By Marcus Uhe
Noble Park’s midfield is going to look a little different in 2025 with the exits of up to four of its premiership-winning midfield from 2022.
Last Saturday’s final game of the home-and-away season against Rowville ended with Jackson Sketcher, Kyle Martin, Luke Bull and Chris Horton-Milne carried off the ground by teammates, marking the final time they would be seen in blue and gold jumpers together.
Sketcher and Horton-Milne will play-on at different clubs, both yet to be announced, while Bull will replace Hayden Stanton at Hampton Park in a player-coach capacity.
Martin, meanwhile, is expected to retire, having only played a handful of games in 2024 in his return from a knee injury that wiped out his 2023 campaign.
Martin is regarded as one of the best to ever wear the Bulls jumper, winning an astonishing nine best-and-fairests at Pat Wright Senior Oval.
After two seasons at Collingwood in 2013 and 2014, Martin famously turned his back on an AFL career in order to remain at his beloved senior club, where he would go on to captain the side to the 2022 senior premiership.
Bull and Martin won two premierships at Noble Park, 11 years apart, in 2011 and 2022.
Bull meanwhile, played more than 200 games for the club, beginning in 2010, and was lauded internally for his leadership qualities and consistency in performance.
Sketcher enjoyed a decorated career in his own right, winning the senior premiership in 2022, captaining the club in 2023 in Martin’s absence and winning the Sir Gilbert Chandler Medal in 2023 as the competition’s best player.
Horton-Milne played more than 150 games for the Bulls and was a consistent pillar in an outstanding midfield crop whenever he took to the field.
Noble Park coach Steve Hughes, who will continue his tenure at Moodemere Street in 2025, said there was no animosity behind the exits, and encouraged the next wave of emerging leaders to emerge from the shadows of some of the club’s all-time greats.
“We tried really hard to keep them, but you can’t keep them all, and you’ve got to respect a player’s best wishes,” Hughes said.
“There’s no bad blood, there’s no beef at all, we’re all in a great state with their relationships.
“In some ways they’re irreplaceable, but football moves on.
“I wouldn’t say they’re easily replaceable, because they’re not, and I think most people know that.
“We’ll do our best and in some ways, it’s really exciting.
“It will be a bit of a blank canvas for us next year and away we go.”
Earmarked to fill the breach are the likes of the Marson brothers, in Ben, Anthony and Jordan, Nathan Noblett and Lachlan McDonnell, while the promising emerging underage talents in Jacob Noble and Liam O’Rourke “shows how bright our future could be” in the eyes of the coach.
“We do lose an element of leadership, no doubt, but it paves the way for the new guys to really step up.
“We’ve had conversations with them and I think they’re really excited about not sitting back in the shadows of the four we mentioned; it’s their time to shine now.”
The Bulls’ season ended in yet another cliffhanger, falling three points shy of Rowville at home, and missing the opportunity to bring a premature end to the defending premiers’ season, adding another chapter to the fast-emerging rivalry the two clubs have established in recent years.
It was the fourth loss of the season by less than a goal, and capped a bizarre year in which they won six games, yet finished with a percentage of 104.
Given how close they were on many occasions, and the fine margins between teams on the ladder – Blackburn missed the top five by four points, but finished with the third-best percentage, and could have finished third if they won one more game – Hughes feels that the group is “not miles away” from contending, and looks forward to what 2025 has to offer.
“It’s a bit of a springboard into next year knowing that we can compete with everybody if we put it together well.
“I don’t think there’d be many local football sides that finish a season with six wins and 12 losses but still have a percentage over 100, which we did.
“We had a lot of tight ones and we’re still confident that the group can be competitive, without a doubt, at a minimum next year, but even more so, we’ll be aiming pretty high, I think.
“We definitely need to recruit, we’re not hiding from that, but we feel like we’ve got the nucleus of a pretty strong young group.
“If we can top up, I don’t think we’ll be far away.”
