“$100 to $1 to be at the Dogs next year”: King’s big Ugle-Hagan prediction

Lachlan Geleit • February 17th, 2025 1:24 pm

David King can’t see Jamarra Ugle-Hagan playing for the Western Bulldogs beyond the 2025 season.

The 22-year-old is currently undertaking a flexible training program away from the club and didn’t travel to the club’s Sunshine Coast training camp in recent weeks.

While Ugle-Hagan didn’t head to Queensland with the Dogs, he was able to fly to Perth to be around the Indigenous All-Stars playing group for their exhibition clash against Fremantle.

It was at the airport heading to Perth where Ugle-Hagan broke his silence with Seven’s Mitch Cleary, and the news breaker says that there’s an open invitation from the Bulldogs for the forward to return to the club and train ahead of the 2025 season.

As he’s yet to take up that offer, King thinks that Ugle-Hagan is as good as gone at season’s end, tipping on SEN Breakfast that Sydney will target the forward if Chad Warner departs for Western Australia.

King: “I think he'd be $100 to $1 to be at the Dogs next year.

“Where do you sit, Mitch?”

Cleary: “It's early, isn't it? Look at Rory Lobb last year, it’s completely different, but players we think are going to be out the door can fall back in love with the footy club.

“Things can change. There’s a lot of things to work through, but I don’t think this is completely dead in the water between Jamarra and the Dogs.”

King: “I'll put a flag in the ground early. Warner leaves the Swans, and they get a significant draft haul for that, then something is done to get Jamarra to Sydney.

“That would be my very early throw of the stumps.

“I just think that the group have lost so much trust in Jamarra and it's going to take so long to get him AFL-ready.

“He can play AFL, no doubt, but absolutely to the levels that everyone else has trained for six months? You just can’t rush this guy back in.

“I sit a little bit different on this one.”

The Bulldogs begin their season with a Round 1 clash against North Melbourne at Marvel Stadium on March 15.