{"id":233811,"date":"2025-10-23T01:10:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T01:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/233811\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T01:10:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T01:10:13","slug":"retired-premiership-forward-set-for-football-return-afl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/233811\/","title":{"rendered":"Retired premiership forward set for football return &#8211; AFL News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/introducing-myteam-your-club-your-news-your-way-166070\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"327\" height=\"40\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" style=\"float:right;\" class=\"my-team-banner promo-article-banner\" id=\"my-team-banner\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ZH-InArticleMyTeamLink.png.webp.webp\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It won&#8217;t take long for former West Coast and Port Adelaide player <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/afl\/players\/willie-rioli\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Willie Rioli<\/a> to pull on the boots again, as he prepares to line up for Northern Territory side the Tiwi Bombers.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/its-time-for-me-to-step-aside-why-port-adelaide-forward-calls-time-on-career-167432\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rioli announced his retirement from the AFL at the conclusion of the 2025 season<\/a>, following a career spanning nine seasons and 109 games across two clubs, which included a premiership in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>The 30-year-old is now firming to be in the Bombers&#8217; lineup against one of his former sides in St Mary&#8217;s in Round 4 of the NTFL competition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s going to be really exciting, he will give our players a real boost, which they need,\u201d Tiwi coach Patrick Bowden told News Corp.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Rioli spent time at the Saints during his junior days and played a pivotal part in the club&#8217;s 2012-2013 premiership, winning the Chaney Medal (best afield) in the decider.<\/p>\n<p>He also spent time at the Tiwi Bombers before he was drafted by the Eagles with Pick 52 in 2016, as well as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/sanfl\/glenelg-tigers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Glenelg Tigers<\/a> in the SANFL.<\/p>\n<p>The match between St Mary&#8217;s and the Bombers will be on Saturday, 2:00pm at TIO Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Both clubs have registered one victory this season.<\/p>\n<p>        &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n        &#13;<br \/>\n                        &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; &#13; It won&#8217;t take long for former West Coast and Port Adelaide player Willie Rioli to pull&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-233811","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\/233811","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=233811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}