ARARAT has completed two major off-season signings, bringing ex-Carlton defender Tom Williamson and three-time Rats best and fairest Jack Ganley back to the club.<\/p>\n
Williamson, an Ararat local, parted ways with the Blues after 44 AFL matches in six seasons and will bolster Ararat\u2019s push for a drought breaking premiership.<\/p>\n
In a big coup for the Wimmera giant, Williamson\u2019s junior ties to the club will see him only take up one point in the system instead of the six normally allotted to ex-AFL players.<\/p>\n
Williamson played 12 matches for the Rats between 2014-15 and was taken at pick 61 by Carlton in 2016, where he became the latest of a long list of Ararat footballers to have played at VFL\/AFL level.<\/p>\n
As reported by the Advocate <\/em>last month, the Rats and Williamson had been in negotiations for some time about a return home.<\/p>\n Moreover, the Rats have welcomed back three-time best-and-fairest winner Jack Ganley to the club for the 2023 season.<\/p>\n After several successful campaign with the club, where he won three consecutive best-and-fairest awards, Ganley moved to East Point in 2021 where he played alongside his brother, Harry.<\/p>\n Ganley played with Wangaratta Rovers in 2022, as well as Southern Districts in the Northern Territory.<\/p>\n The Rats have made their intentions clear with these two signings; looking to go a step further in 2023, after going down in last season\u2019s Grand Final to Minyip-Murtoa.<\/p>\n Though Ararat will have to wait an extra week to kick start its season, with the Rats handed a bye in round one.<\/p>\n Ararat opens its season in round two on the road against Nhill, with its first home match scheduled a week later against Warrack Eagles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ARARAT has completed two major off-season signings, bringing ex-Carlton defender Tom Williamson and three-time Rats best and fairest Jack Ganley back to the club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"coauthors":[38],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/tom-williamson.jpg?fit=2064%2C1263&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-qz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1647"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}