100 for Reidy

Jiah Reidy continues to be one of Swan Districts’ most important and consistent performers as he prepares to celebrate 100 WAFL games this Saturday night.

Aside from a season away in 2022 when he was travelling, Reidy has now been a mainstay of the Swan Districts team ever since making his debut in 2018 playing important roles as a goalkicker, playmaker, high pressure player and a strong versatile weapon.

The 26-year-old will now celebrate his 100-game milestone this Saturday night when Swan Districts takes on the West Coast Eagles at Lathlain’s Mineral Resources Park.

He is rightfully proud to reach the milestone for the chance to reflect and to be thankful to so many people that it provides the opportunity for.

“I’m definitely pretty proud to reach 100 games,” Reidy said.

“At Swans we have an oval with the names of all the players who have played league footy, and there’s over a thousand and our recent debutant Chase Loftus I think was player No. 1156.

“Then you look around the lockers and I think there’s less than a hundred names on lockers so it’s definitely a proud moment to get my name there too.

“It’s also a good chance to reflect on my journey and the sacrifices that have been made from a family perspective and your partner, and not going on many trips and missing out on a lot of things.

“You have to miss a lot of birthday parties and even sad circumstances like family funerals because of footy, but it’s a proud moment to reach a milestone like this.”

Sharing milestone with long-time teammates

While nothing will compare to the drive of trying to win a premiership with teammates he has played with for a long time, Reidy is enjoying the chance to reach milestones like he is about to with players he has played with for much of his career.

The Swans have celebrated 100-game milestones for Anthony Stephens, Josh Cipro, Brayden Noble, Nathan Blakely over the past couple of years, and that’s what makes it more special for Reidy to now be getting there himself and with Aidan Clarke to join the week after.

“It’s obviously a personal milestone and you can enjoy those along the way, but a bit more team success is always the No. 1 driver,” Reidy said.

“The team obviously hasn’t had too much success in the last few years so I think the personal milestones are nice to tick off along the way, and you do get to enjoy them while trying to have that team success.

“We’ve also had a few other boys hit the 100 games in recent times to with Doc, Josh Cipro, Stepho and Clarkey hopefully will hit his next week. So it is pretty cool to have played so much footy with all those boys and that we’re all hitting the milestones at around the same time.”

What number locker name will go on

Reidy made his debut for Swan Districts at league level in Round 2, 2018, and was wearing the No. 59 jumper which he did have on his back for 15 matches that season but he also had No. 42 and 39 for one game apiece too.

Then for the 2019, 2020 and 2021 seasons, Reidy wore the No. 11 jumper but then that was unavailable when he returned in 2023. He’s had No. 8 ever since which is where he does see his name going on the locker of after Saturday night.

“I think I started out on 59 and then I wore 42 for one game when it was NAIDOC Round and there wasn’t a jumper for me,” Reidy said.

“Then I went to 11 for a few years and I had a year off, and when I came back from travels Jarvis Pina had stolen the No. 11 off me.

“I tried to convince him to give it back in the pre-season and that was unsuccessful so I was in 27 for that one year. Then No. 8 popped up and I’ve been in that ever since so I’m assuming that my name will go on that one.

“I know one of the other names on there is one of our assistant coaches Mark Piani. ‘Snaggers’ always lets me know that all the best players apparently are on the No. 8 and I don’t know if I agree with him on that, but I’m looking forward to joining him on there.”

Reflecting on 2025 season

Coming off reaching a home preliminary final last year and the 2025 season hasn’t gone the way that Reidy or anyone at Swan Districts hoped with finals out of the equation now heading into the last two games.

However, Reidy knows that sometimes you can’t help bad luck like the Swans have had by losing important quality players before the season started, and then right throughout to injury.

At the same time, he is hoping they can learn plenty from this season and bounce back hard in 2026.

“It’s a combination of a lot of things and when you lose such quality players from the team it’s hard to replace, but early on we still had a lot of belief in our team and our game plan,” Reidy said.

“Then I think we might have just expected it to happen even though we did have a lot of those boys out.

“We did feel like we might have just been good enough still to redo something similar to last year and then by the time we got to the back end of the season would get some of that brigade back, and make a push into September.

“But obviously it hasn’t panned out that way and I think it just makes it feel like it’s a pretty long year at times. Hopefully come 2026 we get a few of the boys back and maybe a few potential recruits to help strengthen us up, and we’re able to have a lot more of an exciting year.”

About to have a change up in career

Away from football and Reidy is just finishing up his current job with the Department of Treasury and Finance by taking up a role with Yamagigu, which is part of Deloitte and is the largest First Nations consulting business in Australia.

While it’s still working in a similar area, Reidy is looking forward to the new role and seeing the impact that he is able to have.

“At the moment I’m still working in a policy officer role at the Department of Treasury and Finance,” Reidy said.

“I’m working in social procurement where I get to work on policy that supports Aboriginal businesses to get contracts with the state government. But in my new role at Yamagigu Consulting I will be heading over as a senior consultant.

“I’ll be a bit on the other side of the sheet where I might work more directly with Aboriginal businesses and working with government rather than for government on some of the projects that they run.

“It’s a good opportunity I think to try something a little bit different even though it’s all in a similar sort of area but the chance that comes with this new role is something I’m looking forward to. I’m keen to go into a difference place and learn a bit more, and hopefully progress my career that way.”