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Royal Payne wants to accomplish more as he reaches 100Thursday, April 21, 2016 - 5:40 PM - by Chris Pike

STEVEN Payne is about to reach 100 WAFL games with East Perth and is already a fairest and best winner, but the 25-year-old wingman is far from content with his achievements in his career to date.

Payne has made the wing position his own with the Royals since coming into the team midway through 2011 after a relatively long apprenticeship in the reserves.

Along the way, he won the 2014 fairest and best award and has been a key player in an East Perth team that made the 2012 first semi-final, grand finals of 2013 and 2014, and then preliminary final of 2015.

But as he is preparing for game No. 100 this Saturday against Perth at Lathlain Park, Payne is far from content and has his eyes firmly set on 150 games to earn life membership at the Royals and to win that elusive premiership having been so close for four years now.

Before he can try and achieve either of those, though, it's his 100th game on Saturday and he's hoping to celebrate with a win against the Demons to give the Royals three on the trot after losing the opening three of 2016.

"It's a pretty big honour having your name up there under guys like Craig Glancy and Rod Wheatley. I'm looking forward to that," Payne said.

It's up there, but probably not right up the top. The 150 is the one I'm really looking forward to so I get the life membership, but it's definitely good to get my name on the locker forever.

"I've got a few family members and stuff coming up from down south, and a few mates coming along to watch. It won't be anything over the top, we'll try to treat it like another game and I'll just clock up the 100."

Payne has been wearing the No. 2 jumper proudly ever since 2002 premiership player and 103-game star Craig Glancy retired when his body let him down in 2011.

That's something Payne takes as a great honour given Glancy was the one player he looked up to more than any when he first made the move from Margaret River.

"It was a bit of an honour to get the No. 2. He actually came to me during the week that he retired and asked if I wanted the number. I thought he was joking because I didn’t really know he was retiring but it was an awesome honour. I've tried to do it justice since," he said.

"Plucka is a down south boy like me and as soon as I came up he took me under his wing and showed me the way. 'Pickers' (Adam Pickering) is another one who was really good for me and he helped make the transition easy for me of moving to Perth."

Playing on the wing is something Payne has made his own now for virtually every one of his 99 games for the Royals and it allows him to use his tremendous running power to full effect.

"I go through the middle sometimes but I find that restricts my running. Once I'm out on the wing I feel at home so I can use my run and work rate to work over my opponent. I like it out there," Payne said.

"In the colts I played a fair bit on the wing and went through the middle a little bit more than I do now as well. But ever since I made myself in the league team I've been out on the wing and a little bit forward every now and then."

East Perth the last four years have been close to a premiership but with two losing grand finals, a losing preliminary final and losing a first semi-final, it's something that Payne still uses the painful memories from to spur him on and to remain motivated to keep trying to win the ultimate prize.

"The first one felt like a dream because we came from behind that season and then it was over and done with quickly. But looking back you think that really hurts now. It hurt at the time but now in hindsight it hurts even more knowing how we threw those two chances away," he said.

"You think about it all the time, I almost think about it before every game how much those two grand finals and the prelim last year hurt.

"I don’t think you realise how hard it is to get into a grand final but then you speak to guys like Wulffy who has only played in the two I've been in over 270-odd games. It's pretty hard to get there and if we get another chance we have to take it."

Payne, who has been included into the club's leadership group for the first time in 2016, certainly can't imagine himself threatening Wulff's club games record that he continues to be extending that currently sits at 274.

Not only that, but Wulff is in outstanding form in his role in the forward-line and Payne knows how important that core group of senior players including Wulff, Paul Johnson, Kyle Anderson, Mitch Fraser, Nathan Blee and Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls are to the Royals' prospects.

"I could see myself getting to 200. That would be good to play, but I would love to at least get to 150 so I get the life membership and then we'll see what happens from there and how my body is holding up. I don’t think I'll get up to Wulff's mark though. He's a freak," he said.

"It's definitely important to have that core group of six or eight guys that we do across those main positions. That's pretty much our spine of the team and the other guys work off them.

"Definitely having Wulffy play again this year has been huge and he is one of the guys who has got us up and going the past couple of weeks.

"Seeing what he brings to each game fires up everyone else. Just seeing how hard he is at the contest and he keeps popping up like last week he managed to kick three goals. He is massively important for us."

Things were beginning to look bleak early this season for East Perth with a 76-point loss to Claremont, 31-point loss to Subiaco and 40-point defeat to South Fremantle, but things have decidedly picked up since with wins over Peel Thunder and West Perth.

Payne wasn’t necessarily surprised at the slow start, but is glad things have picked up since and is hopeful of a third straight win this Saturday against Perth.

"We always knew those first couple of weeks were going to be hard with the alignment boys coming in and us getting to know each other. It's the same every year we seem to have a slow first three or four games and then starting hitting our straps. It's been good the last couple of weeks," Payne said.

"From the first bounce we have to hit them hard and try to get on top by kicking the first couple of goals. They are one of these teams you can't take lightly because you don't know what they are going to bring.