Brisbane Lions coach Leigh Matthews has hailed the courage and persistence of his veteran key forward Daniel Bradshaw, who this week becomes only the 12th Brisbane player to reach 200 AFL games.

Bradshaw is also within touching distance of a third leading goalkicking title at the Lions and is closing in on Alastair Lynch's club record of 460 goals.

But what makes Bradshaw's latest stellar season so remarkable - he has booted 67 goals from 18 games to be equal third in the race for the Coleman Medal but is just one goal ahead of team-mate Jonathan Brown in the race for the Lions' goalkicking award - is he is coming off a knee reconstruction which sidelined him for all of last season.

Matthews described Bradshaw's comeback this season as 'a great effort' on Monday.

"This has been Braddy's best year, which is a great testament to his perseverance after coming back from a knee reconstruction last year."

"It (200 games) is a significant milestone so it's great for him."

Bradshaw has spent much of his career living in the shadow of first Lynch and now Brown but is compiling a record as good as any of the club's greatest forwards.

A member of the Lions' 2001 and 2003 premiership teams (he missed the 2002 triumph due to injury), he was also the club's leading goalkicker in 2005 and 2006 and could win that award again this season.

But Matthews revealed on Monday that the 29-year-old could so easily have finished up as a defender - where he has occasionally played and performed well during his long career.

"I remember when I first came up (to Brisbane as coach in 1999) and we had Alastair Lynch, Daniel Bradshaw and Justin Leppistch and I thought they are not all going to be playing forward, one of them will have to play in defence," he said.

"Leppa was the one sent back to defence and made the best part of his career as a defender but while Daniel had played a little bit in defence, he is more a (natural) full-back or full-forward because is not a fantastic runner."

"He is more a power forward or power defender but while he has played full-back well, he has mainly played as the third tall (forward) when Brown and Lynch were the key position players."

But despite spending much of his career behind Brown and Lynch in the Lions' pecking order, Bradshaw's career total of 430