{"id":536309,"date":"2026-03-12T21:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T21:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/536309\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T21:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T21:05:10","slug":"young-roo-in-frame-for-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/536309\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Roo in frame for season opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Colby McKercher remains in contention to play in North Melbourne’s season opener, having been named in the Kangaroos’ extended squad for Sunday’s Round 1 match against Port Adelaide\n <\/p>\n

Colby McKercher remains in contention to play in North Melbourne’s season opener, having been named in the Kangaroos’ extended squad for Sunday’s Round 1 match against Port Adelaide at Marvel Stadium.<\/p>\n

McKercher, who underwent minor finger surgery last month, is named on the Roos’ eight-man extended bench.<\/p>\n

Veteran defender Luke McDonald is also named on the bench after returning from a wrist injury in last weekend’s VFL practice match against Geelong.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As revealed on Wednesday<\/a>, small forward Lachy Dovaston and defender Tom Blamires will make their AFL debuts against the Power.<\/p>\n

Blamires, who will debut just two weeks after being recruited as a pre-season supplementary signing, has been named on a half-back flank along with second-year player Finn O’Sullivan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dovaston, who arrived at Arden St as the No.16 pick in last November’s Telstra AFL Draft, is named on the forward line along with new club captain Nick Larkey.<\/p>\n

The Kangaroos will finalise their selected team of 23 players at 5pm on Friday.<\/p>\n

Fans are encouraged to be in their seats from 12.45pm on Sunday to see the club reveal its 2026 goal ends, and for pre-game entertainment, including the chance to win a CHiQ TV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The opening bounce at Marvel Stadium is at 1.10pm AEDT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colby McKercher remains in contention to play in North Melbourne’s season opener, having been named in the Kangaroos’…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,85,83],"class_list":["post-536309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536309","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=536309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}