a tackle on Subiaco Oval, thereby bringing to an abrupt end the Carlton premiership player’s illustrious 255-game career.

McKay’s recollections of the Geelong match are somewhat vague (40-point losses will do that). But as the keeper of adjoining locker No.5, he’s impeccably placed to cast judgment of Simpson’s the club’s games record holder in the No.6 guernsey.

“He was very quiet and very small – they’re the two things I remember about ‘Simmo’,” McKay said this week.

“He came in at 60 kilos dripping wet and was a man of few words, but over time he let his actions do the talking and that’s a credit to him.”

Somewhat surprisingly, McKay, himself a straight-ahead type through 244 games, never thought of Simpson as a player prepared to throw caution to the wind - at least on first impressions when ‘Simmo’ failed to trouble the statisticians.

As McKay said: “I didn’t have this image in my head of him being the bravest player when he first started, but he didn’t get much game time either, so it’s a credit to him”.

“In congratulating ‘Simmo’ in front of the players earlier, I said that the fantastic thing about his career is that he’s actually got better,” said McKay, the outgoing Carlton Head of Football.

“A lot of people like judging others on how they can play footy, but I think it’s far more important to judge them on what sort of people they are – and he is an out-and-out star as a person.”

Kade Simpson’s first senior match:

Round 11, Sunday, June 8, 2003 - Carlton v Geelong, The Dome

B:          Andrew McKay (a/c)         Mick Martyn                     Lance Whitnall

HB:        Ryan Houlihan                 Karl Norman                    Simon Wiggins

C:          Bret Thornton                  Simon Fletcher                 Simon Beaumont

HF:        Jarrad Waite                    Corey McKernan               Scott Camporeale

F:          Brad Fisher                      Brendan Fevola                Matthew Lappin

Ruck:     Barnaby French               Anthony Koutoufides        Trent Sporn

I/C:       Adrian Hickmott (a/vc)     Darren Hulme                  Jonathon McCormick          Kade Simpson