SOME hard-luck stories will emerge from Hawthorn's selection meeting on Thursday, but ruckman Max Bailey is adamant those who miss out on the grand final side will not be left to cope on their own.
The battle that has grabbed the headlines is between his fellow ruckmen Simon Taylor and incumbent Brent Renouf, but Bailey says whoever misses out can count on the support of their teammates.
"Tommy Murphy missed out last week and Stephen Gilham the week before so I think you'll always have blokes in that position and Geelong are going through the same thing as well," Bailey said.
"You really feel for them, but that's footy and you know what you're getting into when you play the game.
"That's probably the strength of our footy club though; we're all pretty tight and no-one gets left out in the cold, so we've got a good culture there … which means they've got all the support they need.
"I'm sure they'll be happy for the other blokes who have gone in if they miss out."
Bailey knows something about having to rely on the support of teammates.
After working his way back from a full knee reconstruction this year, he only lasted 15 minutes in his comeback game for Box Hill in June before the right knee gave way again – meaning the laborious rehabilitation process started all over again.
The Hawks have managed admirably without him, and Taylor's is a particularly tricky situation given he was asked to come out of the side after round 21 to rest up before the finals series.
He has since been unable to win back his spot thanks to the strong play of Renouf.
"Simon has handled it really well and if he doesn't get called up this week I'm sure he'll handle it the same way and he'll be looking forward to watching the boys do well," Bailey said.
"We've got a really good ruck group, a really tight knit group, and we're all really good mates. It's disappointing for Simon … but at the same time it's really good for Brent that he's eight games into his career and he could be playing in a Grand Final.
"Yeah, it's hard, but we're all good mates and that's footy - you can't do too much about it."
The 21-year-old was, quite understandably, not going to cast his vote for one or the other, but said both had attributes that could be of strong benefit to the team.
"Simon's probably a bit stronger and more suited to body-on-body contests whereas Brent's got a real good athletic background and he runs and jumps well, so they both bring something different to the table," he said.
"We still don't know what's going to happen this week – [we'll just have to wait and see] when selection comes up."
