Burgoyne wants to play on. He hopes that will be at Hawthorn. If not at the Hawks then the 34year-old will only later consider the idea of whether he wants to continue playing elsewhere, potentially even back at Port Adelaide.

Where will he be playing next year? "It's a good question. Hopefully I'll be playing at Hawthorn. I will sit down with my manager and talk with the club and hopefully we can nut something out, I really want to put the club's best interests first so we will go through it but I am fairly confident," he said.

"I haven't spoken about that yet [playing elsewhere such as back at Port Adelaide], I have just been concentrating on footy and touch wood there's no injuries and then in the off season we sit down and talk seriously.

"I feel good about myself but I respect Graham Wright, Clarko, the guys who make the decisions about the playing list because they have a tough job, not just with me but there are five or six changes every year. I want to do the right thing by the club.

"I will let my manager take control of it, he has been in regular contact with the club ... my body is good, I recover from games well, I still have a lot of love for the game too, I enjoy it. And there's no surgery this year, I just roll in, do my job."

???

The fact of other retirements - Hodge, Josh Gibson - being announced ahead of the last game of the year suggests those broad conversations of Burgoyne's future have been had at Hawthorn with the player and his manager.

The conclusion to be dawn from that is that either the Hawks want and expect Burgoyne to play on next year or the player wants to play on next year whether it is at Hawthorn or elsewhere (such as Steve Johnson preferring to continue to play on for longer at the Giants).

The indications and strong expectation is that Burgoyne will remain at Hawthorn.

Burgoyne wiped tears from his eye as he sang the song and reflected on his own shared past with Luke Hodge - and Bob Murphy and Matthew Boyd - but also his own future.

"It does make me reflect on where I am at ... I cherish every game now, I didn't really cherish them when I started it was more of an excitement thing."

Burgoyne said he moments such as Friday night when not only Hodge retired but also Murphy and Boyd made him contemplative.

"It was pretty emotional at the end. Early days I used to play on Murph and Boydy so to see those guys hanging the boots up is a bit emotional because we have had a number of battles," he said.

"I said to Murph out there on the ground that I started at full-forward and he was full-back on me so we had a quick laugh about that. That was early days, 2002 - I didn't play a game in my first year 2001.

"And of course sending off our two boys as well, Hodgey who has been a massive part of this club and Gibbo [Josh Gibson] as well, two key contributors as to why we had premiership success."