One-time Random Souths Guy, turned starting Left Tackle for the Philadelphia Eagles Jordan Mailata, is the first Australian to start in a winning Super Bowl team.

It’s not quite Adam Scott winning the Masters, but it’s up there.

Yes, 15 years after Ben Graham missed out on winning Super Bowl XLIII with the Arizona Cardinals thanks to the Santonio Holmes toe tap, followed by Mitch Wishnowsky and Mailata himself both being denied by the Patrick Mahomes Chiefs 3 times in 5 years, Mailata has joined Jesse Williams (2013 Seahawks) as the only Australians to win a Super Bowl, although ‘tha Monstar’ was injured in 2013 and never played a down in the NFL’s regular season after winning 2 national championships at Alabama.

So now looking at the other major American sporting leagues, only the Stanley Cup Finals haven’t featured an Australian playing on the winning team, as Nathan Walker was a part of the 2017-18 Washington Capitals, but never played in the Finals and didn’t get his name engraved on the Cup.

– Out of all the Australians to feature in Major League Baseball, predominantly as pitchers, the great Australian pitcher Graeme Lloyd stands alone as a winner of the 1996 and 1998 World Series with the New York Yankees, pitching in Games 3 and 4 of the 1996 World Series against the Atlanta Braves, getting credited with the Game 4 victory after relieving Mariano Rivera (The greatest relief pitcher in history) in the Bottom of the 9th Inning with the scores at 6-6, forcing a double play with 2 runners on base that allowed the Yankees to extend the game to a 10th Inning in which they scored 2 runs and won the game 8-6 after trailing 0-6, going on to win the World Series 4-2, and Lloyd was part of the bullpen for the ’98 Yankees that won a record total of 125 games in a season (114-48 in the regular season, 11-2 in the postseason), capped off by the 4-0 World Series sweep of the San Diego Padres.

He threw 1 pitch in that World Series (Bottom of the 7th in Game 3) for 1 out, and after that was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays in the trade that got Roger Clemens to Yankee Stadium.

Also a nod to Grant Balfour, the only other Australian to feature in the World Series, when he pitched in 3 games for the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2008 World Series, in which the Rays lost to the Philadelphia Phillies in 5 games.

– Six Australians have won the NBA Championship, starting with the trailblazer Luc Longley (1996-98 Bulls), Andrew Gaze (1998-99 Spurs), although Gazey was inactive throughout that playoff run, Patty Mills and Aron Baynes (2013-14 Spurs), Andrew Bogut (2014-15 Warriors) and Matthew Dellavedova (2015-16 Cavaliers)… also Kyrie Irving, a key part of the 2015-16 Cavaliers, was born in Melbourne and does hold Australian citizenship.

And the aforementioned Nathan Walker was part of the 2017-18 Washington Capitals during their Stanley Cup victory against the Vegas Golden Knights, although his name didn’t get on Lord Stanley’s Cup as he only played 7 games in the season, then 1 game during the Stanley Cup Playoffs (The deciding Game 6 in the Second Round against the Penguins) and didn’t meet the minimum requirement to be engraved, which is either playing half of the regular season (41 games) or 1 game in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Still, he did once get a phone call from Malcolm Turnbull for becoming the first Australian to play in the NHL… what an honour.