30 September 2025<\/p>\n
By PETER ARGENT<\/p>\n
Central District\u2019s Aidan Schubert is primed for his appearance at this weekend\u2019s AFL National Combine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now entrenched in the \u2018first goal, first kick club\u2019 after his long bomb in the Hostplus SANFL League Elimination Final in late August, the Gawler Central junior certainly made an impact on debut for Central District\u2019s League side.<\/p>\n
A member of the 2025 South Australian Under 18s side, which became National Champions for the first time since 2018, Schubert impressed as a forward-ruck, being among seven Croweaters who won All-Australian honours.<\/p>\n
Also, an elite junior basketballer, Schubert has competed for SA Country Under 16s in the Basketball National Championships and for two years in the Under 18s in Forward\/Power Forward roles.<\/p>\n
The 198cm big-man had to make the call between a career playing his other passion of hoops, or to travel down the football pathway.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 2025 season was my third year in the Central District junior program,\u201d Schubert told SANFL.com.au.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a member of the 2023 Under 16s premiership against Sturt, when Dyson (Sharp) and Matt (LeRay) were co-captains.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also played in last year\u2019s heartbreaking Under 18s Grand Final loss to the Eagles as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
After his impressive performances at the U18 AFL National Championships this year, Schubert fronted senior coach Paul Thomas about getting a chance at league level in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was about six weeks ago I asked Paul about opportunities to get a League game,\u201d Schubert mused.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe gave me a couple of areas to work on, and to be fair, it wasn\u2019t exactly what I wanted to hear.<\/p>\n
\u201cA group of us were pushed up to the reserves in the week the underage sides had their bye.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaul phoned me on the Wednesday before the game and told me he\u2019s seen improvement, along with mentioning I\u2019d been selected.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe presented me with my No.45 jumper at the Captain\u2019s run on the Saturday before the Elimination Final.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two things I noted (about my first league game) were the bigger bodies and a bit more structure at league level.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still thought I could have done more on reflection.<\/p>\n
\u201c(I) would have loved to have a win to have another opportunity at league level.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would mean I would have also grabbed bragging rights over Dad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve just got Dad by an inch or so, height-wise already.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"30 September 2025 By PETER ARGENT Central District\u2019s Aidan Schubert is primed for his appearance at this weekend\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-179892","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\/179892","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=179892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}