Joel Hamling will play his first senior game for Sydney in Saturday’s clash with the Lions at the SCG – his 92nd AFL game overall. And his journey until now has been an exercise in patience.
Hamling has had four waits of a combined 1985 days between games in the last four-and-a-half years. And that is after he spent 1283 days in the AFL system waiting for his first game.
Twenty-five days short of his 32nd birthday, the 194cm defender becomes the seventh-oldest Swans first-gamer in history. And the third-oldest since 1941.
It has been an extraordinary journey for a man who at 23 was a Western Bulldogs 23-gamer who looked set for a long and illustrious career after helping to inflict a heart-breaking defeat on the Swans in the 2016 grand final.
For Swans captain Callum Mills, who will miss tomorrow’s SCG blockbuster through injury, and Isaac Heeney, Jake Lloyd, Tom Papley and Dane Rampe, who will be teammates, he’s gone from enemy to ally.
But even then Hamling had learned to be patient. Because he had no choice.
He was one of 157 first-time AFL draftees in November 2011, and one of only 27 still in the AFL.
It was a Draft Class that produced 46 100-gamers, headed by Brisbane’s Dayne Zorko (277 games) and Lachie Neale (272) and Geelong’s Mark Blicavs (270), Collingwood’s ex-Swan Tom Mitchell (203) and current Swans Taylor Adams (227) and Harry Cunningham (208).
Hamling spent 2012-14 at Geelong without playing a game and joined the Western Bulldogs as a delisted free agent. After 23 games in 2015-16 he was settled at the ‘Kennel’.
But for an Indigenous Australian of Yorta Yorta descent, born in Denmark on the south coast of Western Australia and raised in Broome on WA’s far north-eastern coast, there was always the pull of home.
Having represented WA at Under-18 level while playing with Claremont in the WAFL, he was targeted by Fremantle and was traded by the Dogs to the Dockers with picks #40 and #63 in the 2016 Draft for picks #35, #43 and #61. Essentially a late second-round pick.
At the time he explained his “agonising” decision was based on family reasons. “I’m devastated my time at the Bulldogs has come to the end, I will always love the club, the memories, mateship and the opportunities it gave me to grow as a person not only a footballer,” he wrote on social media.
When he played 62 games with Fremantle in 2017-19 it looked like a good decision until injury hit, and by necessity he became almost a permanent fixture in rehabilitation.
He missed the entire 2020 season, played one game in each of 2021 and 2022 and four games in 2023, waiting 572 days between his 85th game and his 86th game, 372 days to his 87th game and 475 days to his 88th game. And it will be 566 days between his 91st and 92nd game.
Hamling joined the Swans as a delisted free agent in December 2023, and although unable to break into the Sydney AFL side in 2024, he played pretty much a full season at VFL level after a delayed start.
Now, having played in the Indigenous All-Stars game against Fremantle in February, he’ll become Swans player #1457, listed alphabetically behind fellow Round 1 debutant Riley Bice.
Having worn jumper #45 in the VFL at Geelong, #30 at the Dogs and #21 at the Dockers, he’ll wear the #29 Swans jumper worn previously by Angus Sheldrick in 2023.
It’s the jumper worn most often for the Swans by Wodonga product and 2019 Swans Hall of Fame Inductee David McLeish, who played 213 games with South Melbourne from 1969-80.
Other 100-gamers for the club in #29 have been 2012 premiership player Marty Mattner (124), 2016 grand final player George Hewitt (120), 1950’s ruckman Jack Garrick (117) and 1940s defender Jack Hacker (111).
Who have been the six older Swans debutants?
Oldest of all was Billy Billett who played three games in 1923 after 12 games at Fitzroy in 1918. He was 35 years five days old when he played in the debut of six-time Swans leading goal-kicker Ted Johnson.
Journeyman Craig Davis, who made a nine-game comeback with the Swans in 1988 after 154 games at Carlton, North and Collingwood and four years in retirement, was 33 years 185 days old when he wore the red and white #60 for the first time.
Ex-St Kilda and Hawthorn ruckman Peter Evertt was 32 years 332 days when he began a two-year stint with Sydney in 2007, slotting in ahead of 1941-42 22-gamer Eric Huxtable (32/181), 1925 12-gamer Fred Wimbridge (32/119) and ex-Melbourne player turned 17-game Swan from 1919-22 Harry Brereton (32/36).
