What Clarko says
27. Stephen Gilham
Thanks for returning to our summer series counting down through our 2012 playing list - today we feature guernsey number 27 in Stephen Gilham.
‘Gilly’ has had an interrupted past few seasons with knee injuries that seriously derailed his progress from one season to the next.
If you’ll recall, ‘Gilly’ went down quite early in the Round 8 match against St Kilda last year.
It took us a while to recover from it - we were five goals down before we were able to settle our defense in ‘Gilly’s’ absence, but we were eventually able to come back and win what was a pretty important game to the Club at that point in the season.
Unfortunately Stephen’s ACL injury meant that he was going to miss the rest of the 2011 season, and we did miss him significantly in defence (along with Ben Stratton) throughout the course of the year.
We’re hopeful that through his rehabilitation program, he will be back up and running and providing us with support in the back-end that he was so well-known for, which culminated in him playing in our 2008 premiership side.
Stephen is a reliable defender who can play on a range of different types of players.
We like the fact that he gives a good balance between negating an opposition player and providing us with terrific rebound options.
He’s quite skilful for a tall defender, and we’re very keen to have him back on the side.
We’re looking forward to his progress during the course of 2012, and I’m sure all Hawks fans will join me in wishing him all the best in his come-back to AFL footy.
Tomorrow we feature player number 26 - Liam Shiels. Liam had a ground-breaking year in season 2011 and he’s become a permanent part of our fixture in the middle of the ground.
What are your thoughts?
Leave your comments on Stephen Gilham below with fellow Hawks fans. What impresses you most about Stephen? How can Stephen take the next step in 2012?
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