Jacob Ballard (born 26 February 1994) is a current

Coburg Football Club The Coburg Football Club, nicknamed the Lions, is an Australian rules football club based in the Melbourne suburb of Coburg, Victoria, Coburg. It has been based at Coburg City Oval since 1915. Coburg's men's team currently plays in the Victor ...

player and 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

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). Drafted with the 47th selection in the 2014 Rookie Draft from

Northern Blues The Northern Bullants are a semi-professional Australian rules football club that currently competes in the Victorian Football League (VFL). The club, which is based in the Melbourne suburb of Preston, plays its home games at Preston City Ov ...

in the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football competition in Australia operated by the Australian Football League (AFL) as a second-tier, regional, semi-professional competition. It includes teams from clubs based in east ...

(VFL), he played for

Peel Thunder The Peel Thunder Football Club is an Australian rules football club playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and WAFL Women's (WAFLW). The team is based in Mandurah, Western Australia, with their home ground being Rushton Park. The ...

in the

West Australian Football League The West Australian Football League (WAFL "waffle" or "W-A-F-L") is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting f ...

(WAFL), Fremantle's

reserve team In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players who are under contract to a club but who do not regularly play in matches for the club's primary team. Reserve teams usually include players who are part of the larger first-team squad but ...

during the 2014 and 2015 seasons. Ballard made his AFL debut for Fremantle in the final round of the

2015 AFL season The 2015 AFL season was the 119th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured eig ...

, when Fremantle sent a weakened team to play

Port Adelaide Port Adelaide is a port-side region of Adelaide, approximately northwest of the Adelaide city centre, Adelaide CBD. It is also the namesake of the City of Port Adelaide Enfield council, a suburb, a federal and state electoral division and is t ...

Adelaide Oval The Adelaide Oval is a stadium in Adelaide in the state of South Australia. It is located in the Adelaide Parklands, parklands. The venue is predominantly used for cricket and Australian rules football, but has also played host to rugby league, ...

. Twelve changes were made to the team, and Ballard was one of four players to make their AFL debuts. He was delisted at the conclusion of the 2015 season. One day after being delisted by Fremantle, Ballard was awarded the Tuckey Medal as the

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 ...

player for Peel Thunder in 2015.

VFL career

Ballard was named on the interchange of the VFL's Team of the Year while playing for Richmond in 2017. In 2019 he won a VFL premiership with Richmond. In November 2019, Ballard agreed to a 1-year agreement with the

References

External links

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WAFL Player Profile and Statistics
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ballard, Jacob 1994 births Living people Fremantle Football Club players Peel Thunder Football Club players Northern Bullants players Coburg Football Club players Australian rules footballers from Victoria (state) 21st-century Australian sportsmen