Liam Shiels (born 29 April 1991) is a former

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

North Melbourne Football Club The North Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Kangaroos or colloquially the Roos, is a professional Australian rules football club. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the women's team in the AFL Women's (AF ...

, 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). Shiels is a

midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in t ...

who developed into a key member of the midfield for Hawthorn that would win three premierships in a row from

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

. Shiels would also serve as vice-captain for Hawthorn from 2017–2018.

AFL career

Shiels was a 2nd round selection in the 2008 AFL draft, being selected at No. 34 overall. He was the youngest player drafted that year. Shiels was still a high school student when he joined the Hawks; as a result, Hawthorn needed to obtain special dispensation from Shiels' high school in order to enable him to train during periods where training clashed with his afternoon classes. Not expected to play in his first year, Shiels was training part-time and completing his schooling at Aquinas College Melbourne but after performances playing for Box Hill, Shiels was promoted to play against Adelaide. He played eleven games in his debut season. Shiels and

Josh Gibson Joshua Gibson (December 21, 1911 – January 20, 1947) was an American baseball catcher primarily in the Negro leagues. In 1972, he became the second Negro league player to be inducted in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, National ...

were the only Hawthorn players to play every game in 2011. Shiels was made joint vice-captain of the club in 2017, together with Isaac Smith. During Hawthorn's poor start to the 2017 season, Shiels instigated an assessment that the club was not playing satisfactorily. In the preseason, Shiels was sent to the AFL tribunal for striking Darcy Lang, but was not suspended. Shiels was widely regarded as having performed well as vice-captain and player during the 2017 season, registering a personal record for number of clearances per game. Liam Shiels was regarded as having another good season in 2018, recording the sixth highest number of tackles in the league and setting a new disposal average record. Shiels, along with Smith was replaced as Co-Vice-Captain prior to the 2019 season with

Jack Gunston Jack Gunston (born 16 October 1991) is a professional Australian footballer who plays for the Hawthorn Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He previously played for the Brisbane Lions and the Adelaide Football Club. Early lif ...

, though he remained part of the leadership group. Shiels played his 200th game during that season, which was a 24-point victory over rivals

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung language, Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in Victoria, Australia, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River (Victo ...

. On 31 August 2022, Shiels announced his retirement after 14 seasons, 255 games & 3 premierships with the Hawks. His retirement didn't last long though, as on 22 November 2022, he came out of retirement to play for

North Melbourne North Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne Local government ar ...

as a rookie listed player, reuniting with coach Alistair Clarkson.

Statistics

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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 ...

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2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

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2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

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2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

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2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

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2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

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2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

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2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

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2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

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2020 The year 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of even ...

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2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

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2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

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2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

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2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

, , , , 14 , 17 , , 4 , , 5 , , 112 , , 91 , , 203 , , 42 , , 46 , , 0.2 , , 0.3 , , 6.6 , , 5.4 , , 11.9 , , 2.5 , , 2.7 , , , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, CareerLiam Shiels' player profile at AFL Tables
/ref> ! 288 !! 97 !! 101 !! 3145 !! 2372 !! 5517 !! 1027 !! 1560 !! 0.3 !! 0.4 !! 10.9 !! 8.2 !! 19.2 !! 3.6 !! 5.4 !! 32 Notes

Honours and achievements

Team * 3× AFL premiership player ():

* 2×

Minor premiership A minor premiership is the title given to the team which finishes a sporting competition first in the league standings after the regular season but prior to commencement of the finals in several Australian sports leagues. Origins The etymolo ...

():

Individual * vice-captain: 2017–2018 * best player in finals: 2018 * best clubman: 2017 * most improved player: 2011 * best first year player (debut season): 2009 *

Australian 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 player ...

* life member

Cited references

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shiels, Liam Hawthorn Football Club players Hawthorn Football Club premiership players Box Hill Football Club players 1991 births Living people Australian rules footballers from Victoria (state) Eastern Ranges players Australian people of Irish descent Australia international rules football team players VFL/AFL premiership players North Melbourne Football Club players 21st-century Australian sportsmen