Dan Hannebery has battled injury of late, but fit and firing, could have immediate impact at St Kilda. Photo: AFL MEDIA
The AFL media got itself well and truly worked up in the off-season when St Kilda revealed it had offered banged-up Sydney premiership star Dan Hannebery a four-year deal worth nearly $3 million.
Over the odds, past his best and too great a risk seemed to be the general consensus, certainly for that amount of money.
And yes, it is a lot of money for an injury prone star with bad groins and bad hamstrings. But I’m not as convinced as the sceptics the Saints are going to regret this calculated gamble.
Hannebery turns 28 in about three weeks, hardly an age where you can say with any sort of confidence a player is definitely on the skids. Indeed, I’m more confident he could end up one of the best recruits the Saints have ever landed.
St Kilda has acquired a premiership player, a rising star winner, a three time All-Australian and a man who has finished in the top five of the Brownlow Medal on three occasions, all of this at one of the best clubs of the modern era, in a midfield stacked with talent.
St Kilda, a team in a transition, needed a player of Hannebery’s ilk. Not only can he play the game, but his leadership qualities have been heavily endorsed by teammates old and new.
The Saints will benefit from a bloke who played in a system that relied on hard work, determination and a never-say-die attitude.
St Kilda hasn’t shown any of those qualities in recent times. Hannebery embodies all of them and will bring all that more to Moorabbin.
Hannebery is a ball-winner, and when he gets it, he uses it with precision and poise, rarely coughing up the football. His awareness around a contest is second to none. From all reports, he is already showing leadership qualities in match simulation and in meetings, and when he talks, everyone is listening.
The questions over his body are valid, but it needs to be pointed out that he refused to have surgery on his troublesome groin last season in a bid to play more football, still missing eight rounds of football.
If he’d gone down the surgery path he may have missed more, and even a half-fit Hannebery was an effective part of the Swans side.
Apart from a very minor hamstring strain this pre-season, Hannebery has ticked every box, looks seriously fit and ready to fire and in that shape could be a huge part of St Kilda’s resurgence.
And the Saints are a team that need Hannebery right now, on and off the field.
Bereft of genuine star power, but with young talented players coming through, the right guidance is important. Hannebery will provide that and give the Saints the necessary grunt they need across the middle of the ground.
He is hardly the age of a Shaun Burgoyne or Brent Harvey, but 28, and looks ready to get back to his best after a couple of injury-plagued years in Sydney.
At his best, he has at the very least four years left in him, maybe more, and now, thanks to the general air of scepticism about his capacity to make a difference, he also has a sizeable point to prove. That’s enough to make me think it might not take him long to prove it, either.
