On a landmark night for young Greek-Australian talent, two defenders with Hellenic heritage have been drafted into the AFL.<\/p>\n
At pick No. 26, the North Melbourne Kangaroos selected 194 cm key defender Blake Thredgold from South Australia.<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s official announcement notes Thredgold\u2019s standout performance in the SANFL Under-18 Grand Final \u2014 12 marks and 14 disposals in the decider.He was described as \u201cathletic \u2026 to boost their key position stocks\u201d.<\/p>\n
Thredgold shared his reaction:<\/p>\n
\u201c(The moment I was drafted) was insane\u2026 Everyone jumped on me. It\u2019s the best feeling ever. The nerves go away\u2026 tears of happiness. I couldn\u2019t be happier going to North Melbourne. They\u2019re such a good group and I can\u2019t wait to start there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, at pick No. 36, the Essendon Bombers secured 190 cm defender Max Kondogiannis.<\/p>\n
The club highlighted his \u201crangy aerial\u201d ability, \u201cplenty of speed\u201d, and refined kicking under pressure.<\/p>\n
His Combine metrics were listed: a 2.94-second 20-metre sprint and a 6:26 two-kilometre time trial.<\/p>\n
Essendon\u2019s draft summary said Kondogiannis spent most of his top-age campaign as a roaming third-defender, impacting with his intercept game and pace out of half-back.<\/p>\n
Both clubs have clearly invested in defensive prospects with speed, athleticism and versatility.<\/p>\n
The selections mark a promising night for Greek-Australian representation in the AFL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a landmark night for young Greek-Australian talent, two defenders with Hellenic heritage have been drafted into the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-298081","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\/298081","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=298081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}