Triple M Footy news breaker Damian Barrett says that he stands by his comments about Hawthorn’s list management strategy being a “form of tanking”.
DAMO ON HAWTHORN’S “FORM OF TANKING”:
“I used the phrase at one stage last week that it’s a form of tanking, what they’re going down the path of, and I’m not backing away from that,” Damo said on Damo’s Recovery Session on the Rush Hour with JB & Billy.
“The decisions to offload some key players last year in the trade period, Bill, particularly [Tom] Mitchell, who they’re paying to play (for Hawthorn), [Jack] Gunston to the Brisbane Lions, and [Jeager] O’Meara to the Dockers.”
“Now I get the argument… I just felt they cut too deep, too hard.”
“I’m not at all surprised to see last week resulting in a 10 goal loss to Essendon, and nine goals in the crunch time of that game, then yesterday to be lucky to get away with an 81 point loss to the Sydney Swans in Sydney.
“I mean that could have been 120 without it being too much of a stretch.”
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James Brayshaw said that Hawks club legend Jason Dunstall was on board with the strategy, however.
“I was really interested in the Chief’s (Jason Dunstall’s) take on this,” he said.
“I have huge regard for the Chief’s intellect around all these things, and he was really supportive of it.
“He said ’nuh, do it straight away, do it as hard as you can, you’ll bounce back quicker if you take the pain’.”
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Damo also said there was some behind the scenes frustration from prominent fans.
“There was certainly a tense moment last week inside the club, when some supporters just voiced ‘where are we at as a footy club?’,” Damo said.
“And these are high end supporters, this is the backdrop of this, and now you don’t have the luxury of look at what’s happening on field, you can see the future, because you can’t see any positive future.”
Damo also discussed the flying Pies, the concerns at the Bulldogs, the booing of Jason Horne-Francis, all the positives and negative from round 2 at more.
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