Jason Saddington (born 23 October 1979) is a retired Australian rules footballer in the Australian Football League. He was recruited as the number 11 draft pick in the 1997 AFL Draft from

Eastern Ranges The Eastern Ranges is an Australian rules football team in the NAB League, the Victorian statewide under-18s competition. The club is a founding member of the competition (1992) and has produced several players for the Australian Football Leag ...

Career

Sydney

Jason made his AFL debut for the Sydney Swans in Round 1, 1998 against Port Adelaide. He had a consistent debut season in 1998 and was nominated for the Norwich Rising Star award that year. He kicked 4 goals against the

Kangaroos Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

in Round 4 of 2004 in one of his best matches of his career, and was noted as a consistent rebounding backman with a strong mark. However, a serious knee injury in Round 10, 2004 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 ...

interrupted his career and the very slow process of recovery resulted in Jason being traded to the

Carlton Football Club The Carlton Football Club, nicknamed the Blues, is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's top professional competition. Founded in 1864 in Carlton, an inner suburb of Me ...

at the end of the 2005 season. He played 142 games in eight seasons at the Swans.

Carlton

Saddington debuted for Carlton against his old club, the Sydney Swans, in Round 3, 2006. He played six consecutive games, scoring two goals, before his season was again ended by the recurring knee injury. It was at this late stage that Saddington was told for the first time that the medical staff at Sydney Swans were aware of complications that had resulted from his first knee injury and had withheld this information from him and also from his new club. He had a further operation, and missed the rest of the 2006 season. Fully recovered, Saddington played very good football for Carlton's , the

Northern Bullants The Preston Football Club, which trades and plays as the Northern Bullants, is a long-established Australian rules football club based in Preston that plays in the Victorian Football League (VFL). It plays its home games at the Preston City Ov ...

, in the early rounds of season 2007 and played his first senior game of the 2007 AFL Season at the MCG against

Magpies Magpies are birds of the Corvidae family. Like other members of their family, they are widely considered to be intelligent creatures. The Eurasian magpie, for instance, is thought to rank among the world's most intelligent creatures, and is one ...

in Round 7 on Saturday 12 May 2007 taking a team high total of 12 marks. He played his 150th AFL game against the

Carrara 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 the ...

on 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 ...

the following week. With the replacement of coach

Denis Pagan Denis Leslie Pagan (born 24 September 1947) is a former Australian rules football coach and player in the VFL/AFL. Pagan is a dual AFL premiership coach, and he also won the prestigious Victoria derby in 2020 as a trainer and owner of the horse ...

with

Brett Ratten Brett Ratten (born 11 July 1971) is an Australian rules football coach and former player in the Australian Football League (AFL). He played 255 games for the Carlton Football Club between 1990 and 2003, including the club's 1995 premiership. He ...

, Saddington spent more time as a part-time forward later in the season. Saddington played only two games for Carlton in 2008, both late in the season. He won the Northern Bullants' best and fairest award, the Laurie Hill Trophy, for his strong season at VFL level during the season. Jason was offered a position in an

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 ...

initiative to assist homeless people.

Post-AFL career

Saddington officially retired from the

on 13 October 2008. He continued to play on with the

as a VFL-listed player in 2009, where he was a part of the club's losing grand final team. In 2012, Saddington played for the Balmain Dockers in the Sydney AFL competition alongside premiership players Nick Davis and Chad Fletcher. In 2014, Saddington coached the NSW/ACT Rams and was named Coach of the 2014 NAB AFL U18 All Australian Team. On 23 October 2014 Saddington was announced as new Academy Coach by the AFL.

References

External links

*
Jason Saddington Profile in Blueseum

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saddington, Jason 1979 births Living people Australian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia) Carlton Football Club players Sydney Swans players Preston Football Club (VFA) players Eastern Ranges players Balmain Australian Football Club players