{"id":401816,"date":"2026-01-09T10:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T10:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/401816\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T10:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T10:54:13","slug":"collingwood-magpies-star-bobby-hill-granted-a-leave-of-absence-from-the-club-he-won-a-norm-smith-medal-and-2023-premiership-at","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/401816\/","title":{"rendered":"Collingwood Magpies star Bobby Hill granted a leave of absence from the club he won a Norm Smith Medal and 2023 premiership at"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In August, Hill asked coach Craig McRae not to put a line through him returning for their \u201925 campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The coach met with his popular small forward, who had barely trained or played as he battled personal and family issues.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/link\/follow-20170101-p5moh2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Collingwood struggled in attack with him out of the side<\/a>. He was sorely missed in a three-point loss to Adelaide when the Magpies had 34 more inside 50s than the Crows but were unable to kick a winning score. In such congestion, the loss of Hill\u2019s speed and ability to find space to conjure a goal was telling.<\/p>\n<p>There was a brief run of trade speculation after the season, before Collingwood list boss Justin Leppitsch reiterated Hill\u2019s commitment to the Magpies during the trade period.<\/p>\n<p>West Australian product Hill, one of the most dynamic forwards in the competition, is contracted until 2030.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s at the club [next year]. Bobby\u2019s staying at the club,\u201d Leppitsch said in October.<\/p>\n<p>AAP, with Michael Gleeson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In August, Hill asked coach Craig McRae not to put a line through him returning for their \u201925&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-401816","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\/401816","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=401816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}