Jayden Short (born 24 January 1996) is an Australian rules footballer currently playing for the Richmond Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He was a premiership player with Richmond in 2019 and 2020, and in 2020 won the club's best and fairest award, the Jack Dyer Medal. He is best known for his efficient, penetrating kicks off half back and his excellent work rates. Early life and junior football Short spent his formative years in Mill Park, a suburb 19 kilometres north-east of Melbourne. He played representative junior football with the Northern Knights in the TAC Cup in 2013 while completing his last year of high school at St Monica's College. Short returned to the Knights in 2014, playing while also working as a carpenter. He missed the first two months of that season due to jaw injury sustained in a night club fight but completed 2014 having played 13 matches, kicking 12 goals and holding averages of 22 disposals and four tackles per game. He was named among his club's best players in eight of his 13 matches. Short was ranked the best kick in the TAC Cup that year, recording an efficiency of 73.7 per cent by foot across his matches in 2014. He supported the Carlton Football Club growing up and idolised Anthony Koutoufides. Prior to the AFL draft, Short was interviewed in his home by Richmond, Collingwood and Hawthorn. AFL career 2015 season After being passed over by all 18 clubs in the national draft, Short was drafted by Richmond with the 11th overall selection in the 2015 rookie draft. Short played his first match for Richmond in the 2015 pre-season competition, kicking one goal in a forward line role during a loss to the at the Whitten Oval. He went unselected for an AFL debut when the season began, and instead played reserves-grade matches with the club's Victorian Football League side. Short played primarily as a forward and occasionally as a stoppage-attending half-forward during this time, regularly kicking goals and receiving the coaches' public praise for his efforts with ball in hand, but copping criticism for his defensive efforts and subpar application of forward-half pressure. He produced a standout three-goal performance in late June, before suffering a season-ending ankle injury in a match against the Northern Bullants the following week. He had failed to make an AFL debut that year, but had played