There has been much said about Hawthorn’s new ruckman, Ben McEvoy and how he arrived at the Club. Now that he’s had time tosettle in at the Ricoh Centre, hawthornfc.com.au caught up with him to see how he’s fitting in.
Below is part one of a two part interview with Ben McEvoy.
Kate Salemme: You’ve had some time now to settle in at Hawthorn, how’s it going?
Ben McEvoy: It’s going really well. We’ve had some solid training sessions and the trip to South Africa so I’ve found my feet a bit but it has been pretty easy, really. We’ve got a great bunch of guys here and great coaching staff, it has been pretty easy to slot right in and training has been good.
KS: When you first arrived at the Club you were still a bit shocked by it all. You left for your holiday as a Saint and came back as a Hawk, has it sunk in now?
BM: It has, but I still think it’ll be a bit weird for a fair while. As I drive to training every day it is a bit odd but I couldn’t be happier coming here.
KS: What have your teammates been like so far?
BM: It’s been awesome. I had my first two weeks here with just the young guys, which was a great way to settle in with a few less numbers around the place and training was a bit more intimate, I suppose. But now we’ve all been together for a few weeks since the older guys came back on 2 December so we’re into the full swing of it. It’s been great.
KS: What was meeting your new more senior teammates like?
BM: That was probably a little bit weirder because they’re guys that I’ve played against for a couple of years now so we sort of know each other but we don’t whereas a lot of the younger guys I hadn’t come across before. It is still a little bit odd but as I said, it has been that easy to slot in because of the great bunch of guys, it has been really good.
KS: Historically there haven’t been many players to change clubs but now it’s more becoming the norm with Free Agency. How have you found the experience?
BM: I have been really lucky in that when I got traded it was all very quick and very well done by both clubs so it has basically been pretty seamless for me and hopefully everyone wins out of it. I couldn’t be happier, really.
KS: How much are you looking forward to playing for the Hawks for the first time in some pre-season games?
BM: Probably for my whole first year there will still be a lot of new things – you have your first training session and those sorts of things and then you get to games and it’ll still be a little bit weird. Then we’ll obviously play St Kilda at some point so that will all happen but for the minute, there’s plenty of work in pre-season to go yet.
Come back to hawthornfc.com.au on Saturday for part two of our interview with Ben McEvoy. He discusses his new teammates and how excited he is to wear the brown and gold jumper for the first time.
