YOU might remember his first game, which also was against Collingwood. He scooped up the ball and waved it around in one hand, as if it was a baseball housed in a glove.

It was one of those rare, scintillating debuts that prompts big statements. The one-handed control of the football and freaky athleticism led many observers to compare him to a young Anthony Koutoufides. Leigh Matthews deemed him the most capable first-year player he'd coached.

But Jared Brennan wasn't Kouta. He didn't concentrate that well, and seemed to get lost. He was a gifted flake, and while he was 192 centimetres and quick, it wasn't clear that he could settle into a position, or that he even had one. He wasn't quite a flanker, nor was he robust enough to play key positions.

Matthews tried him in defence, where he would lose the plot, and his opponent. He sent him forward, but again, Brennan seemed clueless. For all that rubbery athleticism, he didn't appear to possess the game's most important attributes: a football brain, and indomitable will.

And, having been so exciting at the outset, he would be judged — harshly — against that precocious promise. Before long, he was spoken of as an expensive bust, the Lions having burnt pick three in the 2002 draft to secure him.

He was compensation for losing Des Headland, and, if Fremantle has ever questioned the wisdom of acquiring delicate Des, Brennan might have given the Dockers reason to be relieved.

Whatever becomes of Jared Brennan, he should not forget the evening of his 23rd birthday, when he booted five of his seven goals in a half and the Lions gave Collingwood a more severe beating than the 2003 grand final. It was the best of Brennan's 54 mostly underwhelming AFL games.

He was matched, initially, to the boy from Brazil, Harry O'Brien, who would probably match Brennan for speed and spring, but was comprehensively out-positioned in the first quarter, when Brennan banged through three goals and the Lions exploded from the blocks to a 38-point lead.

At half-time, Brennan had five goals. Jonathan Brown, supposedly the sole obstacle to a Collingwood victory, had only two of the Lions' 16 goals at three-quarter time. It was Brennan's third goal that signified that he was "on" and that his evening would showcase more thrills than spills or brain fades. The ball was bombed in long to the edge of the goal square, where four or five players converged. Coming from third in line, Brennan took a soaring pack mark, and converted.

Eventually, O'Brien was relieved by Tyson Goldsack, another athletic young defender, again Brennan had him covered, wrong-footing him and reading the ball better in flight.

Mind you, the speed and efficiency of Brisbane's ball movement and its utter domination of the midfield was such that any defender would have been challenged to contain Brennan and Brown. It was Simon Black, Jed Adcock and company, not big Browny, that minced the Pies.

Brennan had shown glimpses before last night, having booted four when shifted forward against West Coast, in what was hitherto, the Lions' best victory and his most impressive performance of 2007.

A chuffed Matthews said last night he wished he had sent Brennan forward earlier in the season.

Last night, Brennan and Brisbane bettered the West Coast game on both counts.

It wasn't so much all his birthdays coming at once, as him finally having a day worth celebrating, and it just happened to be his birthday.