Next Stockden generation launching at SharksFriday, August 16, 2024 - 10:26 AM - by Chris Pike

ELIJAH Stockden is finishing his colts career with East Fremantle in tremendous form in the midfield as he now looks forward to entering the senior program in 2025 to follow in the footsteps of his father who he describes as the best possible role model.

Stockden now has one game to go in his colts career at the Sharks when the 19-year-old is part of Saturday's last game of the season for East Fremantle against East Perth at Sullivan Logistics Stadium.

Stockden is proud of how his East Fremantle colts team has kept on persevering despite having five players suffer ACL ruptures along with a host of other injuries to exciting young talented players.

He has had a terrific season himself averaging 21.8 possessions while also showing signs of his father's trademark toughness by averaging almost five tackles a match as well.

He is looking for the Sharks to not only get a win over the Royals to finish the season on a positive note, but also his last game in the colts program.

"Definitely looking forward to it, especially considering this is a very winnable game for us against East Perth, as a team it would be great to finish with a win ending the season on a high note," Stockden said.

"Considering the amount of injuries we have had, something like 5 ACL’s, and our ruckman went down with stress fractures, meaning we are on average the youngest team in the comp I think we have fought hard all year, just struggling to put wins on the board in this second half of the season.

"In terms of myself I think I’ve been able to improve a lot from last year getting dropped several times compared to this year able to play some much better footy."

Stockden is the son of Marshall who had his own standout East Fremantle career where he played in three Grand Finals and won a WAFL premiership in 1998 which was the Sharks' last flag up until the drought breaking performance of 2023.

While too young to have physically watched his dad play who retired in 2002 after his 150th game to earn life membership, Elijah has had no trouble catching up on his career and is thrilled to be able to follow his footsteps at the same club.

"I remember watching hours of dads highlights that he has on a USB," Elijah said.

"Few years ago he uncovered them and had them running for days. Reckons he was pretty tough as well, always tells me about playing with a broken nose, splitting his head open and still playing.

"It’s pretty unreal playing where he did. Dad's been awesome and I couldn’t have asked for a better role model and supporter. He’s really encouraging, comes to as many games as he can make it to, through all my juniors as well."

After finding his feet with some ups and downs in his first two seasons playing in the colts, Stockden has found his own throughout the 2024 season and settled into a role in the middle.

That's seen him become a prolific ball winner for the Sharks and that's where he would ideally see him fitting in at senior level moving forward, but at the same time he knows what a significant jump that is going to be.

"Absolutely colts has been an awesome experience and will be weird to have to play with a completely different team," Stockden said.

"I definitely think the midfield is where I play my best footy and where I can really use my strengths. 

"As we have seen Dec Pauline go up to play reserves late this year i definitely think that next year as I continue to improve over the offseason and preseason I’ll be able to play really well at that level."

On top of what Marshall did as a player in East Fremantle, he's also created an impressive career as a well regarded physiotherapist which included a long run with the Fremantle Dockers.

Elijah is now looking to follow a similar path by studying sport science at Notre Dame University in Fremantle. 

"At Notre Dame uni doing sport science at the moment and am gonna move into physio after," he said.

"Hopefully will then be able to do something that’s in the sporting world."