AFL draft 2024: Jobe Shanahan on playing forward or back, lining up with Harley, and link to St Kilda
Jobe Shanahan is one of the draft’s top forward prospects, but he might find a home in defence. He tells Chris Cavanagh about where he could play, playing with Harley, and his Saints link.
Sport
Don't miss out on the headlines from Sport. Followed categories will be added to My News.
He made headlines as a goalkicking key forward for Essendon in the VFL this year, but some scouts still believe that Jobe Shanahan’s best position could be in defence.
“Last year with the (Bendigo) Pioneers was my first stint down back and I nearly played my best footy for the year down there,” Shanahan said.
“Wherever the coach puts me, I don’t mind. I’ve played forward a lot my whole career so I probably prefer forward. But I don’t mind going behind the footy and reading the play or running in the midfield with the little fellas.”
Standing 195cm, Shanahan shapes as a highly-sought after first-round prospect in this month’s AFL national draft – and his three-game stint with the Bombers late in the season is a big reason why.
The boy from Moama booted 4.0 in a Round 19 VFL debut, before logging 2.3 and 5.0 over the following two weeks.
The hauls came despite Shanahan sharing a forward line with AFL-listed key forward Peter Wright, who kicked a combined 8.4 over the same period.
Another week, another debutant 🫡
— Essendon VFL (@essendonvfl) August 3, 2024
Best of luck to Bendigo prospect Jobe Shanahan in his first taste of VFL action today! pic.twitter.com/bpw1efOSzg
“It’s hard playing as a key forward in a VFL team,” Shanahan said.
“But I think I just adapted pretty well at the time and just stuck to what I knew.
“I went down there in the pre-season and did a week with their AFL squad and throughout the year I had little chats about going down there and training again. We went down there for a week and I didn’t play in the first week, but I ended up playing the next three weeks after that which was really good.
“We had a good team and a lot of good deliveries, so it was pretty easy to get on the end of some. All the boys were really good and helped me out a lot so it was pretty easy to just fit in.”
REID ALL ABOUT IT
Shanahan won’t be the No. 1 draft pick this year, but he went to school with last year’s No. 1 draft pick.
Like Harley Reid, he has come through St Joeseph’s College in Echuca, as well as the Bendigo Pioneers program.
“I did know Harley from training and all that stuff,” he said.
“I just said hello to him at school when I could. He’s pretty level headed. He’s a good man. Seeing how he went about it just kind of motivated me to do kind of the same, just be as level headed as possible and embrace my local club like he did. He did that really well I think.”
Reid put Tongala Football Club on the map, a club which competes against Shanahan’s Moama Football Club in the Murray Football League.
“They’re a really inclusive club and taught me heaps and gave me a lot of opportunities in that senior team when I was 15,” Shanahan said of Moama.
“That helped me a lot to gain confidence to play Pioneers last year.”
In one game as a bottom-age player in under-17s, Shanahan kicked 12 goals for the Magpies.
He went back as a top-age under-17 last year and booted four goals in a premiership win over Cobram.
“They carried the whole year and I just went back for two games with them,” Shanahan said of his teammates.
“It was really cool to be able to do that, though, and finish off my junior years at Moama with them.”
SAINTS IDOL
Growing up a St Kilda supporter, Shanahan looked up to a Saints forward.
“I grew up watching a lot of Nick Riewoldt,” he said.
“I love the way he played.”
Like Riewoldt, Shanahan is no stay-at-home key forward but instead pushes up to the wings to provide a marking option for teammates further up the ground.
While he lists his No. 1 strength as his marking, his kicking, decision-making, athleticism and workrate are also big ticks.
“When I’m at centre half-forward I just like working my ass off and being that big option down the line, or wherever, really,” Shanahan said.
“That’s one thing I take away from him (Riewoldt) I think.”
The Saints hold picks 7 and 8 and rivals aren’t ruling out the prospect of them using one of those picks on a player like Shanahan.
If he gets past his childhood club, he is expected to be picked up with a selection in the teens, being linked to the likes of Fremantle, Greater Western Sydney, Port Adelaide and Sydney.
Jobe Shanahan Goal â¤ï¸ðŸ–¤ pic.twitter.com/SGDTY8iTLb
— Jade Hockey (@HockeyJade) August 18, 2024
DANCING TO THE DRAFT
Fellow Bendigo Pioneers product Dayten Uerata enjoys making the odd TikTok and Shanahan found himself getting involved after training at stages this year.
“He loves getting on his TikTok,” Shanahan said of Uerata.
“He encouraged a few of us boys to get in with him. I’d probably have to say my favourite one was probably the first one we did.
“I don’t know what dance that was but that was a bit of fun. Good bonding, I think.”
That first video has amassed more than 55,000 views, not that Shanahan rates himself too highly as a dancer.
“I was just winging it, really. Just having a crack for a bit of fun,” he said.
It was a minor brush with fame, but much more attention could soon be coming Shanahan’s way when he is drafted to the AFL.
So excited! Sydney Hobart sailor a real chip off the old block
For almost every one of her 21 years Georgia Wharington has watched her dad set sail in the Sydney to Hobart. Now she will be beside him for one of the fastest and most furious in recent times.
Sydney to Hobart race record under threat
The weather forecast has the four supermaxis entered in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race dreaming of a potential race record.