{"id":315777,"date":"2025-11-29T05:01:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T05:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/315777\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T05:01:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T05:01:13","slug":"a-huge-part-of-my-journey-how-primary-school-teacher-had-afl-dream-realised-afl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/315777\/","title":{"rendered":"“A huge part of my journey”: How primary school teacher had AFL dream realised – AFL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Jesse Mellor’s road to an AFL<\/a> list was no ordinary one.<\/p>\n

Mellor slipped through the 2025 National Draft and, as a Next Generation Academy prospect, ultimately landed at Geelong as a Category B rookie.<\/p>\n

Mellor, who has been lauded as a “Jake Stringer type talent”<\/a>, performed when it mattered throughout 2025, putting his name on the map with a six goal trial game for Vic Country against the Young Guns, before averaging two goals per game throughout a productive U18s National Championships, and booting four snags in a final for the Falcons.<\/p>\n

But, as he told media on Thursday, it was his experiences as a primary school teacher that shaped his draft year most.<\/p>\n

“That was a huge part of my footy this year, being at St Patricks Primary School,” Mellor said.<\/p>\n

“They were such a big help and so supportive. I’d have a fair few days off with footy, whether it was Thursday’s looking at vision or doing recovery [after the weekend]. They were so supportive with that.”<\/p>\n

\"MELBOURNE,MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – JUNE 28: Jesse Mellor of Vic Country runs with the ball during the Victorian Diversity All-Stars U18 Boys match between Vic Country and Vic Metro at Warrawee Park on June 28, 2023 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Josh Chadwick\/AFL Photos\/via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

While his draft moment arrived later than expected it allowed for a special moment at his school’s assembly as he revealed to his students his opportunity to pursue his football dream full-time.<\/p>\n

“They had their assembly at 2.30pm on the Friday,” Mellor said.<\/p>\n

“I called the principal and said yes, it’s happened. He asked if I could come to the assembly and I said yes, so I went down and it was pretty funny.<\/p>\n

“I put a jacket over my Cats gear, I went up and said that I have some bad news. I said I am not going to be at St Patrick’s anymore, but I am going to be at the Cats and I took my stuff off and put my Cats hat on.<\/p>\n

“It was pretty special and the kids were pretty up and about, it was good to say farewell to them because they have been a huge part of the journey.”<\/p>\n

While Mellor has it cut out for him to progress up Geelong’s ranks in the forward line to achieve an unlikely debut in 2026, his hard-nosed, tireless work ethic will make him a coach’s favourite.<\/p>\n

“My ability one-on-one ahead of the ball and the ability to find shots on goal consistently helped me get here, but I want to build myself up to become an AFL<\/a> player,” Mellor said.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been loving training and I’ve got the belief in myself that I’m going to be able to get there. It’s up to me now.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jesse Mellor’s road to an AFL list was no ordinary one. Mellor slipped through the 2025 National Draft…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-315777","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\/315777","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=315777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}