AFL Grand Final 2021: Keep up to date with the latest Western Bulldogs news, updates and feature stories

A gifted Melbourne forward couldn’t get things rolling after repeat surgeries, so-so form and renewed competition for spots. But Luke Beveridge had a plan to get his man.

Melbourne, even if belatedly, did make Mitch Hannan an offer last year for him to stick around this season.

But the Western Bulldogs had already convinced him — after only 15 senior games in two years — that a homecoming-of-sorts at the Kennel was a better option.

The 27-year-old was part of the Dogs’ 2016 VFL premiership that proved his big break and launching pad to an AFL career, after bouncing anonymously between grassroots clubs.

The journey before that and since required significant resilience amid rejections, injuries, lack of opportunity and the Demons’ horror 2018 preliminary final defeat, but also some skyscraping highs.

Hannan, for a long time, was the footballer no one loved.

“A lot of people from the outside — how do I put this — aren’t aware how much growth there can be in someone’s game just from time in the system and maturing as a person,” he told the Herald Sun.

“We’ve (the Bulldogs) probably hit that sweet spot with a lot of guys who are useful and athletic but also have some good prior experience in developing and owning their skills.”

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Mitch Hannan celebrates the Bulldogs’ preliminary linal victory over Port Adelaide.

Hannan played against Melbourne’s VFL affiliate, Casey Demons, on that day five years ago, with Clayton Oliver, Alex Neal-Bullen, Joel Smith and Sam Weideman among the opposition line-up.

His teammates included future All-Australian Bailey Dale, Bailey Williams and Roarke Smith, who Hannan will again join forces with in a grand final next week against Oliver, Neal-Bullen and co.

The stakes are even greater, with an AFL premiership up for grabs at the end of an exhausting season of Covid-19-related drama.

Besides some playful banter with his old Melbourne clubmates, Hannan expects the lead-up to be business as usual — at least as much as it can be in these coronavirus times.

The Bulldogs will emerge from quarantine on Sunday and the one benefit is the extra time it’s afforded him to reflect.

Following a blistering three-goal first half that helped put paid to Port Adelaide in the Dogs’ barnstorming preliminary final triumph, Hannan allowed his mind to wander.

“We’ve had a lot of downtime and I’ve already had a brief reflection of that game and the finals overall,” Hannan said.

“It’s amazing to keep the rollercoaster going. We were all on an extreme high after the Brisbane (semi-final) game, with how that panned out.

“Then, to be able to win against the odds playing Port, who had a break, were playing in Adelaide and looking pretty strong ... was great to see.

“Playing a role in hitting the scoreboard and doing what I feel I do best — applying pressure, tackling and bringing speed to the forward line — was very satisfying.”

Hannan knows he’s come from further back than most and finds the reflection cathartic and motivational.

TAC Cup team Calder Cannons overlooked his under-developed teenage self, then VFL clubs Coburg and Essendon later both cut him after he trialled for them one pre-season.

Hannan instead joined Woodend Junior Football Club, about 15 minutes from where he grew up and originally played football in Gisborne, in the Macedon Ranges.

After winning a flag with Woodend and being eager to test himself at a higher standard, he made the jump to Victorian Amateur Football Association club St Bernard’s.

That’s where Hannan started to take off, both figuratively and literally.

He had shown enough by the 2015 season with the Snowdogs, as a 21-year-old, for Footscray to call him up for four VFL matches.

But Hannan returned to St Bernard’s in time to win the best-on-ground Jack Nelson Medal in the club’s grand final triumph over Old Trinity.

He forced his way onto the Bulldogs’ VFL list the next season and kicked 19 goals in 14 games while establishing a reputation as a high-flyer.

“Within 12 months, things changed pretty quickly,” Hannan said.

The classy Bulldogs forward during a training session in Perth on Saturday. Picture: Michael Klein

“I played the majority of the year with the Bulldogs in the VFL, through a finals campaign and onto another premiership — and at the time, I was just ecstatic to be playing VFL footy.

“I didn’t get my first calls from an AFL club until post the VFL grand final.”

Seven AFL clubs showed some level of interest in Hannan before the 2016 draft but it was Melbourne that snapped him up at pick 46.

The versatile forward played 35 games in his first two seasons, including 20 in his rookie campaign and the Demons’ infamous 2018 preliminary final.

“Any loss in a prelim is tough, just because of the thought of what could’ve been, but for us it was a tough pill to swallow,” he said.

“We’d beaten West Coast late in the season over in Perth and were riding a wave of success through the Geelong and Hawthorn games and were proving some people wrong.

“But we were well and truly beaten by a better team, which was hard to take.

“You look back on it and think everything happens for a reason, but it was hard to take with how we followed up the next year (finishing second-bottom).”

The unfortunate aftermath of Melbourne winning two finals that year was a raft of player surgeries, with Hannan among them.

Initial surgery to repair “troubling” knee cartilage damage had to be repeated three months later and he didn’t play again at senior level until Round 11.

Hannan managed only six matches before being struck down by a groin injury that became “sorer and sorer”.

“That was incredibly frustrating, because you don’t feel completely incapable of performing,” he said.

“But you know that edge of your speed and top-end power have been taken away from you and in my position, that’s a huge part of my game.”

The groin issue slightly delayed Hannan’s start to last season as well, but he was fit for most of it. The problem now was so-so form and renewed competition for spots.

It didn’t help that Hannan couldn’t play proper matches when he missed senior selection, because of the Covid-19-enforced hub environment.

Hannan has had more than his share of difficulties over the journey. Picture: Getty Images

Once the Bulldogs came calling, he knew there was only one thing to do.

They sold the 190cm Hannan on a chameleon role — classic Luke Beveridge — where he would be used in various positions, which is exactly how it’s panned out.

He’s carved out roles as a small and tall forward this season, as well as spending stints on a wing and even pinch-hitting in the ruck.

Hannan was the Steven May stopper when the grand final teams last met in Round 19.

After everything Hannan’s been through, he’s finally found his football home.

“It’s always nice to be wanted,” he said. “Especially when they spell it out to you in regards to what they feel like you bring and where you fit in and so forth.”

How Hunter turned life around after lockdown crash

Lachie Hunter was never going to be one of those players who poured his heart out in a tell-all interview about the gory details of his year from hell.

Or made sweeping promises about the manner in which he would right the wrongs that hurt so many around him.

For Hunter, there is only one way to redeem yourself after the kind of legal and financial nightmare that entails driving your car into four parked vehicles then blowing 0.123 when the cops finally find you at a mate’s house.

You own your issues, you work your butt off, and you make darned sure you don’t repeat those mistakes.

Lachie Hunter celebrates with teammate Bailey Smith after the Western Bulldogs beat Port Adelaide and won their way into the 2021 grand final.

The Western Bulldogs wingman is finally out the other side of that prolonged controversy after a consistently excellent season that has taken his side all the way to the 2021 grand final.

He doesn’t care to relive the actual incident or the personal issues that saw him taking time away from the senior side with the Dogs midway through last year’s season.

But the self-confessed introvert will admit a dose of pride at finding a way to extricate himself from that damaging tailspin which started with the April 2020 car crash.

He would eventually plead guilty to drink driving, careless driving and leaving the scene of an accident without providing his details

“It’s definitely been a tough time, but I suppose coming out of it and being on the back end of it, all you can be is the best person you can be, the best teammate, the best partner,” he told the Herald Sun from the club’s Tradewinds resort in Fremantle.

“So just being as good as you can be in as many areas of your life for the people around you, obviously results in playing good consistent footy. Those areas overlap.

“You see the people it affects. It affects your partner. It affects your family. You are always having conversations with them but my teammates were really good as well.

“Even though none of them had really been through it before, they were all really good to lend an ear and lend a hand.”

Former Bulldogs player Mark Hunter (right) said son Lachie Hunter had been hounded by reporters after making a ‘terrible mistake’ last year.

Father Mark Hunter said this week that while Hunter had made a “terrible mistake”, paparazzi and reporters wanting “blood” had caused unnecessary grief to his family in the aftermath.

“You face such a public outcry when you do something wrong these days,” the 130-game Bulldog said.

Son Lachie agrees that public element of the controversy was especially difficult for his family and partner Maddi.

“You can deal with what you have done. You are the one who has done it so you can deal with it, but when it comes on a partner who is trying to work, or it comes on a family who has done nothing wrong, it’s what makes you the most upset,” he said.

“You are big and ugly enough to take the hits but when it affects the people you love, that’s the bit that hurts.

“When you have family members coming back in tears, having been chased down a laneway, it’s not what you are after.

“I am happy for people to chase me and get the story but when you are chasing 19-year-old girls down a laneway, I am not sure if you get too much out of that.”

So how did Hunter rediscover the essence of his football gift again after his off-field dramas contributed to a mediocre 10-games in 2020?

He went back to what he knew worked.

Lachie Hunter trains in Perth in the lead up to the 2021 grand final. Picture: Michael Klein

“We got back to Melbourne and I was able to settle myself down and you are back in an environment you know,” he said.

“You make the choice to be the best person and partner off a pretty average year.

“So it’s head down and bum up, be pretty low maintenance for the whole year and be able to perform on game day and training and be the player that got you to the point you were.

“So it’s just no off field incidents and being a good teammate.”

Western Bulldogs team psychologist Lisa Stevens has been a long-time support, while partner Maddi remains a constant in his life.

“She has been with me my whole footy journey, we have been together since we were 15, so she knows how my footy works,” he says.

Maddi bravely posted on social media last October about the couple’s attempts to get pregnant and her decision to stop IVF for the moment after 150 self-administered hormone injections and five bouts of IVF.

“I am quite introverted so I was hesitant to speak about it at all but Maddi was incredibly brave to speak about the whole thing,” Hunter said.

“And she shared a few things and you get people reaching out.

“You have no idea what is going on in people’s lives and it’s an unbelievably tough time, especially for the girls at some point but I can’t speak highly enough about how good Maddi was through it, but also family and friends and people at the club who have reached out and had that experience themselves, it’s pretty traumatic.”

Lachie Hunter pictures with his partner Maddison Sullivan-Thorpe. Picture: Instagram

Hunter’s 2016 premiership experience has put him in good stead for the 14-day wait until Saturday week’s grand final after a month-long campaign as arduous as any in recent memory.

The five-state odyssey has had its comical and ridiculous moments — as Brisbane hotel staff used a PA machine to bark instructions for quarantining players to accept their meals from hotel corridors.

And yet he cannot shape the feeling the Dogs are tighter because of those shared experiences.

“The pointy end of it was probably Brisbane,” he said.

“It was all you could do — to laugh at it — but it has brought us together in a strange way. It shaped the us-versus-them mentality.

“The food? I wouldn’t go back and eat it if I had the choice, but you have got to do what you have to do and we were able to rock up and get it done on game day.

“We felt we were one of the best teams this year and it’s what the ladder reflected and then we fell away at the back end of the year.

“We knew we needed to win one of the last three games (of the home-and-away season) and we didn’t win one.

“It was never a lack of belief. But naturally when you lose three games you start looking around and thinking, ‘What are we doing, where are we going?’

“The end of the season was coming at us pretty fast and we had some good conversations around what we could improve and thankfully we have turned it around.”

Originally published as AFL Grand Final 2021: Keep up to date with the latest Western Bulldogs news, updates and feature stories