{"id":80632,"date":"2025-08-19T19:13:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T19:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/80632\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T19:13:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T19:13:14","slug":"father-son-prospect-chooses-melbourne-over-gold-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/80632\/","title":{"rendered":"Father-Son prospect chooses Melbourne over Gold Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"

Father-Son prospect Kalani White has committed to joining Melbourne in this year’s draft after a nervous choice between the Demons and Gold Coast<\/p>\n

Son of former Demons ruckman Jeff, Kalani was in Gold Coast’s academy and also had the option to commit to the Suns in this year’s draft.<\/p>\n

Jeff played 236 games for Melbourne, which included being named as ruck in the 2004 All-Australian team and winning the Demons’ best and fairest in the same year and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps, but said the decision was up to him.<\/p>\n

White is a 198cm ruck prospect and has played three matches for Casey Demons, Melbourne’s VFL side, which includes kicking 2 goals on debut for the club.<\/p>\n

MORE: AFL tribunal hands down verdict over Port Adelaide star’s significant ban<\/a><\/p>\n

The Demons have committed to picking him up in the draft and matching any bids made for him under the new father-son rules.<\/p>\n

White played for the Allies in the AFL national under-18 boys championships and for the Suns in the talent league.<\/p>\n

According to AFL journalist and draft guru Callum Twomey, White is seen as being picked later in the draft.<\/p>\n

Dees fans will be looking forward to the selection with a replacement ruck needed not too far into the future, with captain Max Gawn turning 34 at the end of this year.<\/p>\n

Twomey is also reporting that the Dees will have access to Toby Sinnema in this year’s draft, as he is a part of their Next Generation Academy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Father-Son prospect Kalani White has committed to joining Melbourne in this year’s draft after a nervous choice between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-80632","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\/80632","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=80632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}