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Jared Rivers

Australian rules footballer, born 1984

Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

Jared Rivers (born 18 October 1984) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Melbourne Football Club and Geelong Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL).

01Junior career

As a child Rivers supported the Sydney Swans, and cites Tony Lockett and Paul Kelly as his childhood heroes. He attended Caritas College until Year 10 and Sacred Heart College Senior, Adelaide afterwards.

He played junior football for the South Augusta Bulldogs Football club. He won a premiership with the club in 2000 at the age of 15, playing in the Spencer Gulf League. He was spotted by North Adelaide Football Club and began playing seniors under coach Darel Hart.

He was considered as a potential top ten draft pick, and was selected to play for South Australia's Under 18 team in the National competition. He injured his wrist in the lead up to this match, but scouts from the Melbourne Demons nonetheless selected him as the 27th pick overall in the 2002 AFL draft.

Rivers with Melbourne in 2007
Rivers with Melbourne in 2007

02Senior career

Melbourne

Rivers played three games in his debut season, but was praised for his job on Port Adelaide's Warren Tredrea in his second match.

After a good performance in the preseason, Rivers won a place in the first team, and was subsequently nominated for Round 3 of National Bank Rising Star in 2004. He continued his good form throughout the season right until the Demons' loss to Essendon in the Elimination Final. In the week leading up to the Final, he was awarded the 2004 Rising Star award, chosen unanimously by the nine judges.

His season in 2005 was less successful, with poor form and injury culminating in him being dropped to the Sandringham team towards the end of the season. He was also suspended for two matches after striking Hawthorn's Ben Dixon.

Rivers returned to form the following season, becoming the premier defender of Melbourne Football Club, and playing his 50th career game against Port Adelaide at the MCG in Round 13.

Rivers is considered a master of the one percenter. He was able to move forward on many occasions in the 2006 season, including the Queens Birthday Match when he kicked his first two goals in AFL football.

Rivers was injured at the beginning of the 2007 season, and had little time on the field, suffering from a potentially season-threatening groin injury.

In 2008 Rivers was injured again, with a torn abdominal against the Magpies in the annual Queens Birthday match.

Geelong

On 18 October 2012, Rivers, an unrestricted free agent under the AFL's new free agency system, signed a 2-year contract with the Geelong Football Club. In August 2015, he announced his retirement from the AFL due to chronic knee problems.

03Post-football career

Two months after his retirement, Rivers joined Collingwood's coaching staff as a development coach, replacing Craig McRae as part of a coaching restructure.

A year after joining Collingwood's coaching staff, Rivers was appointed coach of the VFL team, after Dale Tapping left to take up a role as an assistant coach with the Brisbane Lions. Rivers coached the VFL team until the end of the 2019 season.

in August 2020, Rivers joined Collegians Football Club in the VAFA as their head coach.

source https:″//www.vafa.com.au/news/2023/09/24/lions-roar-to-the-2023-premiership/, https://www.vafa.com.au/news/2023/09/09/a-memorable-start-to-september-the-lions-are-uncaged/'

04Statistics

Legend
  G   Goals   K   Kicks   D   Disposals    T   Tackles
  B   Behinds    H   Handballs    M   Marks
Season Team No. Games Totals Averages (per game)
G B K H D M T G B K H D M T
2003 Melbourne 27300415280.00.01.30.31.70.72.7
2004 Melbourne 272200130129259109490.00.05.95.911.85.02.2
2005 Melbourne 271400986616479230.00.07.04.711.75.61.6
2006 Melbourne 272244166129295118580.20.27.55.913.45.42.6
2007 Melbourne 273001722391680.00.05.77.313.05.32.7
2008 Melbourne 276012838662390.00.24.76.311.03.81.5
2009 Melbourne 27200011310822186630.00.05.75.411.14.33.2
2010 Melbourne 27180114294236106440.00.17.95.213.15.92.4
2011 Melbourne 27201113014327388510.10.16.57.213.74.42.6
2012 Melbourne 27221310171111282109410.60.57.85.012.85.01.9
2013 Geelong 251002505310326240.00.25.05.310.32.62.4
2014 Geelong 252201157128285125470.00.07.15.813.05.72.1
2015 Geelong 251200996616577250.00.08.35.513.86.42.1
Career 194 18 20 1305 1088 2393 964 450 0.1 0.1 6.7 5.6 12.3 5.0 2.3
Watch videos about Jared RiversExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Jared Rivers, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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