Tendai Mzungu (born 28 February 1986) 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

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 ...

and

Greater Western Sydney Giants The Greater Western Sydney Giants (officially the Greater Western Sydney Football Club and colloquially known as the GWS Giants or simply GWS or Giants) are a professional Australian rules football club based in Sydney Olympic Park which repres ...

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). Mzungu represented the

Perth Football Club The Perth Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is an Australian rules football club based in Lathlain, Western Australia, Lathlain, Western Australia, currently playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and WAFL Women's (WAFLW). R ...

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) before being recruited to Fremantle at the end of the 2010 season, and made his debut for the club the following season.

Career

Born in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

to a

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

an father and an

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

mother, Mzungu moved to

Perth, Western Australia Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

, at the age of nine. He attended

Kent Street Senior High School Kent Street Senior High School is a Public school (government funded), public Mixed-sex education, co-educational specialist school, specialist Secondary education#Australia, high day school, day and Boarding school, boarding school in the Town ...

, and played amateur football for the Trinity Aquinas Football Club. Falling into the

's recruitment zone in the WAFL, Mzungu made his senior debut for the club in 2006. He played 72 games over 5 years, winning the Butcher Medal Perth'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 ...

award in 2010,Dockers pick up Perth star
Heraldsun.com.au (2010-10-11). Retrieved on 2011-06-02. and polling 20 votes in the 2010

Sandover Medal The Sandover Medal is an Australian rules football award, given annually since 1921 to the fairest and best player in the West Australian Football League. The award was donated by Alfred Sandover M.B.E., a prominent Perth hardware merchant an ...

.Rivals for Mzungu headed off at pass
Au.news.yahoo.com (2011-05-21). Retrieved on 2011-06-02. The

obtained Mzungu in the trading period before the 2010 AFL Draft, trading their 39th selection to the new club, in return for Mzungu and the 44th selection, after he was pre-listed by the Gold Coast as part of the new club's entry concessions. Fremantle had originally intended to

rookie list The rookie list is a means for Australian Football League (AFL) clubs to maintain additional players outside the 38-man primary or senior list. Category B rookie-listed players are not eligible to play in AFL home-and-away or finals matches unle ...

him, but decided to obtain him via a trade after his good form in the 2010 WAFL season. Mzungu performed well for Fremantle in the 2011 NAB Cup pre-season games and was tipped to replace the injured Roger Hayden in Fremantle's backline. However, in Fremantle's final pre-season game he damaged his knee medial ligament He returned to football 10 weeks later, to be selected directly to the AFL, rather than for Perth in the WAFL. His debut for Fremantle was in the Round 9 match at

AAMI Stadium Football Park, known commercially as AAMI Stadium, was an Australian rules football stadium located in West Lakes, a western suburb of Adelaide, the state capital of South Australia, Australia. It was built in 1973 by the South Australian Na ...

against , which Fremantle won by 52 points. He was selected as the substitute player and only played the final quarter, replacing

Hayden Ballantyne Hayden Ballantyne (born 16 July 1987) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Fremantle Football Club in the Australian Football League. He was a 2014 All Australian and has previously won a Sandover Medal while playing with ...

who suffered from a corked thigh (

quadriceps The quadriceps femoris muscle (, also called the quadriceps extensor, quadriceps or quads) is a large muscle group that includes the four prevailing muscles on the front of the thigh. It is the sole extensor muscle of the knee, forming a large ...

contusion A bruise, also known as a contusion, is a type of hematoma of tissue, the most common cause being capillaries damaged by trauma, causing localized bleeding that extravasates into the surrounding interstitial tissues. Most bruises occur clo ...

). Tendai Mzungu played for Fremantle in the

2013 AFL Grand Final The 2013 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between Hawthorn Football Club and Fremantle Football Club at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 28 September 2013. It concluded the 118th season of the Australian Football Le ...

against Hawthorn, Fremantle's first ever Grand Final in their history. In the second quarter, Mzungu scored Fremantle's first goal of the game. He was delisted at the conclusion of the 2016 season, however, he was drafted by in the 2017 rookie draft. After playing four games for Greater Western Sydney, Mzungu announced his retirement following their preliminary final exit to the

2017 AFL season The 2017 AFL season was the 121st season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior men's Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season feature ...

. Mzungu has been Fremantle's team runner and inaugural Next Generation Academy coach since the

2018 AFL season The 2018 AFL season was the 122nd season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior men's Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season feature ...

Statistics

: ''Statistics are correct to the end of the 2016 season''Tendai Mzungu's player profile at AFL Tables
/ref> , - , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 13 , , 14 , , 11 , , 3 , , 151 , , 116 , , 267 , , 63 , , 52 , , 0.8 , , 0.2 , , 10.8 , , 8.3 , , 19.1 , , 4.5 , , 3.7 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 13 , , 24 , , 13 , , 13 , , 266 , , 143 , , 409 , , 85 , , 103 , , 0.5 , , 0.5 , , 11.1 , , 6.0 , , 17.0 , , 3.5 , , 4.3 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 13 , , 25 , , 16 , , 5 , , 287 , , 169 , , 456 , , 127 , , 71 , , 0.6 , , 0.2 , , 11.5 , , 6.8 , , 18.2 , , 5.1 , , 2.8 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 13 , , 23 , , 12 , , 9 , , 276 , , 149 , , 425 , , 106 , , 71 , , 0.5 , , 0.4 , , 12.0 , , 6.5 , , 18.5 , , 4.6 , , 3.1 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 13 , , 11 , , 2 , , 1 , , 95 , , 83 , , 178 , , 40 , , 50 , , 0.2 , , 0.1 , , 8.6 , , 7.6 , , 16.2 , , 3.6 , , 4.6 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

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 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 13 , , 5 , , 0 , , 1 , , 38 , , 38 , , 76 , , 14 , , 15 , , 0.0 , , 0.2 , , 7.6 , , 7.6 , , 15.2 , , 2.8 , , 3.0 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 102 ! 54 ! 32 ! 1113 ! 698 ! 1811 ! 435 ! 362 ! 0.5 ! 0.3 ! 10.9 ! 6.8 ! 17.8 ! 4.3 ! 3.5

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mzungu, Tendai 1986 births Australian rules footballers from Western Australia Australian people of Zimbabwean descent Fremantle Football Club players Living people People educated at Kent Street Senior High School Perth Football Club players Australian rules footballers from Melbourne Peel Thunder Football Club players Greater Western Sydney Giants players