MUCH has been made of Hawthorn's selective, and as it has transpired, brilliant recruiting from rival clubs in Alastair Clarkson's time at the club.
Brent Guerra, Shaun Burgoyne, Josh Gibson, David Hale, Jack Gunston and Brian Lake are all critical pieces of the Hawthorn puzzle and will play key roles for Clarkson in Saturday's Grand Final against Fremantle.
Lake and Gibson are particularly vital for the Hawks as they hold down the two key defensive roles, the position that has traditionally caused the side that bit more grief.
But the Hawks might have been spared such angst over the journey had they been able to hang onto a young key position prospect who, in two seasons with the club in 2000 and 2001, started to show considerable promise and the makings of a 10-year player.
Luke McPharlin was plucked by the Hawks with the 10th selection at the 1999 national draft, basically on the back of some good performances at schoolboy level and fleeting appearances for the East Fremantle Colts where he played under an assumed name.
The Hawks had hoped to hide him and take him later in the draft, recalls then Hawks coach Peter Schwab.
"Our recruiting manager John Turnbull was rapt when he found this kid in Perth who was a really good athlete. We wanted to sneak him under the guard, but clubs started to hear about him so we had to take him with pick 10," Schwab said.
"He hadn’t played a lot of footy. He was naïve in some ways but he was also really talented."
McPharlin played four games in 2000, and backed up for eight the following season as the Hawks made a preliminary final. He played another eight games the following season, although his best performance of that year might have been in a pre-season clash against Richmond at Aurora Stadium when he kicked five goals.
Unusually for the pre-season competition, the game wasn’t televised back into Melbourne, but supporters were abuzz nevertheless and the Hawks started to believe they might have found a versatile key position player for the next decade.
But he was struck down with osteitis pubis 10 weeks into the season, and not only did he miss the rest of the year, he would never pull on a Hawthorn jumper again.
"He felt he wasn't looked after properly. He shocked us by going," said Schwab who, 12 years after the fact, has no recollection of whether McPharlin's welfare had been compromised.
"We were disappointed because we felt he would develop into a good player long term. I wish he had been at Hawthorn longer."
But good fortune awaited Hawthorn despite the disappointment of losing McPharlin.
The Hawks were already in the midst of the controversial deal that would send the popular Trent Croad to the Dockers in exchange for the no.1 selection subsequently used to select Luke Hodge. Faced with the prospect of losing McPharlin for nothing in the pre-season draft, they added him to the deal.
All up, Hawthorn received picks one, 20 and 36 in exchange for sending Croad and McPharlin to the Dockers. They picked Hodge, Daniel Elstone and Sam Mitchell with those three selections. The oft-injured Elstone never played a game, but the other two would become two of the greatest Hawks of all.
So while there was the occasional wistful glance to the west whenever Hawthorn's key defensive posts were thin, the emerging brilliance of Hodge and Mitchell more than compensated. And Croad came back two years later and would play in the 2008 premiership.
McPharlin's backline colleague Zac Dawson is another former Hawk. He was the 41st selection overall at the 2003 national draft and, according to the AFL Season Guide the following year, Dawson was a "smart developing ruckman or key position player who will be allowed plenty of time to develop physically".
"I only had him for a year," recalled Schwab, who was replaced as coach of Hawthorn several weeks before the end of the 2004 season. "I had concerns about his kicking when he first came but he was only a kid."
The Hawks lived up to their ‘softly-softly’ promise with Dawson. No games in 2004, two in 2005 when Clarkson took over as coach and 12 in 2006, the most famous of which was at Etihad Stadium where, while playing full-back, he was rag-dolled all afternoon by Collingwood's Anthony Rocca and Clarkson, as was his wont back in the day, stubbornly refused to make a move.
Dawson fell behind Croad and Stephen Gilham on the Hawthorn depth chart and didn’t play at all in 2007 and 2008 despite good form for Box Hill. Schwab remembers watching him kick eight goals against Bendigo one day and walking away believing Dawson had something to offer at AFL level, even if it wasn’t with Hawthorn.
In 2009 Dawson joined St Kilda, initially as a rookie list player, but Ross Lyon revitalized his career in spectacular fashion and he figured in both the 2009 and 2010 Grand Finals for the Saints.
He then followed Lyon to the Dockers at the start of 2012 and along with McPharlin and Michael Johnson, has been a mainstay of his team’s backline.
Fremantle's success with recycled players does not match that of Hawthorn, which is the AFL pacesetter in that regard.
But if they are to pull off an upset win in Saturday's Grand Final, two former Hawks will help them achieve it.
