Between the Stripes - Volume one
28/02/2026
Between the Stripes will follow three Zebras - Blake Watson, Hamish Murphy and Jesse Wadeisha - throughout the 2026 season. With Watson a Sandringham stalwart, Murphy bringing learnings from other VFL programs, and Wadeisha having just relocated from Sydney, the three bring wildly different perspectives to the club, and will document their experiences throughout the year as Sandringham begins its standalone venture.
Blake Watson brings a pretty different perspective to most players on Sandringham’s list this season.
Becoming a standalone club has necessitated plenty of change, most noticeably with players, which has resulted in a talented crop of young guns calling Wilson Storage Trevor Barker Beach Oval home in 2026.
But it also means that, entering his fifth season with the Zebs, the longest tenure of any player on the list, Watson is also the oldest at just 26 years of age, with the 2025 skipper admitting it’s a fairly unique scenario that he finds himself in.
“It's definitely a weird feeling because I don't feel that old myself, I feel like I'm still young in my footy career,” he said.
“I’ve been around here for a long time now, I suppose, so it's definitely a bit of a different feeling, but I think we've got such a young group and the guys are just so impressionable and they buy in 100 per cent to everything that you do, so it makes my job really easy.
“It definitely is a bit of a strange feeling, because I don't always feel, not that I'm not deserving of it, but it does feel like I'm potentially not as old as I seem around here all the time, but I love it.”
One of the benefits of the list turnover Sandringham has gone through, though, is opportunity.
The 2025 season yielded three wins and a draw for the Zebras, which obviously wasn’t the desired outcome, but it saw plenty of youth blooded at the level, and combined with all of the additions over the off-season, Watson described Sandringham as a “land of opportunity” in 2026, with positions there for the taking if you’re willing to do the hard yards.
“I think last year was tough, we didn't probably have the maturity and experience of games into a lot of the players that we needed to maybe perform at the level we wanted to at the time,” Watson said.
“But that exposed a lot of guys to VFL football, that, sure, maybe they weren't ready last year, but now they've got that experience, and it feels like now, this year, there’s so much opportunity.
“Anyone I talk to about this, it's just a land of opportunity at the moment, there's so many opportunities, anyone that wants to grab it, be a part of the brand new club and grab a spot can go with it, and really drive those standards, and just make it their own.
“There’s so much opportunity here, it’s a brand-new place.”
It’s a sentiment shared by Hamish Murphy, one of the many fresh faces to join the Zebs over summer.
A Master of Dietetics student at Swinburne, Murphy played 24 games for North Melbourne’s VFL side before moving to Williamstown, where he spent last season, playing one game.
The 25-year-old said the decision to make the move to Bayside was largely motivated by one key word – opportunity.
“I think there's always been a really big, rich history behind Sandy that I had always heard of,” he said.
“Then the possibility arose with the club going standalone, meaning more opportunity, and I'm also finding myself down this way a lot more as my partner lives locally.
“It just seemed like a really good opportunity to try and put my best foot forward and try and use my experience with this young group, too.
“We are very young, but I think we play that to our strengths too, so I think all I can really try and do is just use my experience from the past couple of years that I've been in the system to try and educate and give these boys the better progression that maybe I might not have had or might have had at other clubs as well.”
While the likes of Watson and Murphy are experienced heads around the club with years in the VFL system banked, there are plenty more who are yet to play their first game at the level.
23-year-old Jesse Wadeisha is one such player yet to pull on a Zebras guernsey – or any other VFL strip, for that matter - in an official outing, but his commitment can’t be questioned.
Hailing from Sydney, the key forward has relocated to Victoria to pursue a career with Sandringham, opting to sign with the Zebras despite interest from multiple other outfits.
“It was the opportunity here at Sandy,” he said of the impetus to pick up and move his life interstate.
“I was lucky enough to get an opportunity at a few different clubs, and it came down to deciding which was the best fit for me and my lifestyle and stuff, and just being down here, I couldn't choose anywhere else, to be honest.
“I’m just really focussing on my footy and seeing what happens.”
It’s not Wadeisha’s first time moving interstate for football, either, spending a year in Western Australia while playing at Swan Districts in the WAFL, a year which ended in heartbreak, an experience which ultimately spurred him on to give it another crack with the Zebs.
“I went over to Perth when I was 19,” he said.
“When I was over there, I had a shoulder injury, so it sort of stunted my year over there, pretty much in the first game.
“It was such a cool experience to be in a professional environment, and it was similar to this, to be honest, just really professional, lots of hard work.
“But I was only there for a year, and I actually stopped playing footy for a year after that, just because of my shoulder.
“I was a young kid, I was pretty heartbroken, but came back and got back into it in Sydney, and then two years later I'm here.”
Watson too has been dogged by injury of late, with consistent setbacks in 2025 limiting him to seven games in the yellow, black and blue last season.
Playing consistent football is one of his main goals in 2026 as he eyes a return to the lofty standards he sets for himself, but more than anything, Watson wants success for Sandringham.
“The numbers and your own performances, at the end of the day, don't get the wins that the team wants, and that's what it's all about,” he said.
“Sure, I want to have a good season, I want to get back to being one of the best midfielders in the competition which I think I'm capable of, I want to get back to that level of performing week in, week out.
“Ultimately, I just want to be a good teammate to everyone out there, and I want to be known as someone that everyone wants to play with.”
It’s a strikingly similar outlook to Murphy, who is determined to help Sandringham reach the potential he knows it holds.
“Coming from an AFL aligned system (at North Melbourne) and then at Willy last year, I just want to really try and put some good footy together, because I know that my best is good enough for this level and I want to try and showcase that,” he said.
“But at the end of the day, I also want to try and do everything I can to get this team to win and hold up some silver at the end of the season.”
Written by Alexander Dabb - Sandringham FC Media