Joel Jeffrey (born 12 March 2002) is a professional Australian rules footballer who plays for the

Gold Coast Football Club The Gold Coast Suns is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club is based on Queensland's Gold Coast in the suburb of Carrara. The club has been playing in the AFL since the ...

in the Australian Football League (AFL).

Early life

Jeffrey was born into a Darwin-based family of

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

descent from the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

( Wulwulam) and

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

(

Kukatj The Kukatj are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Cape York Peninsula in the state of Queensland. They are to be distinguished from the Kukatja of Western Australia and the Luritja of the Northern Territory, who have also historically been k ...

). His father, Russell, was a professional Australian rules footballer who played at the highest level for St Kilda before relocating to the

Gold Coast Gold Coast may refer to: Places Africa * Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana: ** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642) ** Dutch G ...

to continue his

AFL AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

career with the

Brisbane Bears The Brisbane Football Club, nicknamed the Bears, was a professional Australian rules football club based in Queensland on the Gold Coast (relocated to Brisbane in 1993). The club participated in the Victorian/Australian Football League (VFL/ ...

. Following his retirement, Russell returned to Darwin to play for Wanderers and coached

Palmerston Palmerston may refer to: People * Christie Palmerston (c. 1851–1897), Australian explorer * Several prominent people have borne the title of Viscount Palmerston ** Henry Temple, 1st Viscount Palmerston (c. 1673–1757), Irish nobleman an ...

to back-to-back NTFL premierships in 2001–02. He was inducted into the AFLNT Hall of Fame in 2010. Joel began playing junior football for

and later switched to the Wanderers Football Club where he made his Men's Premier League debut for the club in 2018 at 16 years of age. In June 2019, at 17 years of age, Jeffrey made his senior NEAFL debut for the NT Thunder at TIO Stadium and kicked a goal in his first game. He was also selected to represent the Allies at the

2019 AFL Under 18 Championships The 2019 NAB AFL Under-18 Championships was the 24th edition of the AFL Under 18 Championships, AFL Under-18 Championships. The tournament was played between five teams—The Allies (Australian rules football), Allies, South Australian state f ...

as a bottom ager and intended to relocate to the

in 2020 to take part in the Gold Coast Suns Academy program on a full-time basis until the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

eliminated that possibility. In December 2020, Jeffrey was drafted to the Gold Coast Suns via their academy access.

AFL career

Jeffrey spent the first half of the 2021 season playing for Gold Coast in the VFL and notably kicked a winning goal after the siren to defeat the Sydney Swans after marking the ball one handed with seconds to go in the game. He impressed again a month later with a 9-goal, best on ground performance in the VFL, which earned him an

debut the following week against the

Melbourne Demons The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. It is based in Melbourne, Victoria, and plays its home ...

Metricon Stadium Carrara Stadium (known commercially as Metricon Stadium) is a stadium on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, located in the suburb of Carrara. The stadium is primarily used for Australian rules football, serving as the home ground of th ...

. In his sixth AFL game, Jeffrey remarkably kicked five goals against the

Western Bulldogs The Western Bulldogs are a professional Australian rules football team that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition. Founded in 1877 as the Footscray Football Club, and based in West Footscray in the o ...

, which included a Goal of the Year nomination that involved an intercept and a snap over his head. He was awarded a

2022 AFL Rising Star The NAB AFL Rising Star The AFL Rising Star is an Australian rules football award presented annually to the player adjudged the best young player in the Australian Football League (AFL) for the year. It was first presented in the 1993 sea ...

nomination for his performance.

Statistics

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2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeypo ...

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References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jeffrey, Joel 2002 births Living people Gold Coast Football Club players Indigenous Australian players of Australian rules football Australian rules footballers from the Northern Territory Australian rules football players from Darwin, Northern Territory