Player Watch #19 - Mitch Hannan - traded to the Dogs

[Topkent]

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.

It's not our job to search the country for AFL talent and Hannans VFL season was enough evidence he was a reasonable chance of making it. What a ridiculous world that you can look at him live and then his highlight and pass over him because they didn't have his beep results

 

[mrmonkey]

I didn't know anything about him but I still remember draft night some posters on here were wrapped that we picked up that annoyingly good blonde player who killed it in the vfl grand final.

 

[TheCount]

It's not our job to search the country for AFL talent and Hannans VFL season was enough evidence he was a reasonable chance of making it. What a ridiculous world that you can look at him live and then his highlight and pass over him because they didn't have his beep results

Fair call, probably the same philosophy that had Champion Data rate our midfield as the worst in the competition last season and people consider it a valid opinion. Too much stock put into the numbers, not enough of what people see with their own two eyes.

 

[mrmonkey]

Fair call, probably the same philosophy that had Champion Data rate our midfield as the worst in the competition last season and people consider it a valid opinion. Too much stock put into the numbers, not enough of what people see with their own two eyes.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

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.

I wouldn't call that too unusual when it comes to mature agers, because they're the types you can get with your late picks, or even a rookie pick, when in reality they might be as high as 20 or 30 in your draft board. Every club sees the players who play in the U/18 championships, but it's that 20 year old playing NEAFL where your recruiter watching his third game back-to-back notices something that the other club's recruiter misses because he's also watching his third game back-to-back, where after you interview him, you rate him highly, but then hope that info doesn't get out so you can take him with a rookie pick, where that kind of gamesmenship comes into play.

The fact that only 2 mature-agers made the national combine when there clearly would have been many more than 2 mature-agers that he clubs were interested in proves that point.

It might have changed from when I last heard of it, but it's something like 5 clubs that need to nominate a player to go to the national combine, 3 for the state combine and Rookie Me takes players who have had at least 2 nominations and puts their own criteria on it. Hannan could have easily had interest from 5-6 clubs, but enough of them didn't nominate him to home that the clubs that didn't nominate him wouldn't start putting time/work into him, by simple fact he was a name on a list that a recruiter hadn't looked up.

Being a recruiter is a tough job, and people do it for little pay because they love the fact they're getting paid something, anything, to watch footy. Most of them have full-time, or almost-full-time work, in other jobs. A AFL club VFL-scheduled recruiter would watch three live games over the weekend, watch the rest over video by the end of Monday, prepare a weekly report and maybe have a Tuesday night meeting. They'd spend another weeknight or two in the rest of the week looking back at video from earlier in the season, double-watching a certain player that they might have previously written a report on, etc. These people love their footy, so this might be addition to helping their 7-year-old son's Auskick in the morning of a weekend as well.

It's hard to reason that recruiters know anything when they would consider pick 28 too high for Hannan

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.

I don't think anyone in the world would have predicted Hannan to play as well as he had, but that's the nature of football player forecasting at the draft - there's always uncertainty involved.

At pick 46, an average player might only every play around 30-40 games. So with pick 46, if a mature-ager could play 50 games, and fill a role/position of weakness (the reason you target a mature-ager in the first place), you'd be thrilled. That's what I'm guessing Melbourne's prediction would have been at the time: maybe he would play an average of 10 games as a fringe player for 5 years before being delisted, but even then, that's positive value for a pick 46, where the typical 18 year old you pick might play 35 games, many developmental (so performing worse than a mature-ager) before being delisted. The fact that on average Melbourne fans might think he plays 150 games now is just a massive, massive bonus, something that Melbourne would not have predicted you drafted him.

As said above, if you truly believed that he could have been a 150-200 gamer, and assuming you knew that other clubs were interested, you wouldn't have risked another club picking him up before pick

 

[stabler]

I think it was somebody here that referred to him as "handgun hannan". I think that suits him very well. In a split second he's picked the ball up off the ground and fired it through the big sticks without even blinking. It's like he's impatient to kick the goal before he's even gathered the ball. That freakish awareness that only a certain few players have. If TMac and Hoges are the twin towers, then Hannan and Fritsch are the thieves in the night that will be in and out before the victims even know they've been robbed. Well done Mitch, and well done MFC for another succesful outside the box selection

 

[Cannon82]

Fair call, probably the same philosophy that had Champion Data rate our midfield as the worst in the competition last season and people consider it a valid opinion. Too much stock put into the numbers, not enough of what people see with their own two eyes.

 

[TheCount]

#PotY

 

[LeverPuller]

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.

Should post this in the 'Stories from Recruiters' thread on D&T, they'd get a laugh out of it.

 

[Topkent]

I wouldn't call that too unusual when it comes to mature agers, because they're the types you can get with your late picks, or even a rookie pick, when in reality they might be as high as 20 or 30 in your draft board. Every club sees the players who play in the U/18 championships, but it's that 20 year old playing NEAFL where your recruiter watching his third game back-to-back notices something that the other club's recruiter misses because he's also watching his third game back-to-back, where after you interview him, you rate him highly, but then hope that info doesn't get out so you can take him with a rookie pick, where that kind of gamesmenship comes into play.

The fact that only 2 mature-agers made the national combine when there clearly would have been many more than 2 mature-agers that he clubs were interested in proves that point.

It might have changed from when I last heard of it, but it's something like 5 clubs that need to nominate a player to go to the national combine, 3 for the state combine and Rookie Me takes players who have had at least 2 nominations and puts their own criteria on it. Hannan could have easily had interest from 5-6 clubs, but enough of them didn't nominate him to home that the clubs that didn't nominate him wouldn't start putting time/work into him, by simple fact he was a name on a list that a recruiter hadn't looked up.

Being a recruiter is a tough job, and people do it for little pay because they love the fact they're getting paid something, anything, to watch footy. Most of them have full-time, or almost-full-time work, in other jobs. A AFL club VFL-scheduled recruiter would watch three live games over the weekend, watch the rest over video by the end of Monday, prepare a weekly report and maybe have a Tuesday night meeting. They'd spend another weeknight or two in the rest of the week looking back at video from earlier in the season, double-watching a certain player that they might have previously written a report on, etc. These people love their footy, so this might be addition to helping their 7-year-old son's Auskick in the morning of a weekend as well.




I don't think anyone in the world would have predicted Hannan to play as well as he had, but that's the nature of football player forecasting at the draft - there's always uncertainty involved.

At pick 46, an average player might only every play around 30-40 games. So with pick 46, if a mature-ager could play 50 games, and fill a role/position of weakness (the reason you target a mature-ager in the first place), you'd be thrilled. That's what I'm guessing Melbourne's prediction would have been at the time: maybe he would play an average of 10 games as a fringe player for 5 years before being delisted, but even then, that's positive value for a pick 46, where the typical 18 year old you pick might play 35 games, many developmental (so performing worse than a mature-ager) before being delisted. The fact that on average Melbourne fans might think he plays 150 games now is just a massive, massive bonus, something that Melbourne would not have predicted you drafted him.

As said above, if you truly believed that he could have been a 150-200 gamer, and assuming you knew that other clubs were interested, you wouldn't have risked another club picking him up before pick

That shocks me still. Clubs will spend thousands of dollars on altitude training to try get any kind of benefit but won't hire full time people in the most important position in building a list.

 

[Bluelegs]

His ability to get boot to ball as cleanly and as quickly as he does is going to end up being iconic of his career.

 

[Tempy Tiger]

Poster of the year material.

 

[ponsdale]

His ability to get boot to ball as cleanly and as quickly as he does is going to end up being iconic of his career.

I really enjoyed this collection of Hannan highlights. There really is a ridiculous number of goals where the time between getting the ball and snapping for goal is crazy short.

 

[harry000]

Love the way this guy tackles... low and hard like a rugby player.

 

[Gysberts2Bate]

I’ve been critical of his stoppage/centre square presence, but they’ve finally found his perfect niche there as an outside runner

 

[Higgs Boson]

Apparently took a screamer in VFL yesterday. Anyone got a link to footage?

 

[Topkent]

Apparently took a screamer in VFL yesterday. Anyone got a link to footage?

It's in the Casey thread

 

[Higgs Boson]

It's in the Casey thread

Cheers

 

[Ablett2Garland]

 

[schmuttt]

AND PEOPLE DIDN'T WANT HIM IN THE TEAM LMAO

 

[saj_21]

Underrated tangling of feet with Henderson

 

[Dancing Potato]

I've never known such a huge swing from anxiety to joy than sitting in the stands and watching Hannan's run towards goal. I kept thinking he was going to do something cute and/or silly and try to dish it off and I was on the edge of my seat the whole way in.

5 seconds later I'm on my feet and losing the last of my voice, fist pumping the air.

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

I said in the gameday thread, the look on Chris Scott's face after that goal made me hard.

Hannan's goal was a great moment, the crowd going mental was amazing.

Jonesey's goal gave me shivers, the reaction by him was pretty much the same as all MFC supporters at the time i imagine, i know mine sitting on the coach was just about identical.

 

[Headless]

Yep. Jones' goal and Hannan's goal instantly became two of my favourite moments as a Melbourne supporter.

 

[Bazza97]

Loved that finish from Hannan. I thought he would do the unselfish thing and pass off but he took it upon himself to kick the goal.