Nearly 20 years after making his last appearance for the club, Jye Bolton will pull on a Drysdale guernsey in Saturday’s Round 1 meeting with Queenscliff.
A former Collingwood rookie and two-time winner of the Sandover Medal as WAFL best-and-fairest, Bolton is a welcome boost for the Hawks’ midfield, which will be missing captain Mitch McGuire for the clash with the Coutas at Queenscliff Recreation Reserve.
For Drysdale coach Ben Carmichael, it’s a full-circle moment, having coached an under-15 cricket team featuring the now 33-year-old.
“It’s been a work in progress probably ever since I started coaching five years ago,” Carmichael said.
“We reached out to Jye and, because of his commitments at Claremont, it just hasn’t been able to work out.
“But he’s now retired from the WAFL and playing for a local Perth side, they’ve, thankfully enough, freed him up to play with us this week, which is really exciting for the footy club and really exciting for Jye as well.”
Bolton, who spent a year with the Magpies and four seasons with Werribee, headed across the Nullarbor ahead of the 2016 season to link up with Claremont, where he played 190 games before retiring at the end of last year.
As well as winning two Sandovers, in 2016 and 2018, he was runner-up in 2021
Bolton is a three-time winner of Claremont’s best-and-fairest, a four-time Simpson Medal winner, of which three were as best-on-ground in state games for Western Australia, and an eight-time WAFL Team of the Year member.
“If you’d seen his numbers in the WAFL last year, he was still performing at the very high end,” Carmichael said.
“So, yeah, we’ll get him around the footy.”
A foot issue that hampered McGuire late in the 2025 season has lingered into pre-season, meaning the star Drysdale skipper is up to a month away from returning.
Carmichael is also unable to consider young big man Ben Henderson, who recently underwent knee surgery, as well as defenders Luke Preece and Tim Delaney.
Henderson’s absence, coupled with Matt Pigott’s likely season-long absence due to work commitments, means the Hawks have had to get creative in the ruck department.
“Dec Foley’s been doing the ruck duties and has been doing fantastically,” Carmichael said.
“He’s learning, and he’s improving. He’s been mainly a key forward for us, and he’s just getting better and better as the pre-season goes on.”
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