Delisted #36: Michael Hartley - Joins Hawthorne via the preseason draft - 29/11

[Vindicater]

Smashed dixon like the bitch he is.

 

[yodellinhank]

What happened to his form?

 

[Gumby2Hurley]

Has come along way since being monstered by Hawkins. Great game

 

[jmoo wan]

yeah let's change the title- his form is back baby!

 

[Doss]

His best game in ages. Probably in his best few full stop.

 

[citizen-erased]

good to see him back.
liking him at FB.

 

[Highly Evolved]

I miss Piggy a lot but Hartley helps with the loss. One of my favourites last year and this year, so it is really nice to see him doing well.

 

[eth-dog]

Christ we need him kicking more. How about that bullet pass to Joe in the third straight down the middle?

 

[Knight Ryders]

Definitely his best game this year and what perfect timing.

Great to see that Harts has such a good kick to accompany Hurley.

 

[Alfred E Neuman]

Christ we need him kicking more. How about that bullet pass to Joe in the third straight down the middle?

I've noticed that he plays really well off half back.

 

[Yoda_]

best game for the club

 

[eth-dog]

First ever bomber to keep Buddy goalless.

 

[JayJ20]

Killed Buddy. Fantastic game from him

 

[ScrappyCoCo]

Killed Buddy. Fantastic game from him

still got me stumped why he was dropped...much better team with him stopping a gun fwd

 

[Skipper_]

TBF Buddy did kick something like 0.6.

 

[Doss]

still got me stumped why he was dropped...much better team with him stopping a gun fwd

Because Ambrose was in better form.

Anyway, Hartley is in really good form now, so that's what counts.

 

[BrunoV]

Think that the assessments have been quite generous. His game last year was much better. Thought that Hartley was burned off too often which would be okay if he was taking intercept marks but he wasn't. Buddy had 6 scoring shots.

 

[Alfred E Neuman]

First ever bomber to keep Buddy goalless.

He did well, but to be honest, I think Buddy kept Buddy goalless. 6 scoring shots is a lot.

 

[SherbertLemon]

Buddy had his chances. But mr Hartley still did an excellent job. I would have been okay with buddy kicking 2 if you offered it to me at the start of the match.

 

[JayJ20]

I don't care about how Buddy went goalless. What matters is that he went goalless and Hartley was his man

 

[quotemokc]

He missed so many because Hartley didn't allow him any easy shots.

 

[Bigjobss]

I feel like I have some sort of weird reverse colour blindness type problem, everytime I see him I still see the massive black eye, it was a good look for him

 

[BOMBERS 4 LIFE!!!!]

I feel like I have some sort of weird reverse colour blindness type problem, everytime I see him I still see the massive black eye, it was a good look for him

He has a head that you would love to smack if you were playing forward on him.

 

[blitzer]

I think Hartley was pretty decent on Franklin. Yes Franklin kicked 0.6 so it wasn't like he dominated him all match or anything like that but even if he had kicked 3 it would have been considered a small win for them. Credit to him for not giving him any easy looks at a simple goal - most of those were all around 50+ out and towards the boundary and whilst yes Buddy is great at kicking them from there its far from a certainty.

Hartley has certainly improved during the year though. At the start he was giving away a lot of free kicks and offering little offensively (although he's always had the capacity to be better because he is a booming kick). I think he's now confident in his role. He's a player that likes to be given a straight forward task to take a particular player out of the game rather than Hurley's role which is a bit of everything.

I do think potentially there may be issues when Ambrose is in the side together and whether we perhaps lack some rebound with 2 more shutdown defenders. That said they are both improving their rebounding and intercept abilities although its not a strength of them at present.
I suspect Brown will synergise better with Hartley as the intercept man but he's not that great offensively because his kicking is quite suspect.

In any case Hartley was a great pickup at the pick we used for him so I'm delighted with his progress and that for the first time in forever we actually have depth in our KPD's including 4 players that can play the role + Hooker is still there as a break in case of emergency option.

 

[Old Campaigner]

In any case Hartley was a great pickup at the pick we used for him

Couldn't agree more. I think any club in the league would be delighted to have someone drafted at 68 to play just one game in the seniors let alone consistently perform well at that level