Geelong Cats skipper Joel Selwood announces retirement after 355 AFL games and four premierships

Geelong captain Joel Selwood has announced his retirement from AFL football days after leading his side to the 2022 premiership. Selwood was drafted from Bendigo club Sandhurst with pick seven in the 2006 National Draft, and made his debut in round one of 2007, playing 21 games including all finals and the 2007 premiership. Not surprisingly he won that year’s AFL Rising Star award. He went on to play in the 2009 and 2011 premierships before taking over as Geelong’s captain from Cameron Ling from the 2012 season and in 2022 become the most-capped captain at AFL/VFL level of all time, surpassing Carlton legend Stephen Kernahan.

On Brownlow Medal night Selwood won the Jim Stynes Medal, awarded to a current AFL player who ‘demonstrated the same values as personified by Jim’. On his retirement, Selwood said: “To have been able to play 16 years with the club I grew up loving is truly a dream come true. To arrive at the club in 2006 and to share the field with so many great players and to have enjoyed the successes together is better than I could ever have imagined. And to cap it off on Saturday with the premiership was a great way to finish.”