How Dyson Sharp is proving the doubters wrong ahead of the AFL Draft
South Australian coach Tony Bamford reveals why he almost denied star prospect Dyson Sharp the captaincy before the teenager's emphatic response changed everything.
South Australian under-18 coach Tony Bamford was “worried”.
After finalising his squad for this year’s national championships in April, he had an obvious choice for captain.
But the experienced coach had seen the pressure get to players in their draft years before and didn’t want Dyson Sharp – who was being touted as a potential No. 1 pick – to similarly fall flat on the national stage.
“We’ve had quite a few boys touted as top-end talents who didn’t quite get it done at national level,” Bamford said.
“So I was really worried about Dyson at the end of last year and the start of this year, about how he would go with all that. I had a really good conversation with him once we picked the squad in April and I said, ‘I don’t really want to go through a leadership process like we normally would because it’s clear to me and it’s clear to your peers that everyone wants you to be captain’. But I didn’t want him to do it because I thought it might impact on his performance.
“I wanted him to have a little bit less pressure and I asked him to consider overnight how he would feel if I didn’t name him captain. I said, ‘If you really want to be captain, let’s consider having joint captains so that some of the pressure is off you’.”
Sharp came back to Bamford with his response the next day.
“He said, ‘I really want the honour of being captain of this state and this team in particular, because I reckon that I’m mature enough to understand who to listen to and who not to listen to’,” Bamford recalled.
“Then he said, ‘I’m certain I can handle the pressure that’s going to come because I don’t listen to the people who don’t have a vested interest in me as a person and who I am’.
“I thought that was a really mature answer for a young kid.”
Bamford and his assistant coaches promptly agreed that Sharp – who was still 17 at the time – would serve as South Australia’s sole captain.
However, two vice-captains in Sam Cumming and Jack Cook were appointed to make sure he was adequately supported.
They needn’t have worried.
“I think it’s probably just a label at the end of the day,” Sharp said recently of his captaincy role this year.
“Whether you’re captain or not, you can still be a leader within a group, which is something that I strive to be.
“Luckily for me it comes quite naturally and I just went out and tried to play my best footy.”
THE CAMP
The tone for South Australia’s national championships campaign was set during a pre-season camp last December.
Sharp had represented his state as a bottom-age player at last year’s under-18 national championships, where South Australia won only one of its four games in a disappointing campaign.
“We both agreed it was about bringing it back to genuine care and friendship with each other,” Bamford said.
“So Dyson and I drove a real theme around prioritising your teammate ahead of yourself in the carnival, which is easy for us to say but hard for individuals to do because they all understand that they’re essentially doing job interviews for AFL clubs during those four games. But Dyson was really strong in making sure that off field everyone was caring for each other and looking after each other.”
Players took a bus to Port Hughes for the three-day pre-season camp, where bonding was prioritised over “about 50 minutes” of football training that took place.
The side’s theme for the championships became known as “You + Me = We” — and Sharp was the key driver of that with his team-first attitude.
“We just tried to get every player to buy into that,” Sharp said.
“So for me, it was just making sure that everyone was building that trust and that connection.”
THE DOUBTERS
Recruiters had plenty of question marks on Sharp at the start of the year.
Was he too one-dimensional? Was he quick enough? Could he perform against bigger and better opponents than he had been facing in the SANFL under-18s?
The facts are, some players develop earlier than others and then fizzle out.
A big-bodied onballer, Sharp was clearly an early-developer and had won the Kevin Sheehan Medal as the best player at the under-16 national championships in 2023.
He backed that up by starring as a bottom-age player for South Australia at the 2024 under-18 national championships.
This year, Sharp displayed a fierce determination not to let his flame burn out.
In the end, it was quite the opposite as he elevated himself again.
The national championships were where the question marks were answered.
Scouts began stamping Sharp as a firm top-five prospect after he averaged 27 disposals, six clearances, five tackles and 1.3 goals across South Australia’s four matches.
As captain, he finished as the No. 1 ranked player at the tournament – in the No. 1 ranked team – and collected the Larke Medal after being judged the best player at the carnival.
One recruiter described him as a “ready to go” onballer after the championships, while others labelled him an “ultra-consistent” performer whose “forward work is underrated”.
“He was clearly the best performed player at the nationals,” another scout said.
“Does he end up the best player? I don’t know.”
THE AURA
Sharp returned to SANFL club Central District after the national championships and continued his strong 2025 campaign.
He played the last seven games of the season in the senior side, featuring against men and mixing his time between midfield and half-forward roles.
“He’s just an unreal teammate,” Central District coach Paul Thomas said of Sharp.
“I think that’s what separates him from other guys. It’s why he was the captain of the under 18s and probably why South Australia’s under 18s maybe over achieved. He pulled them together as the captain.
“As a 15 year-old, he played 16s, he was the best player. As a 17 year-old playing 18s, he was the best player. Last year in one of our league games we needed a few goals kicked and he was in our best players. So he just finds a way to evolve.
“Last year we played him as a high forward to connect the game. This year he was exposed to more midfield and he didn’t look out of place at all.”
In junior football, Sharp would regularly win the ball and break tackles with ease, such was his power and size.
But the senior experiences over the past two years helped bring about meaningful change.
“Going up into the seniors, I had to adjust my game massively,” Sharp said.
“But that’s also helped with my outside game, which I’m trying to work on still.”
Thomas notes that Sharp is a humble teammate, but there’s no doubting the presence that he carries around the club.
“He’s a bit of a peacock,” Thomas said.
“I’ve got three young boys. When he walks into the change rooms, Dys, he doesn’t know this, but my kids are like, ‘Oh, that’s Dyson Sharp’. Our volunteers are like, ‘There’s Dyson Sharp’ and our captain is like ‘There’s Dyson Sharp’. So there’s a little thing where you get drawn to him. A little bit of aura.”
THE NEXT STEP
While West Coast and Richmond have expressed interest in Sharp, he looks more likely to land at Essendon or Melbourne within the first dozen picks of the national draft on November 19.
The 18-year-old is a Bombers supporter, so heading to Tullmarine at what will become pick 9 or 10 would be a dream come true.
However, Central District teammate and fellow first-round draft prospect Aidan Schubert believes Sharp should be taken higher than that.
“His resume over the past three or four years is massive,” Schubert said.
“To win the under-18s Larke Medal and the under-16s Kevin Sheehan Medal doesn’t happen that often at all. I don’t think he’s getting as much attention as he should be getting. Sometimes he’s not even in the top-five in Phantom Draft’s and things. I feel like he’s definitely the No. 1 pick if I had to pick.”
Schubert had a front-row seat to Sharp’s national championships campaign, watching not only what his skipper did with the ball but also what he did during breaks in play.
“He’s as good a leader as he is a player – and he’s a pretty good player,” Schubert said.
“He always liked to check in with us boys at quarter time, halftime, and that really helped. He had lots of belief in us that we could get it done and when the captain has all that belief it goes a long way.
“I don’t know how he deals with all these expectations that he’s had for last three years, but I admire the way that he’s coped with the expectations.”
Sharp has spoken to every club except the Brisbane Lions ahead of the draft, impressing in interviews as much as he impressed on and off the field this year.
“As a kid, that’s your main goal, to finally make it to an AFL club and play some AFL footy,” Sharp said.
“So (they’re) really exciting times.”
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