A centreman, Bourke played nine games in each of his two seasons at Melbourne.
[2] He then joined the Brisbane Bears for their inaugural VFL season in 1987 but couldn't break into the team.
Instead he became a leading player in the Queensland Australian Football League, with Morningside.
He gave up the captaincy in 1993 to become assistant playing coach and won another Grogan Medal that year, in a three-way tie, to become the first Morningside player to win it twice.
When he finally retired as a player he had amassed 187 QAFL games, with eight top two finishes in his club's "Best and Fairest", including three wins.