Ryan Nyhuis will become the 200th player to represent the Fremantle Dockers after the 20-year-old was brought in to replace midfielder David Mundy for Sunday’s clash with North Melbourne at Etihad Stadium.
Mundy was a late withdrawal from the game with illness.
A product of the NT Thunder in the Northern Territory, Nyhuis was taken with pick no.34 in the 2015 rookie draft and was elevated onto Fremantle’s senior list to be a travelling emergency for Freo’s round 12 clash with Brisbane.
The young defender was again a travelling emergency for Sunday’s clash with North Melbourne and comes into the side to make his debut.
He becomes the seventh Fremantle player to make his AFL debut in 2017, with five of these in the lineup against North Melbourhe in Nyhuis, Griffin Logue, Luke Ryan, Brennan Cox and Sean Darcy.
All five of those players have under 10 AFL games experience, with Fremantle fielding 11 players against North Melbourne with under 50 games experience.
Nyhuis has played 25 games for Peel at WAFL level during the past two seasons and is coming off one of his strongest performances against Claremont in round 15.
Against the Tigers, Nyhuis racked up 30 disposals at half-back, 25 of those kicks, while taking six marks and laying four tackles.
The replacement of Mundy with Nyhuis means that versatile midfielder Connor Blakely is likely to return to midfield duties after playing in the backline against Geelong in round 14, opening up a space for Nyhuis in Fremantle’s defence.
As a result, Fremantle will field on of their youngest backlines in recent years, with Nyhuis joining Ryan (4 games), Logue (6 games), Ethan Hughes (16 games) and Joel Hamling (37 games) in a backline led by 223 game veteran Michael Johnson.
