Zachary Samuel Dawson (born 22 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 ...

player who played with 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

. In March 2019, he was appointed as Manager of the

Carlton Football Club The Carlton Football Club, nicknamed the Blues, is a professional Australian rules football club based at Princes Park (stadium), Princes Park in Carlton North, Victoria, Carlton North, an inner suburb of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. The c ...

's Next Generation Academy program.

AFL career

Hawthorn

Dawson was recruited from

Calder Cannons The Calder Cannons is an Australian rules football club from Melbourne, Australia. The club competes in the Talent League, the Victorian Statewide Under-18s competition, and fields squads in the Under-15s, Under-16s and Under-18s. The club was f ...

with pick no. 41 in the

2003 AFL Draft The 2003 AFL draft was the 2003 instance of the AFL draft, the annual draft (sports), draft of talented players by Australian rules football teams that participate in the main competition of that sport, the Australian Football League. The 2003 d ...

. Dawson's first game for Hawthorn was in 2005. He played the first eight games of 2006, until being dropped from the team, returning for four games in Rounds 15–18. The key position prospect was being groomed for the full-back role during a 12-game stint in 2006, but his confidence received a battering after

Anthony Rocca Anthony Rocca (born 15 August 1977) is a former Australian rules footballer who has played with the Sydney Swans and Collingwood in the Australian Football League. Rocca is currently serving as North Melbourne's development coach. Early l ...

kicked eight goals on him in round two of that year. He did however, keep Geelong's

Kent Kingsley Kent Kingsley (born 26 September 1978) is a former Australian rules footballer for the North Melbourne Football Club, the Geelong Football Club and the Richmond Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Career A full-forward, Ki ...

goalless the following week. Dawson failed to play a senior game for Hawthorn in 2007 and 2008. He spent the time playing for Box Hill, on one occasion he kicked eight goals. Dawson was delisted from Hawthorn after the end of the 2008 season.

St Kilda

Dawson was drafted with pick 13 by St Kilda in the 2008 rookie draft. He was promoted to the senior team for Round 1 in 2009 due to injuries to other players and played the first 16 games in an undefeated side until being reported for rough conduct in Round 16 and suspended for two matches. Dawson played in 20 of 22 matches in the 2009 home and away rounds in which St Kilda qualified in first position for the finals, winning the club's third minor premiership. St Kilda played off in the

2009 AFL Grand Final The 2009 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the St Kilda Football Club and the Geelong Football Club at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 26 September 2009. It was the 113th annual AFL Grand Final, grand final ...

after qualifying and preliminary finals wins. Dawson played in the grand final in which St Kilda were defeated by 12 points. Dawson played 20 games in 2010, and was named St Kilda's player of the finals series (jointly with Lenny Hayes). As of the end of the 2010 season, Dawson had played in seven finals matches including three grand finals.

Fremantle

In November 2011, Dawson left the Saints after deciding against signing a new contract with the club.Dawson turns back on Saints
Theage.com.au (11 November 2011). Retrieved 12 June 2012. He moved to

Fremantle Dockers 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 ...

for the 2012 season, reuniting him with former St Kilda 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 ...

. Zac Dawson's ability to organise his teammates has been crucial in Ross Lyon's 'defensive chain' at St Kilda and now at Fremantle. In 2013 Dawson played in his 3rd losing grand final, and 4th overall, as Fremantle made it to their first ever premiership decider. In 2014 Dawson's form peaked in the finals, where he was named Fremantle's Player of the Finals along with Cameron Sutcliffe. He extended his contract until the end of the 2017 season in March 2015. However he would only play five AFL games in 2015, with a series of groin injuries delaying his start to the season, and then fracturing his thumb in his first game back for

Peel Peel or Peeling may refer to: Places Australia * Peel (Western Australia) * Peel, New South Wales * Peel River (New South Wales) Canada * Peel Parish, New Brunswick * Peel, New Brunswick, an unincorporated community in Peel Parish * Pee ...

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 ...

Statistics

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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 ...

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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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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 ...

, , , , 3 , 24 , , 0 , , 0 , , 60 , , 158 , , 218 , , 72 , , 40 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 2.5 , , 6.6 , , 9.1 , , 3.0 , , 1.7 , , 0 , - ,

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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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 ...

, , , , 3 , 5 , , 0 , , 0 , , 10 , , 35 , , 45 , , 13 , , 6 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 2.0 , , 7.0 , , 9.0 , , 2.6 , , 1.2 , , 0 , - ,

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 ...

, , , , 3 , 18 , , 0 , , 0 , , 44 , , 111 , , 155 , , 52 , , 33 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 2.4 , , 6.2 , , 8.6 , , 2.9 , , 1.8 , , 0 , - ,

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 ...

, , , , 3 , 2 , , 0 , , 0 , , 3 , , 5 , , 8 , , 2 , , 5 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 3.4 , , 6.6 , , 10.0 , , 3.7 , , 1.5 , , 0 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, CareerZac Dawson's player profile at AFL Tables
/ref> ! 166 !! 7 !! 7 !! 567 !! 1090 !! 1657 !! 613 !! 245 !! 0.0 !! 0.0 !! 3.4 !! 6.6 !! 10.0 !! 3.7 !! 1.5 !! 0

Honours and achievements

Team *

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 ...

():

* WAFL premiership player (): 2017

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dawson, Zac 1986 births Living people Hawthorn Football Club players St Kilda Football Club players Fremantle Football Club players Calder Cannons players Doutta Stars Football Club players Australian rules footballers from Victoria (state) Perth Football Club players Peel Thunder Football Club players People educated at Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School 21st-century Australian sportsmen