AFL Outer-East: Bulldogs legend Jarrod Bayliss is back at Wandin

After 2½ years away from the club a Bulldogs legend will again pull on the Wandin jumper.

Jarrod Bayliss heads downfield during Wandin’s grand final win over Healesville in 2015. Picture: Colleen Petch.

Wandin’s AFL Outer East campaign received a massive shot in the arm with the return of club legend Jarrod Bayliss.

After 2½ years away from the Wandin Recreation Reserve, Bayliss was yesterday cleared back to the club from Eastern Football League power Vermont.

Wandin coach Nick Adam said Bayliss had always planned to end his career at Wandin at some stage in the future but his return had been ahead of schedule and was all the more rapid because of the hectic nature of clearance traffic prior to the June 30 closing of the transfer window.

“It’s (clearances) sort of stagnant for a bit and then it all happens with a rush,” he said.

“My conversation with Jarrod was that it was always going to happen (at some time in the future). But it wasn’t an ongoing conversation and then it happened in a real rush.

“It’s a real opportunity for him to come back and play a role at the club he loves.”

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Jarrod Bayliss (centre) celebrates with brother Jack and Michael Fowkes after the 2015 premiership win. Picture: Colleen Petch.

Bayliss, a premiership player in 2015 and playing coach from 2010 until 2014 and then again in 2016, departed the Yarra Ranges club in 2017 and spent two seasons at the helm of Eastern Football League’s Park Orchards.

At Domeney Reserve, he took the Sharks to their first senior premiership when they won the 2017 Division 3 flag.

In September 2018, Bayliss stepped down from the coaching role at Park Orchards but, desiring to test himself as a player at the top level, signed with reigning EFL champions Vermont in the off-season.

“He’s going to add to our midfield depth,” Adam said. “And, he’s as fit as I’ve ever seen him.”

With his abundance of coaching experience, Bayliss will also boost the leadership stocks at Wandin.

“We haven’t brought him back in that role (coaching),” Adam said. “He’s coming back purely as a player. But it’s great to have experience like that out on the field.”

Wandin, currently sixth and percentage behind fifth-placed Cranbourne, travels to Edwin Flack Reserve tomorrow to take on Berwick.

Jarrod Bayliss at the helm of Park Orchards in 2017. Picture: Davis Harrigan

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