Sam Menegola (born 7 March 1992) is an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

er playing for the

Geelong Football Club The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition, and are the 2022 ...

in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL). He had previously been listed by

Hawthorn Hawthorn or Hawthorns may refer to: Plants * '' Crataegus'' (hawthorn), a large genus of shrubs and trees in the family Rosaceae * ''Rhaphiolepis'' (hawthorn), a genus of about 15 species of evergreen shrubs and small trees in the family Rosace ...

and

Fremantle Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australian vernacular diminutive for ...

, but didn't play a senior game for either club. He is related to former

Swan Districts The Swan Districts Football Club, nicknamed the Swans, is an Australian rules football club playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and WAFL Women's (WAFLW). The club is based at Bassendean Oval, in Bassendean, an eastern suburb ...

premiership winner and

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

player,

Todd Menegola Todd Clement Menegola (born 25 December 1967) is a former Australian rules footballer who played with Richmond in the Australian Football League (AFL). Menegola started his career at Swan Districts in 1989 and was from Mukinbudin originally. ...

Early career

Originally from

East Fremantle East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

in the

West Australian Football League The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from March to September, ...

(WAFL), Menegola was first drafted in the 2011 rookie draft by Hawthorn with their first selection and nineteenth overall. He spent one season with Hawthorn before being delisted at the end of the 2011 season. He was drafted again in the 2012 rookie draft by Fremantle, with their third selection and forty-fourth overall. He spent three injury interrupted seasons with Fremantle without playing an AFL match and was delisted at the end of the 2014 season. In 2013, he only played two games in the WAFL due to a knee injury and in 2014 was transferred to

Peel Thunder The Peel Thunder Football Club is an Australian rules football club playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and WAFL Women's (WAFLW). The team is based in Mandurah, Western Australia, with their home ground being Rushton Park. The ...

due to Fremantle's alignment with Peel. After being delisted by Fremantle he moved to Subiaco for the

2015 WAFL season The 2015 WAFL season was the 131st season of the various incarnations of the West Australian Football League The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league cu ...

. Despite being unable to play due to an ankle injury until Round 11, Menegola finished third in the

Sandover Medal The Sandover Medal is an Australian rules football award, given annually since 1921 to the fairest and best player in the West Australian Football League. The award was donated by Alfred Sandover M.B.E., a prominent Perth hardware merchant and be ...

, only 4 votes behind the winner,

Aidan Tropiano Aidan or Aiden is a modern version of a number of Celtic language names, including the Irish male given name ''Aodhán'', the Scottish Gaelic given name Aodhan and the Welsh name Aeddan. Phonetic variants, such as spelled with an "e" instead of ...

. He was then one of the best players in Subiaco's 2015 WAFL Grand Final winning team.

AFL career

Menegola was on

Hawthorn Football Club The Hawthorn Football Club, nicknamed the Hawks, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Mulgrave, Victoria, that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club was founded in 1902 in the inner-east suburb of Hawt ...

's rookie list in 2011 and also on

Fremantle Football Club The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Dockers, is a professional Australian rules football club competing in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The team was founded in 1994 to represent the port city of ...

's rookie list from 2012 to 2014.

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...

then drafted Menegola with their second selection and sixty-sixth overall in the 2015 national draft. He made his AFL debut in the thirty-point win against in round 18, 2016 at

Simonds Stadium Kardinia Park (also known as GMHBA Stadium due to naming rights) is a sporting and entertainment venue located within Kardinia Park, South Geelong, in the Australian state of Victoria. The stadium, which is owned and operated by the Kardinia P ...

. In 2017 Menegola had cemented his place in the midfield along with

Patrick Dangerfield Patrick Dangerfield (born 5 April 1990) is an Australian rules footballer playing for the Geelong Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He previously played for the Adelaide Football Club. Drafted by Adelaide in 2007, Dangerfi ...

and

Joel Selwood Joel Anthony Selwood (born 26 May 1988) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Geelong Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He was a quadruple premiership player, a six-time All-Australian, and a three-ti ...

. Menegola was selected in the 2020

All Australian The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-performed players during the season, led by ...

40 man squad but did not make the final team. In the same year he played for Geelong in the

Grand Final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final (sometimes colloquially abbreviated to "grannie") is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Sy ...

Statistics

''Updated to the end of the 2022 season''. , - ,

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2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

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2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

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2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

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2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

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2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

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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; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

, , , , 27 , 7 , , 5 , , 4 , , 87 , , 38 , , 125 , , 87 , , 38 , , 0.7 , , 0.6 , , 12.4 , , 5.4 , , 17.9 , , 4.0 , , 1.1 , , 2 , - class=sortbottom ! colspan=3 , Career ! 116 !! 81 !! 61 !! 1426 !! 1166 !! 2592 !! 597 !! 392 !! 0.7 !! 0.5 !! 12.3 !! 10.1 !! 22.3 !! 5.1 !! 3.4 !! 25 Notes

Honours and achievements

Team * 2×

McClelland Trophy The McClelland Trophy is an Australian rules football trophy which has been awarded each year since 1951 by the Australian Football League (known prior to 1990 as the Victorian Football League) to the best-performing club in the home-and-away sea ...

():

References

External links

* *
Sam Menegola's WAFL statistics
{{DEFAULTSORT:Menegola, Sam 1992 births Living people Geelong Football Club players Box Hill Football Club players East Fremantle Football Club players Peel Thunder Football Club players Subiaco Football Club players Australian rules footballers from Western Australia Australian people of Italian descent