Jai Saxena celebrates a goal during Vic Metro’s clash with South Australia in the 2025 Marsh AFL National Under-18 Boys Championships. Picture: AFL Photos
JAI SAXENA was born into a footy family. Not only was he gifted his first Hawthorn guernsey when he was three years old, but his life has since revolved around the success and failures of his beloved Hawks.
Morning rides to school during the winter months are spent listening to Tim Watson and Garry Lyon on SEN radio. Even his paternal grandfather, or Dada, who lives in Delhi, times his visits to Australia based on the Hawks’ schedule for home games.
Despite being a kid who nominated Cyril Rioli’s 2015 Grand Final heroics for Hawthorn as his favourite footy memory of watching footy, and who sees himself as playing a Dylan Moore-like role in the future, Saxena is more than happy to switch his allegiance firmly to the black and white of his new footballing home, Collingwood.
It’s a household with divided loyalties as well. Most of the family has always barracked for Hawthorn, courtesy of the maternal grandfather and his son, Jai’s uncle. But Jai’s mother, who was born in Adelaide, is a Port Adelaide fanatic while his maternal grandmother, or Nani, goes for St Kilda.
“Nobody has been able to figure that one out,” Saxena said.
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As you might have picked up from the references to ‘Dadas’ and ‘Nanis’, Jai also hails from an Indian family, one that takes a lot of pride in staying true to its roots.
One where dinner every night at home still revolves around dal chawal (lentils and rice), where days start and end with prayers, most Wednesday evenings involve visits to the nearby temple and the car stereo alternates between Bollywood and devotional music, depending on who’s driving the car.
And every spare moment is spent either watching footy or kicking it around in the backyard or at a local park – even on family visits to India.
“We have lived in an Australian way, but we’ve always kept our Indian heritage with us. But football has always been central to how we’ve lived,” Saxena said.
The 18-year-old is now a huge step closer to becoming the first player of Indian heritage from both sides of the family to play in an AFL match, having been selected by Collingwood in Friday’s Telstra AFL Rookie Draft as a category A rookie through the club’s Next Generation Academy.
Jai Saxena takes a shot at goal during Oakleigh Chargers’ clash with GWV Rebels on July 13, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos
It’s a moment that is cause for celebration for the Saxena family, but it won’t have surprised them.
For, it’s a day they’ve not quite hoped for, but one that they have prophesied from the time the young kid from Doncaster East picked up a Sherrin and impressed everyone with the innate way in which he knew what to do with it.
“There’s always been the joke around the house that I’d be the first Indian to play in the AFL. It’s never really weighed on me that much though,” he says with a wry smile, as if he is worried about it sounding anything other than a joke.
On Friday, Saxena became just the second player of full Indian heritage to be drafted, behind Balraj Singh, who spent one season at Adelaide after being selected at pick No.79 in 1999.
The Saxena family migration story goes back a few decades. Jai’s maternal grandparents are originally Fijian-Indians and they moved here over 40 years ago. His mum and his uncle were both born in Australia. His dad, on the other hand, moved to Darwin for university studies at the age of 19, which is when he met his wife, before they all moved to Melbourne to start a family.
“Though Nana and Nani are Fijian-Indian, they follow the same rituals as outright Indians and my Nana still says his prayers both morning and night,” Jai says.
While the young Saxena did dabble in a bit of cricket, his main sports from a young age were basketball and Australian football. And more so after his dad, Gaurav or ‘Rav’ to his friends, decided to take him to Auskick at Beverley Hills.
“I was around four or five, and it was probably to fill up [Dad’s] Sundays. He grew up as a cricket fan in Delhi but was converted very quickly once he moved here as a teenager,” Saxena said, while recalling how he never fancied himself as a cricketer and only played it for a couple of years at school.
“He was keen on doing some coaching for kids, which he started doing at Auskick and that’s when he noticed that I had some talent. I played my first proper game at under-eights, and I was away.”
Saxena’s progress from that point on was steady, as he climbed through the ranks, getting picked in representative teams, before beginning to play for the Oakleigh Chargers in the Coates Talent League, the elite junior pathways program based in Victoria, and also in Collingwood’s NGA squad.
While he does recall playing junior footy with a bunch of multicultural kids, that began to change as he went through the levels, and he started to recognise his ethnicity and how he was a rare representative of his community.
“I don’t think I ever felt it, but I always had it at the back of my mind. I always told myself not to worry about it. Don’t let it get to your head,” Saxena said.
“When you play a lot of the higher-level footy, you see less multicultural kids. I don’t think it’s ever affected me in that way. Like. I’ve seen it, but I don’t worry about it. Because 99 per cent of the time, who you are dealing with are incredible people. So, I’ve never had a complaint. I’ve known, but it’s never been a problem.”
Jai Saxena chases down Jack Dalton during Oakleigh Chargers’ clash with Sandringham Dragons in the Coates Talent League qualifying final in September 2025. Picture: AFL Photos
Where Jai did begin to feel the difference was the rate at which some of the other Caucasian kids were growing physically, especially when you’re talking about someone who’s always struggled to put on size. But in a way, he also sees that as being one of the reasons he stands out more than others his age.
“I remember a game when I was 15, just a normal Sunday club game, I lined up and there was this kid who was 6’5″ (196cm) in the opposition and he bullied everyone because he could. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. But that’s sort of how I learnt to be smarter with my body,” Saxena said.
“Even when I do develop, I am never going to be the strongest player on the field. But being able to be smart with my body, and knowing where to be, helps me a lot.”
“Knowing where to be and being smarter with my body work came naturally to me. Not in a cocky way. It was one of the traits I had when I started.”
However, Saxena’s body didn’t play ball the way he wanted it to during a difficult 2024 season, where his form slid and he struggled to maintain his standards. It led to him focusing more on building other facets of his game, whether they were more defensively or overall skills. It wasn’t a major change in diet or exercise, but more about getting his priorities right mentally ahead of his draft year in 2025.
“In a way, I’m jealous of my 15-year-old self. He just went out there and played for fun, without any pressure,” Saxena said.
“Maybe I need to learn from that side of me, and forget about everything else and just enjoy playing, which was a big thing going into this year.
“Coming from chasing a little bit during a bad season last year, you just have to forget about everything else that’s happening outside and focus on your game internally.”
When asked to recall the start of his year in a bid to explain how he orchestrated his turnaround, Saxena instead went back a bit further to September last year.
“We had a tryout to get into the pre-season squad at Oakleigh and having had such a bad 2024, I honestly went in with no expectation,” Saxena said.
“I didn’t even think I would get into that preseason squad. I did, luckily. It’s sort of, ‘I didn’t think I’d get into that squad, I didn’t think I’d make the final squad, I didn’t think I’d play round one, and I didn’t think I’d play for Metro.
“So, it’s been a season of having no expectations but staying confident, really. But it’s been unbelievable.”
The other thing he did was to completely get the idea of the draft out of his head. Even giving himself a mantra along the way of, “if you are playing to get yourself drafted, then it’s not going to work”.
It’s an attitude adjustment that has gone a long way in putting him in the position he is in right now.
Certain games this year accentuated his belief more than any he’d played up to this point, especially his five-goal haul against Sandringham in round three. Even if he felt playing in the opening round this year after the travails of 2024 rewarded his strength of character, he still needed to prove to himself that he had indeed gotten over the hump.
For all the inherent love that the Saxena family has for footy, there’s still a rather endearing dichotomy in terms of their traditional Indian approach to life. That rings true when Saxena talks about his mum’s concerns over his physical safety every time he plays a game, even now.
“Mum has never wanted me to play footy. She’s always wanted me to play cricket or soccer. But she’s never convinced me,” he said with a chuckle.
“She hates the physicality of it, when it has to do with me. She gets little scared every time a bigger body comes near me. She’s used to it now.”
Jai Saxena in action during Oakleigh Chargers’ clash with Sandringham Dragons on April 12, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos
And it especially rings true when, in the same breath, he also talks about how his mum wants him to move out as soon as he’s done with school.
Despite football being such a deep-rooted part of his family’s life, Saxena said none of their family friends, who are mainly of Indian origin, have been drawn to the sport in the same way.
“It’s still very much an ‘our family’ thing in that circle. They follow what I do in my career and are very supportive but they are still mainly more into cricket. It’s the same with my extended family back in India,” he said.
But Saxena is very aware of what it could mean to the larger Indian and South Asian migrant community around the country if he does breach that long-term barrier and dons the colours of an AFL club in an premiership season match.
“It’s a good feeling. I like the feeling of bringing something new to the game, I think it’s good that it’s something for people to be excited about. So, I enjoy that other people get excited about it. For me, it’s all about focusing on the football. It’s all a balance really,” he said.
Ask him about having to deal with the attention that is coming his way now as he looks poised to create history, and he talks about taking it in his stride, displaying maturity far beyond his years.
“You’ve got to be grateful for the situation I’m in. Because if you asked me 12 months ago, if I’d be here, I’d have laughed. Just focused on my exams at the moment. Whatever happens, happens. The games are finished. Nothing I can do about it now,” he said.
It’s close to 90 minutes into the interview when he reveals he’s got a maths exam the following morning, which does surprise my Indian senses, and Saxena picks up it on immediately.
“My parents do care about my academics, but only to an extent where they feel I have a solid future, regardless of how my football career goes from here,” he says as if to calm my nerves about his exam.
In a way, it also sums up this very talented footballer, who loves playing golf and spending time with his dog in his free time, as he edges ever so closer towards helping the AFL break the walls down. But doing so without much fuss, while staying rooted to who he is and where his family comes from.
