Matthew Lloyd

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Matthew Lloyd (born April 16 1978) is an Australian Rules footballer who plays for the Essendon Bombers. Widely regarded as the best full-forward currently playing, he is the leading goal scorer of all time for Essendon.

Lloyd is recognised as possessing good goal-kicking skills. He converts a majority of set shots inside the AFL's 50 metre arc, and has the ability to kick further than 50 metres on a regular basis. This goalscoring ability has been a key part to his game, and has enabled him to top the Essendon goal scoring for eight consecutive seasons from 1997 to 2004.

Lloyd was heralded as a future football star after his AFL debut in 1995, where he scored a goal with his first kick in league football. Lloyd has since gone on to be selected in the All Australian Team on five occasions (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003), has won the Coleman Medal for kicking the most goals in the regular season three times (2000, 2001, 2003), and has twice kicked more than 100 goals in a season (109 in 2000 and 105 in 2001).

Lloyd was a member of Essendon's 2000 premiership team, and has been vice captain of Essendon since the 2000 season. He was recognised for his achievements at Essendon in 2002 when he was ranked the 22nd greatest player ever to play for the club in the "Champions of Essendon" list. This is despite the fact he was only 24 at the time, and only 7 seasons into his playing career.

As of end of the 2004 season, Lloyd had played 185 games and kicked 695 goals at AFL leavel.