Fremantle ruckman and club legend Aaron Sandilands has announced his retirement from AFL football, with the 2019 season to be his last.
The 211cm ruckman will play a farewell game this weekend at Optus Stadium against Essendon, following 18 seasons at the Dockers.
Sandilands has 270 games to his name, and has averaged 31.4 hitouts over his career for a total of 8466 hitouts to date, the most ever by an AFL player.
The 36-year-old is third on the Dockers' all-time games list behind Matthew Pavlich and David Mundy.
Sandilands has earned four All-Australian jumpers across his career, while also being awarded the Doig Medal in both 2009 and 2015.
โItโs all over and Iโve decided to retire. Itโs obviously been a good journey but itโs my time to hang up the boots and move on to something else in life,โ Sandilands told the club's website.
โItโs been a really frustrating year in terms of not being able to play enough footy. The body is at the point now where I canโt get enough kms in the legs to be fit enough.
โI had a bit of a talk with family and friends (earlier in the year) and I was keen just to walk off into the sunset to be honest.
โ(The farewell game) is probably not about me, itโs about being able to say thank you to the people who have done so much (for me) along the way and have been able to help me out and to get me to where I am now.
โTo be able to go out there on Saturday night and say one last thank you to all the fans, who have been riding the highs and lows along the way as well, it will be pretty special.โ
