Travis Cloke should consider a move to Hawthorn, writes Jon Ralph

TRAVIS Cloke might have a limited role at Collingwood next year, but he is just the guy to crash packs for the club that resurrected Brian Lake, writes Jon Ralph.

Travis Cloke will play for Collingwood this weekend, but will he be there next year? Picture: Michael Klein

TRAVIS Cloke desperately wants to feel needed.

He wants to feel part of Collingwood’s solution, the kind of guy Nathan Buckley can turn to in desperate times.

Finally, Cloke stands to be recalled this weekend, even if he has been made to sweat through another week of selection intrigue.

He would have hoped after a run of strong VFL form, Buckley would have strode to him on Monday morning with the message: “We need you against Port Adelaide.”

Instead, after 7.8 in four lower-level games, the reality is that Collingwood has no one else left.

How could he not be selected, given injuries to leading goalkickers Alex Fasolo (22 goals this year), Mason Cox (14 goals), Jamie Elliott (35 goals in 2015), and Dane Swan (21 goals in 2015)?

His papers would effectively have been stamped by the second day of winter.

The more fascinating question is what this period on the outer has done to Cloke’s determination to remain at Collingwood.

Is he just so relieved to be out of the VFL that playing seniors again is the only thing that matters?

Or has this tested his faith and made him wonder during his VFL stint whether this is the beginning of the end at the Holden Centre.

Especially given it is clear the Pies felt he needed more VFL time and were painted into a corner by their injury list.

Has it made him think that if the chips are down and another lineball decision has to be made down the track, he will again be left on the sidelines?

Travis Cloke in action in the VFL. Picture: Nigel Hallett

Only the man himself knows whether he has already reached breaking point after four games in the VFL.

Surely as he has plied his trade on suburban grounds across Melbourne he has asked himself this question.

Is my entire career over if I have another year like this in 2017?

It is only natural that Cloke would worry about how he fits at Collingwood next year, with Darcy Moore and Mason Cox clearly earmarked for major roles.

If that pair blossom, with Fasolo and Elliott and perhaps Swan joining them, what is Cloke’s role?

He would be well aware how quickly careers end after watching brothers Cameron and Jason delisted together at the end of 2006.

The truth is that Cloke’s massive pay cut from $800,000 to perhaps just over half that next year given missed trigger clauses gives him real freedom to explore his options.

Macca’s take on Cloke and new teammate Mason Cox.

If Hawthorn was prepared to shore up their forward line this year with Jack Fitzpatrick (24 career goals), surely they would be interested in a 429-goal forward in Cloke.

No one really wants to consider a Hawthorn side that doesn’t at some stage involve Jarryd Roughead at centre half-forward again.

But it is beholden upon Hawthorn’s list management committee to consider the strong chance he won’t play at least for 2017.

No one has crashed more packs than Travis Cloke in the past decade, and at Hawthorn he would fill that specific role for crumbing forwards Luke Breust, Cyril Rioli and Paul Puopolo.

Just as Matthew Pavlich’s selfless season has helped Matt Taberner, Cloke getting the best defender would only assist Tim O’Brien, James Sicily and even Jack Gunston.

The Hawks’ first-round pick Ryan Burton is out indefinitely with a knee injury, but no one is suggesting Cloke would rob the young forwards of game time.

Playing Cloke and developing the fleet of new key talls doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Alastair Clarkson has shown himself to be a coach who recruits for a very specific need — think the six-minute man Stewart Dew.

With a new defined role, a new lease on life, a potential two-year deal — even on a moderate contract — Cloke might be invigorated by a new start elsewhere.