He played junior representative football with the Oakliegh Chargers in the TAC Cup and won the club's best and fairest player award in 2018.

[9] He was noted pre-draft for his strength, power and ball-winning ability and was labelled by Aussie Rules Draft Central as "a ready-made prospect".

[18] The following week Ross would receive a call-up for a round 4 AFL debut, after captain Trent Cotchin was ruled out due to a hamstring and fellow midfielder Dustin Martin missed through suspension.

[29] After training fully in the last week of July, Ross made his footballing return on limited minutes with the club's reserves side in the VFL, notching 12 disposals in the match's first half.

[30][31] He was added to the club's AFL emergency list the following week and was eventually called in to play when Dustin Martin was a late withdrawal due to injury.

[32][33] Ross played a run-with role on Carlton captain Patrick Cripps for parts of that match, while accumulating 21 disposals and six clearances of his own.

[44][45][46] Despite that decision Ross was ultimately overlooked for a call up to what would be an AFL premiership winning side, passed over in favour of VFL grand final best-on-ground Marlion Pickett.

[47][48][49] He was instead named an emergency, ultimately becoming one of just six players on the Richmond list to play in neither the AFL nor VFL premiership winning sides that season.

[61][62] Ross could not earn selection to AFL level when the season began a week later, and was instead a non-playing emergency for the win over Carlton that was played without crowds in attendance due to public health prohibitions on large gatherings.

[72][73][74] He was sufficiently impressive in a new flexibility-testing half-back role at the lower level to earn his first AFL call up of the season in a round 3 loss to Hawthorn.

[23][77] He spent four weeks out of the side, during which time the club and all its Victorian counterparts were relocated to the Gold Coast in response to a virus outbreak in Melbourne.

[85][86] He remained unable to earn AFL selection through the club's premiership-winning finals run, finishing the season having played seven matches at senior level.