{"id":159899,"date":"2025-09-22T00:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T00:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/159899\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T00:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T00:26:08","slug":"geelong-cats-midfielder-jhye-clarks-journey-from-vfl-to-grand-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/159899\/","title":{"rendered":"Geelong Cats midfielder Jhye Clark\u2019s journey from VFL to grand final"},"content":{"rendered":"

That meant the Queenscliff product\u2019s only path back to the AFL in September was to do it at training. He set about convincing the coaches that he deserved another shot, with assistant coach Steven King \u2013 Melbourne\u2019s new senior coach<\/a> \u2013 pushing Clark\u2019s case to Chris Scott.<\/p>\n

Clark forced his way in for Geelong\u2019s qualifying final win over Brisbane, as the substitute again, but only snuck onto the MCG for the last few minutes.<\/p>\n

\"Clark<\/p>\n

Clark has overcome two concussions this year and being dropped three times.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

His next opportunity a fortnight later, with a grand final spot on the line against Hawthorn, came far earlier. Star defender Tom Stewart\u2019s concussion just before quarter-time thrust Clark into action \u2013 and with major responsibility.<\/p>\n

Clark responded with 14 disposals and four clearances, prompting Scott to opine post-match that they might look back on his preliminary final performance as \u201ca bit of an inflection point for Jhye\u201d.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

\u201cHe trained the house down … and when the chance popped up a couple of weeks ago, he got a couple of minutes,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut [in the preliminary final], when he got his chance early, he played \u2013 without being overconfident about it \u2013 the way we thought he would play, which is high praise indeed because that\u2019s a big ask, off the amount of footy that he\u2019s had in the last probably six weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Development coach] Nigel Lappin does a great job with those guys, in particular. But this is the old \u2018he-trained-his-way-into-the-team\u2019 situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nothing that happened on Friday night, including the kind words that flowed afterwards, were enough to make Clark feel assured about keeping his spot for the grand final.<\/p>\n

His hard-earned path to the Cats\u2019 senior side has taught him that.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have some tough times when you\u2019re jealous you\u2019re not playing, but you\u2019ve got to snap out of that mindset really quickly, and just be happy for the boys who are playing,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the grand final, so we\u2019re top two in the comp, and you\u2019ve got to keep fighting for your spot. There are no guarantees. There are so many young boys pushing for a spot, and hopefully Rhys [Stanley] comes back in. I\u2019ll be happy however it pans out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That meant the Queenscliff product\u2019s only path back to the AFL in September was to do it at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-159899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159899","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=159899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}