Brenton Sanderson

Biography

AFC Debut Number: 44               AFC Debut Game:  Round 6 v Brisbane, 1992

AFC Career Guernsey Number: 36

A star junior footballer with Sturt, Brenton Sanderson’s career took some time to get going. As a teenager he played just six games for the Crows in 1992-93 and then spent a year with Collingwood. It was at Geelong where he eventually found success after being dropped for the 1995 grand final. He became a regular half-back and his 199-game career with the Cats was highlighted by winning their 2001 best and fairest.

At the conclusion of a 13-year player career, Sanderson moved to Port Adelaide as a development coach. He only spent on year in the role before moving back to Geelong, where he served as an assistant between 2007 and 2011. During that time, he played a key role in the ’07 and ’09 premiership triumphs, and contributed greatly to Geelong’s charge to the ’11 decider before being selected by Adelaide as its senior coach for 2012.

In his first season in the top job, Sanderson led the Crows from 14th to third, finishing just six points shy of Hawthorn in the Preliminary Final. Unfortunately, the Crows failed to reach the heights of 2012 in the two years that followed, with Sanderson leaving the club at the end of the 2014 season.

Subsequently he has served as coach of the AFL-AIS Academy, where he was tasked with guiding the best young footballers in the country on their journeys to the elite level. He then moved on becoming an assistant coach at Collingwood.