Shane Valenti (born 29 January 1987) is an

Australian rules footballer Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

, who played for the Melbourne Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Valenti was selected with the 51st selection in the 2007 NAB AFL Rookie Draft, which was Melbourne's final draft selection for that season. He made his mark in the Victorian Football League, playing with Melbourne's VFL-affiliate Sandringham, as a tough, in-and-under midfielder, and won the Fothergill-Round Medal as the league's most outstanding young player. Valenti made his senior debut for Melbourne in Round 8 against

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater A ...

in the 2008 season, he played a total of nine games for the year. The 2009 season saw Valenti only manage six senior games for Melbourne, spending majority of the season as a consistent performer in the VFL, with Melbourne's new affiliate team Casey. He finished fifth in Casey's

best and fairest In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

. At the end of the 2009 season, Valenti was delisted by Melbourne. In 2010, Valenti moved to

Port Melbourne Port Melbourne is an inner-city List of Melbourne suburbs, suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the Cities of ...

in the VFL, where he played for the next five seasons. He was joint winner of the

J. J. Liston Trophy The J. J. Liston Trophy is awarded annually to the best and fairest senior player in the Victorian Football League (formerly the Victorian Football Association). It is named after J.J. Liston, a businessman, civic leader and sports administrato ...

in 2010, tying on 20 votes with North Ballarat's Steve Clifton. The following year, he won the Liston Trophy again, this time outright, becoming the third player in VFA/VFL history to win the award back-to-back. With his win, there was speculation that he may be recruited by AFL teams or

Essendon Essendon may refer to: Australia *Electoral district of Essendon *Electoral district of Essendon and Flemington *Essendon, Victoria **Essendon railway station **Essendon Airport *Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League United King ...

, but neither eventuated and he remained with Port Melbourne. He departed Port Melbourne at the end of 2014, having played a total of 149 VFL games for Sandringham, Casey and Port Melbourne, and returned to playing suburban football.

References

External links

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Demon Wiki profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Valenti, Shane 1987 births Living people Australian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia) Melbourne Football Club players Port Melbourne Football Club players Sandringham Football Club players Casey Demons players People educated at Haileybury (Melbourne) Sandringham Dragons players J. J. Liston Trophy winners