{"id":120139,"date":"2025-09-05T06:20:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T06:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/120139\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T06:20:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T06:20:09","slug":"gold-coast-star-to-play-through-injury-in-suns-first-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/120139\/","title":{"rendered":"Gold Coast star to play through injury in Suns first final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bailey Humphrey will line up for Gold Coast in Saturday\u2019s elimination final against Fremantle, despite carrying a knee issue that may need surgery once the Suns\u2019 season ends.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The third-year midfielder-forward admits the injury has lingered but says the bye weeks have given him the chance to recover enough to play his part in the club\u2019s first-ever AFL finals campaign.<\/p>\n

“There’s a little bit of an issue there, but the two weeks off helped heaps,” Humphrey told AFL.com.au<\/a>. “I’ll let the docs take care of that (potentially with surgery), but they’ve made sure I’m ready and right to go.”<\/p>\n

From survival to ambition<\/p>\n

For Humphrey, who only returned in the finals-clinching victory over Essendon, the chance to feature at Optus Stadium is about more than just breaking a drought.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s pretty crazy; as a young kid, you dream of getting drafted, then you dream of playing in big games,” he said. “As a club, this is all we’ve asked for. We’ve had the opportunity now with some Friday night games during the year, and now we’re in finals.”<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0AFL Qualifying Final Collingwood player ratings: Darcy Moore survives shaky start<\/a><\/p>\n

The Suns\u2019 appearance marks the end of a 15-year wait, but the squad\u2019s ambitions go beyond participation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We knew making it was the goal, but we spoke through the whole year and summer that making it wasn’t the expectation,” Humphrey explained. “We want to win finals and be a club that goes far into September.”<\/p>\n

At just 20, Humphrey is proving resilient on and off the field. With David Swallow finally getting his first taste of September in his 248th match, the young Sun insists he is relishing the freedom to simply play his way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bailey Humphrey will line up for Gold Coast in Saturday\u2019s elimination final against Fremantle, despite carrying a knee…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-120139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}