FORGOTTEN amid Jarryd Roughead's high-profile demotion last week was where another premiership-winning Hawthorn key forward fits into the equation.
Ryan Schoenmakers etched himself into Hawks folklore with a strong performance in the 2015 Grand Final triumph over West Coast, after playing in a losing one three years earlier.
That day he won 21 disposals, pulled down nine marks and kicked a goal to more than justify coach Alastair Clarkson's decision to select him after some uncertainty entering Grand Final week.
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Schoenmakers showed that sort of ability throughout his career – and the likes of the Western Bulldogs and Adelaide tried to lure him – but he played more than 16 games in a season just once, in 2012.
The 121-gamer was dropped ahead of the 2014 finals series and the previous season a knee injury robbed him of the chance of being part of the club's first flag in its three-peat.
A groin complaint then ruined Schoenmakers' 2016 campaign.
AFL football has rarely come easy for the 195cm swingman, but his latest and, perhaps, greatest challenge is an ongoing Achilles problem that has again sidelined him.
The same injury twice kept him out last year, including being a late withdrawal for Hawthorn's qualifying final loss to Richmond, and has troubled him throughout this season.
Schoenmakers, who turns 29 in November, was limited at training on Thursday and subsequently left out of the Hawks' VFL side for this weekend.
He signed one-season deals the past two years and faces an uphill battle to earn another one, given Hawthorn's want to provide more opportunity for Mitch Lewis and Conor Nash, in particular.
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Another tall forward, Jackson Ross, who is yet to make his AFL debut, is also showing promise.
Schoenmakers hasn't made a senior appearance in 2019 (kicking three goals in four VFL contests) and played a combined 26 games across the previous three seasons.
Roughead, 32, will play in the VFL for the second straight week but is ahead of Schoenmakers in the pecking order.
Clarkson said Schoenmakers was in a similar situation to the 2013 Coleman medallist.
"He's going to be an important player for us, but first and foremost, we just have to get him durable," the coach said.
"He's had an interrupted pre-season and now an interrupted start to the year, where he gets there for a couple of games, then he gets a bit of soreness and he misses again.
"We've just got to get some continuity with his footy and … we know when he's up and going he's going to press for senior selection pretty soon, but it's not going to be this week."
