Great Article on Mitch Hahn
Emma Quayle
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MITCH Hahn was thinking about only one thing when the Western Bulldogs offered him a place on its rookie list late last year. He didn't really wonder about how much less money he'd be making, or whether it would stop him getting on with other parts of his life. Hahn knew how many things would need to fall into place for him to play his 182nd game for the club he had grown up at. But he believed he could still play, and he wasn't ready to stop trying. ''For me,'' he said, ''the decision was pretty much about footy. I suppose I just backed myself in. I wanted to stay because, if I stayed, it meant I still had the chance to play.''
Hahn wasn't at all prepared when his spot on the Bulldogs' senior list was suddenly not his any more. He overcame a fractured eye socket before the Bulldogs' first game last year, taking time to rediscover his confidence and understand his new role by Barry Hall's side. Things had changed. His form dipped in the second half of the year and he knew it, but he was called upon for the finals, and played well. When coach Rodney Eade told him in their post-season debrief that younger, fresher players may be given a go ahead of him, Hahn heard him, nodded and understood. ''I think most players in that situation are still just going to back themselves,'' he said. ''You hear it, and you know what it means, but you still tell yourself that you'll be the one in the team.''
Soon, though, there was more in his way. Hahn was shocked when he was delisted, two weeks before the draft, partly because he didn't see it coming, and also because when it sunk in that he might not be at the club any more he had no real idea what he wanted to do next. He had moved through the first few phases of his career so slowly - and the end had arrived with such a jolt - that he wasn't ready for it.
''You go from wanting to be in the team - wanting to get a kick - to feeling like you've tied up a spot and wanting to build on that. And from that point on, all you can think about is premiership, premiership, premiership,'' he said. ''People say it all the time, 'You've got to have something going on in the background, you've got to be thinking about life after footy'. And it's funny, because that's what I'm saying to all the young guys here now. I tried things, but I didn't really know what I liked most, or have anything I was really looking forward to.''
He has a better idea now.
Hahn, who has dropped back to a $35,400 rookie's salary and is planning a wedding, needed a bit more cash and, with the club's blessing, has been doing some part-time personal training in Port Melbourne.
This year and last, he has helped Maribyrnong College, a sports-focused high school, run its AFL program, overseeing Monday recovery sessions and some training sessions.
He has combined his playing duties at Williamstown with a coaching role there too, sitting in on match committee meetings and working with the forward line. Effectively he is helping prepare other players for the spot he still craves in the senior team, talking to them during the week and pointing things out on the ground while they can do something about it, rather than wait for coach Peter German to make his way down to them at each break.
He's had to learn how to assess kids he spends all week with, and work out the best way to speak to them. He hasn't been involved in any of the Bulldogs' selection meetings yet, given he's still playing, but that may come, depending on how his season pans out.
Does it feel weird? ''A bit,''said Hahn, whose hopes of one last hurrah were set back last week when the Bulldogs promoted Luke Dahlhaus and Ed Barlow into the two open spots on the senior list ahead of him. Should the side push towards the finals and Hall become injured, he will want to play and feel confident of playing well. But he'll be just as happy if 20-year-old Matthew Panos is pushing even harder for a call-up. ''I've found I really like that - watching those guys play well, and improve, and feeling like you've done something to help them,'' he said.
''At the start, I wasn't sure how I'd cope if things weren't going well. I think there's a few people around here who had some concerns about me and even my body language - what I'd be like if things weren't panning out - but I'm really enjoying it and I know now that the development side of footy really interests me.
''No club's really done it before, having a 30-year-old on the rookie list, but I think it makes a bit of sense. I'm around these guys all week and I'm still one of them in the sense that I'm playing, and trying to get a game, and doing the things I'm trying to talk to them about doing. I still want to play, definitely. I'm still motivated to play and confident I can play seniors, but it's not everything. I know - and I knew from the start - that a lot of things had to happen. The team had to be going well, someone had to get injured, they had to get injured at the right time and they needed to play the same position as me. So it was always a long shot, but it's like I said, you always looking for reasons to be confident.
''If one of the younger guys gets in ahead of me then that's fine. It's great, because it will mean they've earned it. And really, that's how footy goes. I took someone's spot when I started out. I probably wasn't thinking about it in that way at the time, but that's how it works. Someone comes in, and someone else goes out. Everyone wants to be playing seniors and not everyone can be. There might even be some weeks where I play VFL reserves because we need to get some more games into one or two of the younger forwards. And if that happens, that's fine too. I probably wouldn't have thought that a year ago, but it would be.''
Hahn is relaxed, energised, living in the now and also making plans. But he's had to become all those things while literally watching his old teammates - players he was drafted with, and has grown up with since moving down from Queensland 12 years ago - move on without him. At the end of some training sessions, he'll be taking shots at goal at one end of Whitten Oval with the VFL-bound players while the senior team huddles together at the other end, confirming its final plans for the weekend. Speaking to The Sunday Age last week, Hahn was arriving for work at 2.30pm as Daniel Giansiracusa and Easton Wood wandered by in their civvies, done for the day.
Hahn is so close, and so far. But he hasn't felt at all tortured. His friends are still his friends, and his team will always be his team. ''I'm with them for most of the week, for everything but the last session, so nothing's really changed in that way. I still feel involved and I still feel like I'm a part of things.
''All the guys playing at Williamstown feel like Western Bulldog players, so when the team's not going well you still feel it and you still want to do whatever you can to turn it around and help the team play well and play better,'' he said. ''It's just that there are different ways to do that, now. It's not just about me trying to play good footy any more.''
