Theseventhhamster
Brownlow Medallist
Can pick up and snap a ball quicker than anyone I can think of that has played for Melbourne.
Player Watch #19 - Mitch Hannan - traded to the Dogs
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Topkent
Confirmed ITK Drafting King
Robbo was pretty mecurial with his snaps but he couldn't hit the ball at full speed like Hannan and get it on the boot in one movement
Sando22
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Dead-set master stroke grabbing this kid.
Loooove our recruiters. Have found late gems for a few years now!!
Loooove our recruiters. Have found late gems for a few years now!!
Russian Demon
Premiership Player
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A pearler from fox footy
Hannan has played 15 of a possible 16 games this year and established himself as an exciting forward who can pinch hit through the midfield, booting 18 goals so far. The 23-year-old has averaged 13.1 disposals, 2.9 tackles and 1.2 goals per game and looks locked into Melbourne’s best 22.
Pinch hitting? Am i missing something here or is he our Max relief?
Hannan has played 15 of a possible 16 games this year and established himself as an exciting forward who can pinch hit through the midfield, booting 18 goals so far. The 23-year-old has averaged 13.1 disposals, 2.9 tackles and 1.2 goals per game and looks locked into Melbourne’s best 22.
Pinch hitting? Am i missing something here or is he our Max relief?
Sylvia Saint
Cancelled
To be fair he has played up the ground a fair bit in recent weeks.
He does attend quite a few centre bounces each match and has been even before our major midfield injuries. I assume the coaches like his lateral movement in there.
Russian Demon
Premiership Player
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Pinch hit? Doesn't that really refer to a ruckman? Playing mid woukd be rotating through the middle surely?
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Praetorian
Club Legend
Pinch hitting is originally a baseball term I think, basically just means he has short cameos in the midfield despite predominantly being a forward, not necessarily in the ruck though
Needs a good game tbh. He's been much better this season than I thought he would, but has gone missing in recent weeks. Really need him to lift a little this week with Jeffy out. Port are the #1 defensive unit, so he'll have his work cut out for him.
Russian Demon
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That makes a lot more sense.
PerfectFooty
Perfect Cell
Wasn't he ill in the Sydney game? and his first clear run is in darwin. I'll back him in
Was talked of as a late out for the Darwin game ... not sure about Sydney.
The last place I'd want to play after being sick all week is Darwin.
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He's been great all year! Had a quiet game last week but apparently was ill and close to missing. Surely gets a pass for that.
Sando22
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Clutch!
Twice!!
Twice!!
LeverPuller
BigFooty Tanker
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Proper Gander
Owl whisperer and secret agent
And to think the AFL media are focussing on the Toby Greene signing.
Great stuff. This is almost certainly thanks to the fact that I didn't get to speak to him at the BBQ.
threenewpadlocks
Brownlow Medallist
Congrats lads, love him since he played for Footscray and it was a fantastic recruitment and a player who can only improve.
I have a funny story re: Hannan.
I have a friend who knows an AFL recruiter. He told me friend this story (who told me).
This recruiter was very keen on Hannan, loved his VFL form and what he could do, wanted to take him with their pick in the late 20's/early 30's. What was stopping them? He couldn't justify it to the other members of the recruiting staff, because there was no athletic testing data on him.
What do I mean? Well, in this day and age of national combines, state combines and even third-party combines (that company called Rookie Me), the AFL recruiters have athletic testing data on virtually every player. However, Hannan, coming up through the VAFA as an 18 year old and then through the VFL, was one of the very, very few players without athletic testing data to prove a case either way. That recruiter couldn't use those numbers to justify his argument, so he couldn't convince the head recruiter as his club to pick him up. I also know for a fact that multiple clubs were after him and were looking at him with picks in the 30's/40's, but couldn't quite justify it util you blokes took the punt.
The Dogs would have clearly had that testing data on hand, liked what they would have seen (in terms of his training attitude etc.), and I know for a fact that we had him quite early on our draft board, but we just had picks in the wrong places - we had pick 28 and pick 49, just a little bit too early with the first and that second he nearly slipped to, but didn't. I have no doubt that if we had a pick in the 30's we would have taken him, following the same logic as those other clubs but we had the athletic testing data to back it up.
Hannan's got 200 games in him. He can only improve from here. Great re-signing lads.
I have a funny story re: Hannan.
I have a friend who knows an AFL recruiter. He told me friend this story (who told me).
This recruiter was very keen on Hannan, loved his VFL form and what he could do, wanted to take him with their pick in the late 20's/early 30's. What was stopping them? He couldn't justify it to the other members of the recruiting staff, because there was no athletic testing data on him.
What do I mean? Well, in this day and age of national combines, state combines and even third-party combines (that company called Rookie Me), the AFL recruiters have athletic testing data on virtually every player. However, Hannan, coming up through the VAFA as an 18 year old and then through the VFL, was one of the very, very few players without athletic testing data to prove a case either way. That recruiter couldn't use those numbers to justify his argument, so he couldn't convince the head recruiter as his club to pick him up. I also know for a fact that multiple clubs were after him and were looking at him with picks in the 30's/40's, but couldn't quite justify it util you blokes took the punt.
The Dogs would have clearly had that testing data on hand, liked what they would have seen (in terms of his training attitude etc.), and I know for a fact that we had him quite early on our draft board, but we just had picks in the wrong places - we had pick 28 and pick 49, just a little bit too early with the first and that second he nearly slipped to, but didn't. I have no doubt that if we had a pick in the 30's we would have taken him, following the same logic as those other clubs but we had the athletic testing data to back it up.
Hannan's got 200 games in him. He can only improve from here. Great re-signing lads.
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Great post - thanks.
Ripping story, thanks mate.
Interestingly, I believe clubs can nominate "left field" picks like Hannan for the State Screening? Sounds as if the multiple clubs that were keen on him were all trying to keep their interest on him under the radar so as to not let any other clubs clue in to him, and at the end of the day, they all missed out.
I reckon there would be very few more interesting conversations to have than sitting down for a few beers with a recruiter or two.
Topkent
Confirmed ITK Drafting King
It's hard to reason that recruiters know anything when they would consider pick 28 too high for Hannan
LeverPuller
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It wasn't like we took him at 29, didnt take him til 46.
As for the rest, I can see that happening. Players fall all the time for all types of reasons, missing a dataset certainly fits.
Hindsight and all that.
Not many had heard of him when he was picked, and he looked like a pretty good pick in the 40's from his highlights, but there was more than a few eyebrows raised when he was picked Round 1 without at JLT game ... that was until early in the 2nd qrt of that game.
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