Samuel Gilbert (born 19 August 1986) is an

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 currently plays for the

Northern Bullants 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 previously played professionally for the

St Kilda Football Club The St Kilda Football Club, nicknamed the Saints, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier league. The club's name originates fro ...

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).

Early life

Gilbert was brought up in

Terranora Terranora is a town located on the northern boundary of New South Wales, Australia. At the , Terranora had a population of 3,365 people. The town is part of the Tweed Shire local Government area. Its postcode is 2486. Two schools are locate ...

in northern

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

.ST KILDA DEFENDER SAM GILBERT’S JOURNEY FROM STARTING AUSTRALIAN RULES FOOTBALL IN HIS MID-TEENS TO REACHING 200 AFL GAMES
28 April 2018. His first love as a child was

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

. His grandfather (

Jack Gilbert Jack Gilbert (February 18, 1925 – November 13, 2012) was an American poet. Gilbert was acquainted with Jack Spicer and Allen Ginsberg, both prominent figureheads of the Beat Movement, but is not considered a Beat Poet; he described himself a ...

) and great-grandfather (

Herb Gilbert Herbert R. Gilbert (18 September 1888 – 5 January 1972) was an Australian rugby league and rugby union player – a List of dual-code rugby internationals, dual-code international. He represented the Australia national rugby union team, Walla ...

) played for

St. George Dragons The St. George Dragons are an Australian rugby league, rugby league football club from the St George, Sydney, St George District in Sydney, New South Wales that played in the top level New South Wales Rugby League, New South Wales competition ...

in the

New South Wales Rugby Football League Premiership The New South Wales Rugby League premiership was the first rugby league football club competition established in Australia and contributor to today's National Rugby League. Run by the New South Wales Rugby League (initially named the New Sout ...

. Herb was also a

dual-code rugby international A dual-code rugby international is a rugby footballer who has played at the senior international level in both codes of rugby, 13-a-side rugby league and 15-a-side rugby union. Rugby league started as a breakaway version of rugby in Northern Engl ...

who captained

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 ...

at rugby league. Sam played for the

Bilambil Jets The Northern Rivers Regional Rugby League (NRRRL) is a rugby league competition run in the far north of New South Wales, Australia. It is run under the auspices of the Country Rugby League. The league formed in 2005 as an extended Group 1 Rugby L ...

in the

Group 18 Rugby League Group 18 is the name of a junior rugby league competition on the far north coast of New South Wales, Australia. Currently, the group has no senior competition. Prior to 2005, there was a joint Gold Coast-Group 18 competition which fielded tea ...

on the

Northern Coast. At the age of 14, he moved the

Gold Coast, Queensland The Gold Coast, also known by its initials, GC, is a coastal city and region in the state of Queensland, Australia, located approximately south-southeast of the centre of the list of Australian capital cities, state capital, Brisbane. It is ...

. He attended

Palm Beach Currumbin High School Palm Beach Currumbin State High School is an independent public, co-educational, secondary school, located in the Gold Coast suburb of Palm Beach, in Queensland, Australia. It is administered by the Department of Education, with an enrolment ...

throughout his teenage years. At the age of 15, he began playing

at the Tweed Coolangatta Junior Football Club. He made the switch after coming to the realisation that his body type - tall and skinny was not ideally suited to rugby league. He immediately shone, being selected in the Gold Coast representative under-16 team. He played senior football with the

Southport Sharks The Southport Australian Football Club, nicknamed the Sharks, is an Australian rules football club based on the Gold Coast, Queensland, that competes in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Southport is one of the most successful football clu ...

. He missed state selection at under 16 and 18 level being a late bloomer but was selected as captain of the Under 21 Queensland Scorpions Representative Side that defeated Western Australia attracting the eyes of talend scouts. His 2005 Rising Star award at Southport helped consolidate his prospect in the AFL Draft. Gilbert was selected by the Saints with pick No.33 in the 2005 AFL Draft.

Career

AFL

Gilbert was selected by with pick No. 33 in the 2005 AFL Draft. He made his AFL debut in Round 8, 2006 against . The 2007 season brought further opportunities for Gilbert and he was included for the Round 5 match against , after improved form in St Kilda's VFL affiliated team, the

Casey Scorpions The Casey Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is an Australian rules football club based in the Melbourne suburb of Cranbourne East. The club, which was previously known as the Springvale Football Club (1903–2005) and the Casey Scorpions (2 ...

. Setting the pattern for his teammates, Gilbert laid seven tackles. He held his spot in the side and improved under coach

Ross Lyon Ross Lyon (born 8 November 1966) is a former Australian rules football player and the current senior coach of the St Kilda Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He previously coached St Kilda from 2007 to 2011 and the Fremantle ...

, playing every game for the rest of the year. Gilbert played in St Kilda's

2008 NAB Cup The 2008 NAB Cup was the Australian Football League pre-season competition played in its entirety before the Australian Football League's 2008 season began. It culminated with the Grand Final played on 8 March 2008 at AAMI Stadium in which St ...

winning side - the club's third pre-season cup win. After a statistically strong performance in Round 16,

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 ...

, in which he had 16 kicks, 12 marks and 6 handballs, he was awarded the AFL Rising Star Nomination for that round. Gilbert played in 19 of 22 matches in the

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 ...

home and away rounds. St Kilda qualified in first position for the 2009 finals series, winning the club's third minor premiership. At the end of the 2018 season, Gilbert was delisted by St Kilda and retired from the AFL.

Post-AFL

On 21 November 2018, Gilbert joined (St Kilda's reserves affiliate) in the

(VFL) as a playing assistant coach. He formed part of the club's leadership group for the

2019 VFL season The 2019 VFL season was the 138th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), a second-tier Australian rules football competition played in the state of Victoria. The season ran from April 2019 until September 2019. The premiership was won by ...

, wearing the number 78. In May 2019, Gilbert tested positive for cocaine metabolite

benzoylecgonine Benzoylecgonine is the main metabolite of cocaine, formed by the liver and excreted in the urine. It is the compound tested for in most cocaine urine drug screens and in wastewater screenings for cocaine use. Biochemistry and physiology Chemical ...

on the day of a game, in violation of

anti-doping In competitive sports, doping is the use of banned athletic performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) by athletes, as a way of cheating. As stated in the World Anti-Doping Code by WADA, doping is defined as the occurrence of one or more of the anti-d ...

rules. He continued to play at least one more game, against on 2 June 2019, before being provisionally suspended four days later on 6 June. He formally accepted the suspension on 9 April 2020. On 31 May 2024, at the age of 37, Gilbert returned to the VFL and joined the

. He made his debut for the Bullants in round 10 of the 2024 season against , recording 12 disposals in a 12-point victory.

Personal life

Gilbert is a cousin of former NBL basketball player Larry Davidson.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gilbert, Sam 1986 births Living people Australian rules footballers from New South Wales Northern Bullants players St Kilda Football Club players Southport Australian Football Club players Sportspeople from Tweed Heads, New South Wales Sandringham Football Club players Australian rules footballers from the Gold Coast, Queensland Australia international rules football team players People educated at Palm Beach Currumbin State High School 21st-century Australian sportsmen