What Clarko says
32. Bradley Hill
The recruiting team at Hawthorn can vividly remember the interview with Bradley Hill last October, where he told us that he was going to run a record 16 in the draft camp beep test.
Whilst we loved his optimism, we were a little sceptical as to whether or not he’d be able to back up what he was saying, but sure enough, that afternoon, Bradley Hill broke the beep test record at the draft camp with a 16.2 beep test score.
I liked it for two reasons; the first being that he had the physical capability to produce such an effort, and second being that he had the inner confidence to state it before he ran it - he was going to put himself out there and be the best that he could be.
We were quite surprised after the effort he showed at the draft camp that he was there for our selection at pick 33 in the National Draft.
Bradley hails from Western Australia and is the younger brother of Stephen Hill who has been such a good player for Fremantle so we know he comes from good stock.
His transition into our training has been first-class; he’s hardly missed a beat - in particular at our pre-season training camp in Queensland.
We’ve been really impressed with his leg speed, agility, and endurance. He’s a player who continued to improve his performance throughout his 2011 season.
Gary Buckenara had been following his progress quite closely over in the west.
Bucky has a great eye for talent and saw Bradley develop consistently throughout the course of the year. He saw Bradley use his great aerobic capacity to win a lot of the ball in turn was rewarded for a lot of his running.
We’re certain that those are some aspects that are going to turn Bradley into a great player in the years to come.
He’s still got a way to go in terms of his professionalism off the ground - he did get himself into a tad of trouble over in the west recentl - but we’re confident that Bradley can commit himself fully to what is required in the weeks ahead as he prepares for what’s going to be a pretty exciting season for him.
We’re certain all Hawks fans will watch his progress closely as he works his way through the pre-season cup and the Box Hill Hawks.
Hopefully we’ll see him feature for Hawthorn in the not too distant future.
Tomorrow on our summer series counting down our playing list we feature number 31 - Jarrad Boumann - who is a player that we drafted from the Box Hill Hawks who also spent three years on the Western Bulldogs’ list.
