{"id":486864,"date":"2026-02-18T01:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/486864\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T01:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:00:19","slug":"nick-watson-and-jack-ginnivan-react-to-josh-weddle-hawthorn-re-signing-turning-down-monster-essendon-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/486864\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Watson and Jack Ginnivan react to Josh Weddle Hawthorn re-signing; Turning down monster Essendon offer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josh Weddle has reportedly signed a four-year contract extension with Hawthorn<\/a>, and his teammates Nick Watson and Jack Ginnivan<\/a> are certainly excited to hear it. <\/p>\n

It comes after Essendon<\/a> reportedly offered him a seven-year $10m contract over summer<\/a>, in the wake of the Hawks’ attempts to poach Zach Merrett<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The extension was reported on Monday night, though the club is yet to confirm the news.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘Confronting’ doco to shed light on explosive AFL sacking<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Petracca ‘frustrated’ at hints of ulterior trade motive<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘Gone soft’: Aussie greats fume over World Cup disaster<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Nick<\/p>\n

Nick Watson correcting Jack Ginnivan on Josh Weddle’s contract situation. \u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

And that little caveat led to a funny moment between the Hawthorn forwards when they were asked about Weddle reportedly re-signing at a press conference on Tuesday morning. <\/p>\n

Ginnivan began to answer with his excitement surrounding the news, saying: “yeah, well he’s an absolute gun, so” … before Watson cut him off to toe the club line, given the announcement is yet to be officially released.<\/p>\n

“Not sure he’s put pen to paper yet, so,” Watson laughed.<\/p>\n

Ginnivan smiled and continued: “Hopefully he re-signs, if he hasn’t already, but if he does, we saw yesterday how good he is and he’s an absolute weapon and he’ll be great to have.”<\/p>\n

Given the enormous offer Essendon had in front of the 21-year-old, Watson is ecstatic Weddle has decided to stay.<\/p>\n

“Obviously we see (how good he is) every day at training, but he brings the energy, brings the love within the group,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Josh<\/p>\n

Josh Weddle of the Hawks celebrates kicking a goal.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

“All that talk going around about Essendon and them wanting to get him and stuff like that, but he’s a Hawthorn boy.<\/p>\n

“He’s obviously fast, powerful, he can go through the midfield now. He can play anywhere. Wing, half back, forward, kick goals, wherever.<\/p>\n

“He’s a special player and talent and hopefully he stays with the Hawks.” <\/p>\n

Weddle and the Hawks played their first scratch match of the year on Monday, defeating Geelong 111-94 at the club’s training base in Dingley.<\/p>\n

Reports out of the game suggest the star utility spent more time in the midfield and might feature there regularly in 2026.<\/p>\n

Hawthorn will need the midfield depth, given Will Day has been sidelined with a serious shoulder injury, and the club failed to successfully complete a trade for Merrett in the off-season. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Weddle has reportedly signed a four-year contract extension with Hawthorn, and his teammates Nick Watson and Jack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-486864","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\/486864","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=486864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}