Welcome BACK to Norwood Alastair Lord

The Norwood Football Club is excited to announce that Alastair Lord will return to the club for the 2024 season.

A Norwood junior from Rostrevor College, Lord has spent the last two seasons on Essendon’s AFL list after being taken with Pick 46 in the 2021 Draft.

He played 36 VFL games across 2022 and 2023, before being delisted by the Bombers at the end of this season.

The 181cm defender turns 20 in late November.

Norwood Coach Jade Rawlings was excited to see a Redlegs junior returning to the club.

“Lordy played U18s for Norwood in 2021 and jumped out of the blocks, playing some really strong footy before he broke his leg,” Rawlings said.

“He got drafted to Essendon at the end of 2021 and played one AFL game as the sub.

“Being his old club we hoped that we would be someone that he wanted to come back and play for, but we don’t take that for granted and went through a thorough process with Alastair. We are bullish about his growth over the past two years.

“Him wanting to come back and wanting to be a part of Norwood, and strive to improve his footy is great to see.”

Rawlings said he had seen great development in Lord during his time at the Bombers.

“We are open minded about where he will play for us, he has a lot of traits that are suited to playing in defence,” Rawlings said.

“That’s where I saw him play his best in 2021 as an U18 and where he was developing strongly at Essendon.”

Rawlings said Lord had already started putting in the hard yards in the Norwood Football Club gym, prior to pre-season commencing.

“Lordy has a great attitude, and since he’s returned to Adelaide six weeks ago he hasn’t stopped training,” Rawlings said.

“He’s great mates with (Norwood players) Tyson Walls, Calem Krollig and (Adelaide Crows defender) Max Michalanney, and they have done a mountain of training together.

“It’s fantastic that the likes of Max and Alastair feel at ease to be a part of our club, and we support and welcome our Norwood people to be around the club as much as possible – to see that group of mates reconnect and work together is fantastic.

“For Krollig and Walls to train alongside those that have been exposed to an AFL program is helpful for them.”

Lord joins Mitch O’Neill, Ben Simpson, Billy Cootee and Joeve Cooper as new signings.