Norwood defender Balyn O\u2019Brien has been added to Port Adelaide\u2019s AFL list during the Pre-Season Supplemental Selection Period.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien \u2013 who played six SANFL matches last season for the Redlegs \u2013 has been training with the Power over the summer, having been overlooked in last year\u2019s AFL National Draft.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old 187cm defender represented SA in the 2025 AFL U18 National Championships, as well as playing eight U18 matches for Norwood, before making his League debut in Round 17 and playing a key role across the SANFL finals series.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien comes from Norwood\u2019s Regional Zone of the Eyre Peninsula, and has progressed through the club\u2019s junior pathway.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are incredibly proud of Balyn, he\u2019s done everything he could to get Drafted and he\u2019s got the reward,\u201d Norwood FC Talent Manager Craig Roberts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis competitiveness is amazing, as well as his ability to play on a range of different players is what stands out. He showed it at League level, and stood up under finals pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a club we wish him all the best in his AFL career.\u201d<\/p>\n
Port Adelaide list manager Jason Cripps said via the AFL.com.au website \u201cBalyn had a consistent season in the SANFL under 18s and national champs, before breaking into the Norwood league side and holding his place through the finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has sound defensive instincts and proved himself as being hard to play on. He has the size and athleticism to allow him to defend a variety of types and showed his strength in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norwood has now had three players taken in the 2025 AFL Draft period, with Jacob Newton heading to the West Coast Eagles during the AFL\u2019s Mid Season Draft, Billy Cootee to Sydney in the National Draft and O\u2019Brien to Port in the Pre-Season SSP.<\/p>\n
Charli Hazelhurst was Drafted to Fremantle during December\u2019s AFLW Draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Norwood defender Balyn O\u2019Brien has been added to Port Adelaide\u2019s AFL list during the Pre-Season Supplemental Selection Period.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-498529","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\/498529","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=498529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}