Hale

[The Zebra]

Are you as confident in Hale as you have been in McConnell being the find of 2007?

Moreso.

And just as confident as I was that we had some very good youth coming through that was not far from stepping up and would see us rise up the ladder this year. I would go through your predicitions, but you wait until it is plainly obvious before making a call. Brave.

BTW, I found out recently that McConnell injured his shoulder late last year, aggregated it further with an incident in the pre-season, played through it in the VFL (and got in the best players twice from four games) but then sucumbed to the deterioration and opted for shoulder surgery.

He is not going anywhere, and with a bit of luck on the injury front he will be very good.

 

[Event Horizon]

BTW, I found out recently that McConnell injured his shoulder late last year, aggregated it further with an incident in the pre-season, played through it in the VFL (and got in the best players twice from four games) but then sucumbed to the deterioration and opted for shoulder surgery.

He is not going anywhere, and with a bit of luck on the injury front he will be very good.

If that's true, the question has to be asked, why the hell did he not have the surgery in the off season?

 

[The Zebra]

If that's true, the question has to be asked, why the hell did he not have the surgery in the off season?

It seems to happen a lot with shoulders. I remember saying the same thing about Daniel Motlop. I think because it is such a long term injury if you have the operation and people have get through it before with taping. McConnell did it late December, got through most of the pre-season and then re-injured again on the eve of the season. He pushed through, played some good VFL football, but it got worse and worse until the decision was made that the op had to be done just as he was selected.