Re-signings:
Luca Alessio, Kaine Baldwin, Dom Bedendo, Charlie Clarke, Kai Dimattina, Felix Dreher, Paddy Farrant, Matt Gahan, Roy George, Josh Green, Sam Grant, Tom Graham, Ned Hawkins, Tom Highmore, Tom Hird, Jack Johnston, Archie Lazzaro, Drew Lloyd, Archi Manton, Owen Mulady, Flynn Penry, Riley Polkinghorne, Lachie Rankin, Max Rider, Fraser Rosman, Michael Rudd, Jack Skinner, Josh Sparkman, Harry Stubbings, James Van Es, Malachi White
Note: I have updated this list on the assumption that the White wearing 39 in the practice game is Malachi White, who wore 39 last season, but this assumption could be incorrect. If he's not Malachi White, he's a new signing.
New signings:
Josh Chatfield (Deer Park), Connor Downie (North Melbourne VFL, East Ringwood), Ben Hobbs (Essendon AFL), James Lugsdin (GWS VFL, Manly-Warringa), Hamish Morrison (Williamstown, Airport West), Matt O'Brien (Collingwood VFL, St Paul's), Jack O'Sullivan (North Melbourne VFL, Old Xaverians), Oliver Sestan (Melbourne VFL, AFL-listed), Josh Tovey (East Ringwood), Withers (?)
I've listed every club for which the new recruits played at least 1 game in 2025. Lugsdin is the one VFL-listed player who played primarily VFL. Sestan was AFL-listed and played for Melbourne's VFL side. Hobbs played 18 AFL games and 1 VFL game in 2025. Someone by the name of Withers was listed in the squad for the first practice match, but as yet I have no other information on him, hence the question mark after the name.
Departures:
Anthony Anastasio (Deer Park), Jayden Davey (St Kilda VFL), Dyson Heppell (Collingwood development coach), Tom Hofert (Frankston), Harvey Hooper (Giants VFL), AJ Kuol Mun (Werribee), Charlie Lazzaro (Werribee), Jimmy Miller (Balwyn), Matt Signorello (Heidelberg), Tobe Watson (Wickliffe-Lake Bolac), Tex Wanganeen (likely St Kilda VFL)
I will update this post as more (re-)signings and departures are confirmed. It is a matter of great puzzlement to me why the word "body" appears at the top of this post, but I have tried three times to fix it, so it can stay.
Great work - your efforts certainly are time-consuming therefore appreciated. On paper looks like a ok side, I think we all agree aa toi what we believe ia needed for improvements so i won't repeat, on paper looks OK but as Digs once said- you don't play on paper though.
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Spiny, 'Body' refers to the body of text.. Its part of internal website. 👍
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
That's a great summation SpinyNorman. Gee looking at this departures does have me worried that despite decent recruiting, we haven't been able to cover significant experience and key positions.
I think we are now so close to the start of the season that its going to be difficult to fill those vacancies.
In recent years we have had had some midseason departures as well. I wonder if the club is looking to try and bring people on-board during the season?
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Thanks, Mega and NorthPort. Yeah, as long as we can fill the obvious holes the list looks all right - but if the game were played on paper we'd have made finals last season, so I am firmly resisting optimism now.... I'm not convinced we really do have 5 list spots still open; I suspect there have been (re-)signings that haven't been announced. We know Bedendo re-signed but hasn't been announced, and last season there were signings that I am almost certain got announced at least a few weeks after they happened. [edit: mistakenly wrote 6 list spots, corrected it to 5]
Ah, thanks for explaining, NorthPort - I see now that every first post in a thread has "Body" at the top. Since the only threads I've started are ones where I used html tags, I thought its appearance meant I'd somehow messed up the html!