MFC Fans Only The One and only Jesse "Hollywood" Hogan Heel turn thread- GWS Grey and Orange 4 Lyfe. Brother!

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Decent interview here with the big fella:

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Have always thought it was the right decision to trade him out for May, and I don't think he'd fit into the current team, but I'll always have a soft-spot for him. Here's hoping he can put a decent year together with GWS.

Jesse Hogan: The ‘tarnished brand’ in Fremantle, Demons regret and Giants rebirth​

Watching his old Melbourne mates win a title was “torture” and Jesse Hogan accepts he never should have left the Demons for Fremantle. But now into his third AFL life at GWS, things are looking optimistic once more.

Leon Cameron asked Jesse Hogan to tell a white lie to his family and friends.

Hogan pinged his calf in the first half of Greater Western Sydney’s elimination final against Sydney in Launceston last August. He played through the game, taking six contested marks and kicking 2.2 in the Giants one-point win.

But after deliberations with GWS coach Cameron, it was decided that the risk of exacerbating the injury wasn’t worth the reward of Hogan playing in the semi-final against Geelong in Perth that Friday night.

By not playing though, Hogan was going to leave a lot of people disappointed. It was supposed to be just his second AFL final, played in his hometown, as well as being his 100th game. The planets had almost aligned, if not for that dastardly soft tissue concern.

GWS still had a final to win though. Cameron was searching for any minor edge his side could scrounge to beat the Cats and extend their unlikely September run for another week.

He didn’t want Geelong to find out that Hogan wouldn’t be playing. So the man himself had to pretend he was going to line up.

“I told the sub Tanner [Bruhn] at the time, ‘I think I’ve done me calf.’ I managed to finish the game,” Hogan says.

“We were staying at Barnbougle, so we were having a walk around from our cabins to the fairways … and my calf was just getting sorer and sorer.

“I found out probably Wednesday [that I was ruled out]. I wasn’t able to tell the family or anything. Leon didn’t want the team to know.

“I might have sneakily lied to Leon. I might have told my mum and siblings that I wasn’t playing.

“We kept it really hush and it never got out.”

Gallant, the Giants were ultimately denied by Geelong. But Hogan wasn’t in a rush to cross the Nullarbor again, hanging around with family and friends for the following month.

A couple of weeks after the semi-final, Hogan was back at Optus Stadium. Melbourne, one of his former sides, was in the grand final. In one respect it was “torture,” but the one-time Demons wunderkind wasn’t going to miss a once in a lifetime chance to witness an AFL decider in Western Australia.

“I still stay in contact with a lot of those boys. I was there when a lot of that core group got drafted. And I was extremely close with Simon Goodwin as well, so to see the hard work … see him get the reward off the back of that, as bittersweet as it was … it was cool to see my good mates get a flag. It was almost surreal to be honest.

“I caught up with a couple of them and had a couple of beers and showed them around Perth a little bit.”

Hogan is not delusional. He knows his reputation took a hit over some of his off-field activities across his couple of seasons at Fremantle, where he was traded at the end of 2018 as part of a sensational network of deals which sent Lachie Neale to Brisbane, Dayne Beams back to Collingwood and Steven May to Melbourne.

“It was only three or four years ago that I was at the Dees. It feels like a decade ago,” Hogan says.

“My time at Freo wasn’t ideal and there’s a lot of things I’d change on and off the field. It was really disappointing and something I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life to a degree. I’m quite a proud person and my brand, I kind of tarnished it there.

“In hindsight I wouldn’t have left the Dees, but at the time I was adamant that the change was best. The grass is always greener I guess. And in my head that’s how I saw it.

“There’s a lot of things I’d change, but that’s all part of the journey.”

Like Tony Lockett and Lance Franklin before him, the relative anonymity of life as an AFL star in Sydney is not lost on Hogan.

“Perth is probably a bit much for me. And mentally where I was, I was probably struggling a bit. So you mix those two things together, you really just lose your passion for the game, and I wasn’t enjoying football. And if you’re not enjoying it, it’s a high level, high stress environment.

“Hindsight’s a wonderful thing. If I’d stayed at the Dees and won a flag I wouldn’t say no to that. But I’m in a good spot now.”

Hogan had arrived at long-suffering Melbourne as something of a messiah. Powerful, athletic and skilful, the hype surrounding him was enormous.

“It was outlandish, it was ridiculous … but that’s footy.”

He was quirkily endearing in those early days. An avid skateboarder, Hogan lived near the MCG and was known to skateboard to and from the club, even to recovery sessions.

“I was a bit of a strange operator. I skateboarded a lot in high school. I didn’t have my license in my first couple of years at the Dees.

“In my first couple of years, I was 17 or 18, no one knew who I was. But then a few people started looking at me and I thought ‘maybe this is not the best idea.’ Our GM [Josh Mahoney] brought it up with me and said, ‘Oh mate, you can’t be doing that.

“I gave him a few heart attacks Mahons.”

On Saturday, Hogan turns 27. At one level it is hard to believe that it is almost a decade since the Dees picked up the hulking kid from WA as part of the GWS mini-draft. In another way it feels weird that Hogan is still that young given how many twists and turns his career has taken; across three clubs in three states; testicular cancer, myriad injuries, personal turmoil and the death of his father Tony.

And then there was Covid-19, something Hogan contracted in the middle of last month, sidelining him for a week of pre-season, having already been forced to isolate as a close contact pre-Christmas.

“I had about 48 hours where I was pretty roughed up, and then the week after, coming back to training, it rattles you a little bit for sure. You just notice you’re a lot more fatigued … but all good now,” Hogan says.

At long last, things feel reasonably settled.

Having lived last year with Shane Mumford, Hogan has moved in with teammate Jake Stein and his partner Erin in Balmain to be closer to the club’s base.

Hogan kicked 20 goals in nine matches last season and is on track to play the Giants’ practice match against Sydney ahead of a round one start.

The challenge now is to turn nine games into 20, a figure Hogan has only reached once since 2016.

Along with Cameron, the club’s high performance team have plotted a carefully-tailored program to get the most out of a player whose best football could quite conceivably still be ahead of him, having earnt a one-year contract extension on the initial one-season deal he was given by the Giants to continue his AFL career at the end of 2020.

“There was a lot of positives I did take out of last year,” he says.

“In this industry you never really feel genuinely settled. It’s a cutthroat industry so you’re always on your toes. But living-wise and with the group, my day-to-day life is a lot more settled this year than last.

“I was on a little bit of a modified program but I’m back to full training now.

“My legs and my back are probably feeling the best I’ve felt in a very long time.

“It’s a bit of suck it and see, but I’m in a really good spot right now.”
Click to expand...
 
Hope he dominates and comes home in a couple of years if Weid doesn’t take his chances.
 
Tulip said:
Hope he dominates and comes home in a couple of years if Weid doesn’t take his chances.
Click to expand...

Was thinking about this, in 2-3 years when BBB and Tmac are toast, imagine Hoges and Van Rooyen as the key forwards, maybe Gawny sitting at FF in his twilight years. When we are going for our 4th straight flag, bring Hoges home! The prodigal son returns. Then Goody and Hoges can go on the bender to end all benders at the Sorrento Hotel
 
Have a huge soft spot for the kid, mostly because we were born on the same day. Really hope he comes home soon.
 
pjfairbairn said:
I love Hoges. And Wattsy. Larrikins. Would've loved to have seen them win a flag.
Click to expand...
Probably great blokes, but I love Goody for flicking the larrikins so we could win a flag. Hoges has a soft spot, I agree, 2 seasons of 40+ goals as ‘the great white hope’. Still feels like what could have been….
 

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KickLongTackleHard said:
Probably great blokes, but I love Goody for flicking the larrikins so we could win a flag. Hoges has a soft spot, I agree, 2 seasons of 40+ goals as ‘the great white hope’. Still feels like what could have been….
Click to expand...
3 seasons

Sent from my SM-G981B using Tapatalk
 
It’s funny how the passage of time affects you. Was sad when he left and secretly wanted him fail when we hit the skids in 19/20 but now I have absolutely no feelings towards him whatsoever. It was a good bit of business to cash out on him at that point and get Steven May in the door before he became a free agent.
 
Jibroni said:
Would love to see Hogan to do well, but Freo fans on the other hand.....
Click to expand...
Freo fans where campaigners getting him and they where campaigners about him leaving
 
schmuttt said:
To be fair he was a shocking pickup for Freo and didn’t give two shits in his time over there.
Click to expand...
which will always make Hogan go up two notches in my book
 
Will probably be delisted in the next couple of years, really hasn’t learnt anything in terms of his game from his first season.
 
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