Football Career
Lloyd was drafted into the AFL as a 16 year old in the 1995 Pre-season Draft as a "compensatory selection" that was awarded to Essendon by the AFL in return for losing Todd Ridley to the newly formed Fremantle Football Club. The Bombers picked up what would be one of their all-time greats for a relative pittance in the draft. Lloyd was heralded as a future football star after his AFL debut in Round 14, 1995, where he scored a goal with his first kick in league football and three for the match.
The key features of Matthew Lloyd's game were his powerful marks on the lead (particularly overhead), his use of his body in a defensive capacity and deadly accurate goal kicking, particularly from set shots, on his left foot. He converted a vast majority of set shots inside the 50-metre arc, and kicked further than 50 metres on a regular basis.
Lloyd was known for his ritual when taking set shots at goal. Almost every time he took time to go far back on the mark, pull both his socks up, then grab some grass and throw it into the air to measure the wind and take a very long run up before kicking. In 2006, the AFL introduced a "shot clock" to limit the amount of time that players had to take set shots; although Lloyd's ritual was not the longest in the league, its quirks make it the most well-known, so the rule became commonly known as "the Lloyd Rule". Lloyd adjusted his ritual to fit into the new rule, and still retained the most famous aspect (throwing grass) until the end of his career.
This goalscoring ability enabled him to top the Essendon goal scoring every year from 1997 to 2009, except for 2006 when he only played three games due to a serious hamstring injury.
Lloyd was selected in the All Australian Team on five occasions (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003), won the Coleman Medal for kicking the most goals in the regular season three times (in 2000, 2001 and 2003) and twice kicked more than 100 goals in a completed season (109 in 2000 and 105 in 2001; on both occasions he reached the milestone during the finals).
Lloyd was a member of Essendon's 2000 premiership team, and was captain of Essendon from 2006–09. 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.
Lloyd was appointed Essendon captain ahead of the 2006 season, after James Hird elected to stand down following the side's disappointing 2005 season. Lloyd's first match as Essendon captain resulted in a 27-point win over the defending premiers Sydney, where he kicked eight goals (six of them in the first quarter alone). It would be the only win that Essendon would enjoy under Lloyd's captaincy until exactly a year later.
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