Inside Hawthorn's Mid-Season Draft intrigue
The reset has begun
It speaks volumes of the recent decline and fall of the Hawthorn Football Club that many of its supporters were hoping for a loss to Gold Coast on the weekend in order to keep the second overall selection at the forthcoming AFL mid-season draft.
Drill down that bit further: To be able to select a ruckman who was flitting between the second and thirds at Xavier College this time two years ago.
It epitomises the depths the Hawks have plumbed when Ned Moyle becomes the object of affection. The Hawks’ long and arduous the climb back towards respectability the club faces is now plain to see.
This is a supporter base that only a few years back was fretting over how to get Grand Final tickets.
Still, the Hawks are in a reset and because there was no football played in Victoria last year, circumstances have changed. Moyle might not have been available if he had played a full season last year, so this is something of a free, early hit for the Hawks.
There are reasons to believe the Hawks will make the right call. They may have started from back in the field at various stages of several drafts the last few years but James Worpel (pick 45), Jacob Koschitzke (52) and even Harry Morrison (74) have been shown to be good selections. Changkouth Jiath was a diamond in the rough when the club first laid eyes on him. Will Day (13) will be a star. Tyler Brockman (46) shapes as a great pick.
One club’s draft trash is Hawthorn’s draft treasure.
Now here’s where it gets interesting…
It is the newly-available second round selection the Hawks will have tonight that has created all the intrigue and where the fun is to be had.
Let’s roll this back from the start. James Sicily. One of the mantras here is to call out the media when it poorly reports on Hawthorn or gets things wrong. Anyone who has paid close attention to Alastair Clarkson this year would have heard him say on countless occasions that Sicily was an unlikely starter in 2021.
It was 12-month ACL injury that he suffered late last season, one which finished a month later than usual. Do the maths and it would have meant a comeback in August of a season the coach has repeatedly said won’t realistically include a chance to win “the next piece of silverware”.
Sicily was never coming back at any stage this year and the man himself said as much on Triple M ahead of the Carlton game - although it was a message whose delivery the club must wish it had more control over.
Had the media paid closer attention to Clarkson’s every utterance this year – admittedly difficult when there are 17 other clubs that also command their attention – they would not have reported his “only one pick” after the Gold Coast game as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
And given all the subterfuge around drafting, they should understand why Hawthorn waited until the last possible moment to hand in the paperwork with the AFL to pave the way for the additional selection amid strong suggestions it will be rapidly-ascending Box Hill midfielder Jai Newcombe. Leave every other club guessing for as long as possible.
Managed by Peter Lenton – Sam Mitchell’s long-time manager – all fingers point towards Hawthorn setting the terms under which he nominated for the draft, so that he is all but off limits to every other club.
The understanding here is that Box Hill coach and Hawthorn development boss Mitchell himself has engineered the whole thing with Clarkson happy to wear the flak in public. You suspect Clarkson has quite enjoyed being the media villain this week in a season where the club is otherwise irrelevant.
Let’s not count our chickens until the draft takes place this evening, but Hawthorn supporters should be encouraged by the laser focus and strategic thinking with which the club has approached this draft. It suggests a deep level of dissatisfaction and impatience with where it sits on the ladder and a great resolve to get out of this mess as quickly as possible.
Sydney reportedly has asked the AFL why Newcombe could include special terms with his draft nomination, arguing that similar to the rookie draft, the terms and conditions for every player should be the same. The Swans are also, along with Adelaide, reportedly one of two clubs having a good look at selecting Newcombe themselves.
The Swans are a fantastic football club in so many respects. But they wouldn’t have secured Kurt Tippett and Lance Franklin in successive years without carefully manoeuvring their way around the rules and regulations contained in the now-abolished Cost of Living Allowance.
The Hawks had their fun with the Swans at the national draft last year, placing a bid for academy player Braeden Campbell that the Swans then had to match. Sydney could go one better and pluck Newcombe from Hawthorn’s grasp tonight, but not without absorbing the terms and conditions they objected to just last week.
It all adds to the intrigue. For Hawthorn, having Moyle and Newcombe in the colours later tonight would be the biggest victory and a rare piece of good news in a difficult season.
On the other hand, it is yet another indicator of how far this mighty club has fallen.
Ashley Browne is a senior writer at the AFL Record and SEN. Follow him on Twitter @hashbrowne.