Hickey looks a new player!

[Impatient Sainter]

For some reason he is now leaping and rucking much better at least since he was at the Saints. Today he is playing against OBrien and is beating him. I believe he is another player that was cruelled by Richardson's concentrating on what they didnt do rather than the positives. He was very under rated by people at our club for some reason?

Plus isnt it just our luck that Sydney are one of the teams that we play twice and this year they are flying!

[The_Dud]

Always had it, but Richo butchered him, as he did with others.

Where's Longer playing this week?

[ausfatcat]

Unfortunately for some unknown reason Richo preferred Longer when Hickey alsways had a bigger upside

[skeptic]

It was strangest thing with Hickey...

Seemingly overnight the guy just lost all of his aggression. One only has to go back to the 70 point turnaround WB to see that he used to be a mean, nasty guy onfield... then all of a sudden he was being ragdolled by players half his size.

Good on him for putting it back together

[The Billings Method]

I wonder where Longer is, while Hickey thrives? Richo we are so glad to be rid of you. It has saved our club.

[bangaulegend]

I take my hat off to him 4 clubs in 4 different states I doubt any AFL player has even done that

[Yorkeys]

Two week ban for thread under rubbing salt into the wound rule.

[bangaulegend]

Two week ban for thread under rubbing salt into the wound rule.

[Trixilver]

I always rated Hickey. He was a young ruckman who did some nice things, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the only reason we traded him was because he was one of the few players we had who actually had any value.

[StPeter]

I could never understand why he wasn't given a proper go at our club.

Agree with the other comments on here about him being underrated.

Shouldn't have been delisted or was he traded?

[bigcarl]

Unfortunately for some unknown reason Richo preferred Longer when Hickey alsways had a bigger upside

Yeah, never understood that

[Yorkeys]

Whatever we got for Tom, deduct tonight's points from the net profit/add to loss. Hindsight of course. But not by all, some saw Tom's worth.

[samuraisaint]

I saw his worth. Really disappointed with his delisting. How handy would he be now?
Another big mistake.

[terry smith rules]

A couple of years improving his trade under Nic Nat, good luck to him

[samoht]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but he's now at a 4th club.
So there were another 2 coaches - apart from Richo - who didn't rate his lack of aggressiveness and the fact that he gets injured too easily.

[Scollop]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but he's now at a 4th club.
So there were another 2 coaches - apart from Richo - who didn't rate his lack of aggressiveness and the fact that he gets injured too easily.

You’re assuming that the other coaches didn’t rate him.

With his first move he wanted to come to Melbourne and like any young bloke who is drafted,

he has the right to entertain offers if he is out of contract. Clubs have to trade otherwise they lose him with no compensation

He beat Max Gawn and a few other ruckmen in 2016 and he was viewed by many neutral observers as one of the best ruck prospects in the AFL. He was consistently good, he was durable and he was a very good contributor in many of our better wins.

There was this scapegoat mentality on this forum and perhaps even within the coaching group at St Kilda in 2017. In early 2017 he was unjustifiably tainted by his senior coach and he lost a fair bit of confidence and self belief.

[samoht]

By rated him I mean "saw past any weaknesses" - because Hickey obviously can play and is very good around the ground.

... but being "injury prone" (he was with us anyway, apart from season 2016) and "lacking physicality" (as far as ruckmen go) might be too much to overlook.

I mean ...
There would be no-one more motivated than young Ben King to return to Melbourne to be with his family and identical twin - but his club "really rated" him and made sure that didn't happen.

The same can't be said for Hickey and the 3 clubs that let him go.
We weren't on our own there.

[Saintmatt]

I could never understand why he wasn't given a proper go at our club.

Agree with the other comments on here about him being underrated.

Shouldn't have been delisted or was he traded?

He was traded and it was part of the Hannebery deal (basically, we traded Hickey to WC and sent that draft pick to Schytney for Hannebery).

That seems to be going well also

[Scollop]

There’s many reasons clubs let players go. We let Ben McEvoy go and his current coach rates him so highly he made him the Hawks captain.

Ben King is not fair comparison imo and especially when you consider the circumstances with where Gold coast were with their development and their ability to retain players. The AFL and the Suns needed to change the ‘perception’ of the club and they had to ensure that he was retained at probably over market rates.

[samoht]

There’s many reasons clubs let players go. We let Ben McEvoy go and his current coach rates him so highly he made him the Hawks captain.

Ben King is not fair comparison imo and especially when you consider the circumstances with where Gold coast were with their development and their ability to retain players. The AFL and the Suns needed to change the ‘perception’ of the club and they had to ensure that he was retained at probably over market rates.

... anyway, we weren't on our own there with Hickey - and our club is littered with examples of players leaving us and taking their games to the next level.
We can't blame Richo for Tom Lynch and Guerra ... it's our club that we should be blaming in all cases.

And we can't blame Richo for being recruited as our coach --- common denominator is and always should be "Our Club."
Coaches come and go.

[Scollop]

Speaking of coaches...

Melbourne FC has a new development coach this year. The club wasn’t going to wait until Goodwin missed out on finals again. Did you see Mark Williams motivating the Melbourne players out on the field?

You know how we knocked back Chocco Williams from taking over in 2014 ...because apparently he wanted a five year contract and we only wanted to give him 3...Well we got Cho instead and we kept him and paid him for a full 6 years!!

How's that for lunacy?

[longtimesaint]

Hickey was available in the off season and would have been a better pickup than Hunter

[skeptic]

Speaking of coaches...

Melbourne FC has a new development coach this year. The club wasn’t going to wait until Goodwin missed out on finals again. Did you see Mark Williams motivating the Melbourne players out on the field?

You know how we knocked back Chocco Williams from taking over in 2014 ...because apparently he wanted a five year contract and we only wanted to give him 3...Well we got Cho instead and we kept him and paid him for a full 6 years!!

How's that for lunacy?

This makes me want to cry

Please Scallop... can we put this on the don’t ever remind me list

[saintkid]

Hickey was available in the off season and would have been a better pickup than Hunter

Exactly. Excellent point. Another dumb decision...they obviously don't do their due diligence. If they bothered watching recordings of past St Kilda games on him ,even blind Freddie could see that Hickey's best was miles ahead of Hunter or McKernan.

[samuraisaint]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but he's now at a 4th club.
So there were another 2 coaches - apart from Richo - who didn't rate his lack of aggressiveness and the fact that he gets injured too easily.

Not quite correct. The Suns wanted to keep him but he left as he wanted to move to Melbourne. he was never going to stay there.

At the Eagles his form and hard work was respected. But he was excess to needs there as they have another two excellent ruckmen including arguably the best in the league.

It was at St Kilda his form was stuffed around with when players were gifted games in front of him, which they never should've got due to an incredible lack of player development, especially in the professional era. If some of the reports are true (and I don't know if they are BTW) of the way he was spoken to it is an absolute joke.

How handy would he be now, in the circumstances we find ourselves?