{"id":127935,"date":"2025-09-08T14:17:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T14:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/127935\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T14:17:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T14:17:12","slug":"essendon-star-sam-draper-set-to-join-brisbane-lions-in-free-agency-period","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/127935\/","title":{"rendered":"Essendon star Sam Draper set to join Brisbane Lions in free agency period"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sam Draper<\/a> will head to Brisbane<\/a> in this year’s free agency period, despite receiving interest for a return to his home state with the Adelaide Crows.<\/p>\n

According to Nine’s chief AFL reporter Tom Morris via social media<\/a>, the 26-year-old will join the Lions next season after opting to depart Essendon.<\/p>\n

The star ruckman had spent nine seasons with the Bombers after being selected with the No.1 overall pick in the 2017 draft.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: McGuire rips ‘rubbish’ claims of soured friendship<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Gould calls for change to ‘murder trial’ judiciary system<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Popovic takes ‘patient’ approach despite World Cup build<\/a><\/p>\n

The standout South Australian product had been linked with a potential move to join the Crows, but will instead knock their approach back and head to the Sunshine State.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sam Draper\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Draper kicked 43 goals in 78 appearances in the red and black guernsey, but was part of the club’s horror injury crisis this season, rupturing his Achilles in round six. <\/p>\n

Essendon could receive compensation once Draper’s touted move to the Lions as an unrestricted free agent is confirmed.<\/p>\n

The news of his move to Brisbane comes as the club also remain in the hunt to land West Coast co-captain Oscar Allen, who informed the Eagles of his desire to explore his options as a restricted free agent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Draper will head to Brisbane in this year’s free agency period, despite receiving interest for a return…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-127935","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\/127935","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=127935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}