{"id":487355,"date":"2026-02-18T06:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T06:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/487355\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T06:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T06:20:11","slug":"arch-rivals-bid-fails-as-afl-young-gun-re-signs-with-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/487355\/","title":{"rendered":"Arch-rivals’ bid fails as AFL young gun re-signs with Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hawthorn have confirmed Josh Weddle’s re-signing, securing the AFL young gun to a four-year contract extension that will take him through to free agency.<\/p>\n

Weddle, 21, was coming out of contract at the end of this season and Essendon had dangled a massive offer for the highly-rated utility.<\/p>\n

After the Bombers knocked back their arch-rivals’ bid in the trade period last year to sign captain Zach Merrett, Essendon in turn tried to raid the Hawks with a seven-year offer to Weddle reportedly worth $10 million.<\/p>\n

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But Weddle will be at Hawthorn at least until the end of the 2030 season.<\/p>\n

Weddle has played 60 games since his 2023 debut, including 18 last season, and has impressed in a number of different roles.<\/p>\n

Hawks football boss Rob McCartney said Weddle was one of their hardest-working players.<\/p>\n

“He is an important part of what we are aspiring to achieve, and we are extremely confident that his best is yet to come,” McCartney said in a club statement.<\/p>\n

“In the early years of his career, Josh has shown a capacity to produce some special moments that can change a game or lift his teammates back into the contest.<\/p>\n

“While his explosive running power has been well documented, the evolution of Josh’s game as a defender to playing on the wing, in the ruck and even up forward, highlights his versatility and selflessness to play any role required to make us better.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawthorn have confirmed Josh Weddle’s re-signing, securing the AFL young gun to a four-year contract extension that will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-487355","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-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487355","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=487355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}