Loats might have spent five seasons at Hawthorn’s Glenferrie Road home base, but his trade to the Cats will actually return him home.
The 22-year-old ruckman played with the Geelong under-18s before being recruited by Hawthorn, where it took him until 2002 to make his senior début.
Injuries have delayed his development, but with the Hawks’ recruitment of Peter Everitt, the progress of Robert Campbell and availability of flexible tall Nathan Thompson, opportunities have also been difficult to come by. Loats played just 11 senior games in three seasons for Hawthorn.
“I suppose it sort of came to a stage where it was a good time to leave. Probably opportunity-wise, if I was honest with myself I suppose it was a good time to leave and come back home,” the 200cm tall said before his first official training run with his new club.
“I thought I’d been around for four years or so and I thought a change of club was going to be good for me. It’s worked out well, I wanted to come here, my family’s from here, and it’s good to come back and be with the family.”
Loats is enthused by the prospect of playing for an emerging side, where he will undoubtedly play a role in the middle with a number of youngsters equally willing to establish themselves in the competition.
“That was probably one of my big decision. I thought the playing group here was young and exciting, and also with all the development going on around us, it’s exciting times down here and hopefully I can be a part of it.”
Now that former Geelong big man Peter Street has been traded, Loats will back up the club’s chief ruckman and captain, Steven King.
“Hopefully I can help Steven out in the ruck and also push forward as well. If we can do that together hopefully it’ll be good for the footy club,” Loats said.
