{"id":412141,"date":"2026-01-14T10:57:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T10:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/412141\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T10:57:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T10:57:16","slug":"afl-premiership-player-james-harmes-granted-personal-leave-from-western-bulldogs-pre-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/412141\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL premiership player James Harmes granted personal leave from Western Bulldogs pre-season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\"><a class=\"css-1lg16vp-StyledTextLink ezegcyi0\" data-link-type=\"article-inline\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/7news.com.au\/sport\/western-bulldogs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Western Bulldogs<\/a> midfielder James Harmes is the latest premiership player to be granted personal leave from <a class=\"css-1lg16vp-StyledTextLink ezegcyi0\" data-link-type=\"article-inline\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/7news.com.au\/sport\/afl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">AFL<\/a> pre-season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">7NEWS understands the 30-year-old hasn\u2019t returned to the club following the Christmas break.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">There is currently no timeline on his return as he deals with his delicate personal situation away from the Kennel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-178igh4-StyledParagraph e1s06mna1\">Know the news with the 7NEWS app: <a class=\"css-h2mhmv-StyledContextualLink e1s06mna0\" href=\"https:\/\/7news.com.au\/app?utm_source=7NEWS&amp;utm_medium=contextual-link-app&amp;utm_campaign=7news-app\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">He is seen as unlikely to feature early in the 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">In the past week fellow premiership players <a class=\"css-1lg16vp-StyledTextLink ezegcyi0\" data-link-type=\"article-inline\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/7news.com.au\/sport\/afl\/collingwood-star-bobby-hill-granted-leave-of-absence-for-personal-situation--c-21256392\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bobby Hill<\/a> (Collingwood) and <a class=\"css-1lg16vp-StyledTextLink ezegcyi0\" data-link-type=\"article-inline\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/7news.com.au\/sport\/afl\/geelong-premiership-hero-tyson-stengle-takes-leave-for-personal-situation-c-21283663\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tyson Stengle<\/a> (Geelong) also took indefinite leave from their respective clubs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Harmes played 13 games for the Bulldogs in 2025 in his second season at the club after crossing from Melbourne, where he tasted premiership success in 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">His three-year contract is due to expire at season\u2019s end.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"css-6fiqrm-StyledLinkWrapper e1y7kr221\" href=\"https:\/\/7news.com.au\/sport\/afl\/tom-silvagni-files-appeal-against-rape-conviction-with-supreme-court-c-21302252\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>Tom Silvagni launches appeal against rape conviction<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-xp0jgm-StyledTimeToRead e1y7kr223\">3 min read<\/p>\n<p><\/a><a class=\"css-6fiqrm-StyledLinkWrapper e1y7kr221\" href=\"https:\/\/7news.com.au\/sport\/afl\/geelong-premiership-hero-tyson-stengle-takes-leave-for-personal-situation-c-21283663\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>AFL premiership hero takes leave for personal situation<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-xp0jgm-StyledTimeToRead e1y7kr223\">1 min read<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Western Bulldogs midfielder James Harmes is the latest premiership player to be granted personal leave from AFL pre-season.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,588,85,698],"class_list":["post-412141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-western-bulldogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412141","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=412141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}