Trent Eric Croad (born 9 March 1980) is a former professional

Australian rules football 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 Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

er who played for the

Hawthorn Football Club The Hawthorn Football Club, nicknamed the Hawks, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Mulgrave, Victoria, that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club was founded in 1902 in the inner-east suburb of Hawth ...

and

Fremantle Football Club The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Dockers or colloquially Freo, is a professional Australian rules football club competing in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The team was founded in 1994 to represen ...

in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent professional sports, professional competition of Australian rules football. It was originally named the Victorian Football League (VFL) and was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition ...

(AFL). During his 222-game AFL career, he achieved some of the Australian Football League's highest honours including an AFL premiership medallion,

All-Australian The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules football in Australia, Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-perfo ...

selection, and representing

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and Victoria on multiple occasions.

Early life

Born in Auckland, New Zealand, to mother and father Bruce, and the grandson of All Black Eric Boggs Croad migrated with his family to Australia and grew up in Narre Warren in Victoria. He began playing at a young age with Endeavour Hills and the Narre Warren Junior Football Club and attended

De La Salle College, Malvern De La Salle College is a Catholic private school for boys in the Melbourne suburb of Malvern. The college was founded in 1912 by the De La Salle Brothers, a religious order based on the teachings of Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, and is a member ...

. He was scouted by recruiters as a 17-year-old and nominated for the 1997

AFL Draft The Australian Football League draft is the annual draft (sports), draft of unsigned players, especially new nominations, by Australian rules football teams that participate in the main competition of that sport, the Australian Football League ( ...

. Croad was invited to the AFL Draft camp where he set the draft camp record for a standing vertical jump at 83 cm, which remained for at least a decade.

AFL career

Hawthorn

Hawthorn picked up Croad with the third overall selection in the draft. He started out as a defender, playing at either

centre half-back In the sport of Australian rules football, the half-back line refers to the positions of the 3 players on the field that occupy the centre half-back and left and right half-back flank positions. Centre half-back The role of the centre half-bac ...

or fullback. But he showed his versatility as his career went on, being able to play in any number of key positions.

Fremantle

Croad was traded from Hawthorn to Fremantle at the end of 2001. The picks given up by Fremantle were used by Hawthorn to select former Hawthorn stars

Luke Hodge Luke Hodge (born 15 June 1984) is a former Australian rules football player who played with the Hawthorn Football Club and the Brisbane Lions in the Australian Football League (AFL). He played for the Hawthorn Football Club from 2002 to 2017, c ...

and Sam Mitchell, whilst

Luke McPharlin Luke McPharlin (born 1 December 1981) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played in the Australian Football League (AFL) for the Fremantle Football Club between 2002 and 2015, after two seasons with the Hawthorn Football C ...

joined Croad in moving west. While Croad was reasonable but not spectacular at the Dockers, in 2002, he was Fremantle's leading goalkicker with 42 goals. The following season Croad lost confidence and kicked 18 goals. He cited homesickness and asked to be traded back to Victoria at the end of 2003.

Return to Hawthorn

He was traded back to Hawthorn, this time only in return for pick 10, which was used by Fremantle to select Ryley Dunn. Croad was told that he would be the centre half back, with a regular position his form improved once he went back to the Hawks, winning

selection in 2005. Croad relished the responsibility of being the senior man down back being strong, athletic type who took the oppositions best forward each week. During the second quarter of the 2008 Grand Final, Croad broke his left foot, and leaving the ground with the aid of trainers he still managed to lay a bump on Geelong's Joel Selwood before playing no further part in the game. Hawthorn went on to win the match and Croad earned his first premiership medallion in over 200 games of AFL football. Croad missed the entire 2009 season due to his 2008 Grand Final injury, and on 6 January 2010 he announced his retirement after his surgeon warned him that he might permanently lose all function in his left foot if he broke it again.

Personal life

In October 2006, Croad married Tanya Stewart, and had two daughters, Kiera (born July 2007) and Sierra (born October 2009). Croad became engaged to

Kym Valentine Kym Valentine (born 24 May 1977) is an Australian actress, best known for her long running intermittent portrayal of Libby Kennedy in the soap opera ''Neighbours.'' Early life Valentine was born in Blacktown, Sydney, and grew up in Granvill ...

in March 2015. In November, Valentine and Croad confirmed they were expecting their first child together. Valentine gave birth to a son named Phoenix in March 2016. Valentine and Croad split December 2017. Croad has been in a relationship with Kate Jesaulenko, daughter of AFL Legend

Alex Jesaulenko Oleksandr Vasiliovych "Alex" Jesaulenko ( ; , ; born 2 August 1945) is a former Australian rules footballer and who played for the Carlton Football Club and the St Kilda Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He also served as a ...

, since 2018. Croad currently works as a manager in landscaping. Trent Croad married Kate Jesaulenko, daughter of Carlton Legend, Alex Jesaulenko, 12 April 2025.

Controversy

As part of an investigation by the Australian Crime Commission into drugs and organised crime in Australian sport, Croad was named by

Fairfax Media Fairfax Media was a media (communication), media company in Australia and New Zealand, with investments in newspaper, magazines, radio and digital properties. The company was founded by John Fairfax as John Fairfax and Sons, who purchased ''The ...

newspapers as being involved in a peptide supply deal linked to the

Comanchero Motorcycle Club The Comanchero Motorcycle Club is an outlaw motorcycle gang in Australia and South East Asia and New Zealand . The Comancheros are participants in the United Motorcycle Council of NSW, which convened a conference in 2009 to address legislation ...

, an

outlaw motorcycle gang An outlaw motorcycle club, known colloquially as a biker club or club (in Australia), is a motorcycle subculture generally centered on the use of cruiser motorcycles, particularly Harley-Davidsons and choppers, and a set of ideals that purpo ...

. Croad announced that he would sue Fairfax Media for defamation over the article.

Statistics

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1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

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1999 1999 was designated as the International Year of Older Persons. Events January * January 1 – The euro currency is established and the European Central Bank assumes its full powers. * January 3 – The Mars Polar Lander is launc ...

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2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

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2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...

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2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

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2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

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2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

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2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

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2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

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2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

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2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

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2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

, , , , 24 , 0 , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , 0 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 222 !! 189 !! 158 !! 1844 !! 863 !! 2707 !! 1035 !! 216 !! 0.9 !! 0.7 !! 8.3 !! 3.9 !! 12.2 !! 4.7 !! 1.0 !! 25

Honours and achievements

Team * AFL premiership player ():

Individual *

All-Australian team The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules football in Australia, Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-perfo ...

: 2005 * Fremantle leading goalkicker: 2002 * AFL Rising Star nominee:

* 3×

Australia international rules football team The Australia international rules football team is Australia's senior representative team in International rules football, a hybrid sport derived from Australian rules football and Gaelic football. The current team is solely made up of players ...

* life member

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Croad, Trent 1980 births Living people VFL/AFL players born outside Australia All-Australians (AFL) Fremantle Football Club players Hawthorn Football Club players Hawthorn Football Club premiership players Victorian State of Origin players New Zealand emigrants to Australia New Zealand players of Australian rules football Australian rules footballers from Melbourne Dandenong Stingrays players De La Salle OC Amateur Football Club players Australia international rules football team players Claremont Football Club players VFL/AFL premiership players People from Narre Warren