By Michael Atkinson

It’s a situation you more often see in cricket. A batsman one run away from a century, but with no partners left at the other end of the crease.

Brothers Rugby Union captain, Luke Beauchamp, has lived out the footy version of that scenario for the past 18 months.

After helping the ‘butcher stripes’ to the premiership in 2016, “Beachie” had racked up 99 games for his beloved club, only for a chronic knee injury to strike him down ahead of the 2017 season.

“It was a bit of an ongoing issue throughout 2016 and I sort of played through it, and played through it,” revealed Beauchamp.

“When I got to the 2017 preseason I knew that there was a lot of cartilage damage and things like that.”

The 25-year-old consulted an orthopaedic surgeon and was told that he needed to go under the knife if he wanted to prolong his rugby career.

“Pretty much what the surgery was, was to re-positioned my knee cap” Beauchamp told RugbyNews.

“Unfortunately, the recovery took 12-months, so that’s the reason I sat out all of last year.”

And if sitting out a whole rugby season wasn’t hard enough, “Beachie” had to watch his beloved “Filth” miss out on the Queensland Premier Rugby finals in 2017.

“It was really hard,” admitted Beauchamp.

“Sitting on the sideline and watching games that you can’t really have an effect on was something I really had to adapt to and it probably took me a while.”

Beauchamp will finally run out for his 100^th game for Brothers on Saturday against G.P.S Rugby Club.

“Very excited, very excited,” he told Rugby News.

“Where I am now, I’m in a really good spot.”

“It’s been a long wait so I can’t wait to get back out there and have a run around.”

He won’t be the only player celebrating the century milestone either.

Veteran playmaker, Dallan Murphy, is also raising the bat after his own injury troubles last year.

“I tore my hammy and was out for eight weeks; then I came back for a couple games and broke my foot” said Murphy.

To finally be reaching the ton on Saturday is a real high in what has been a remarkable journey for this rugby traveller.

Having played at Brothers for years; earnt a handful of Reds caps; played in the UK, Japan and picked up in the Rebels squad before a knee injury cut short his time in Melbourne, Murphy is relieved, and surprised, to be reaching triple figures at Crosby Road.

“Should’ve been done five years ago,” Murphy laughed.

“I can only seem to manage a couple of games a year (with injuries).”

“It’s not the reason we play footy, but it’s kind of a nice way to finish it, I think.”

“Not saying I’m going to retire straight after the game, but to finish this year and have that is a nice way to do it.”

Beauchamp and Murphy will be hoping to mark the big occasion with a victory when they host bitter rivals “Jeeps” on Saturday at Jack Ross Oval in Albion.