Congratulations Shaun Burgoyne

[whythelongface]

Not many non Bulldog players that I admire but this guy is one of those. Have really enjoyed watching him play over the years.

Amazing achievement reaching 400 games. Only the 5th player to do so and the 1st indigenous player. Four premierships with two clubs and fittingly it is a game between those clubs that he plays his 400th.

Well done and congratulations.

[Axe Man]

It's amazing that at the end of 2009 when the Hawks traded for him they weren't sure if his degenerative knee would last much more than 3 years!

Sliding doors to 400: How the Hawks landed Shaun Burgoyne

With less than 24 hours before the trade deadline in 2009, Shaun Burgoyne was panicking. The deal to get him to Hawthorn had gone nowhere all week.

He was nervous. He was suddenly debating whether to give in and stay at Port, or go to Essendon.

The Bombers were Burgoyne’s second choice after the Hawks.

He wasn’t close to being a Bomber, but he was not far away either.

For nearly 18 months, Hawthorn - through Alastair Clarkson, Geoff Morris, Andrew Russell and Chris Pelchen - had been chipping away at persuading Port’s All-Australian midfielder to join them. All four men had been at Port and were now at Hawthorn.

The Port vice-captain and popular premiership player wanted out of the club for a range of reasons. One was that the board had over-ruled coach Mark Williams, who had wanted to make him captain, and had instead insisted on installing Dom Cassissi instead. Burgoyne was also unhappy with how the club had treated his brother, Peter.

All clubs came calling for Burgoyne once they knew he might be available, but he was attracted to being with the people he knew at Hawthorn.

“Essendon knew they were his second choice so Adrian (Dodoro, Essendon’s list manager) just stone walled the trade all week,” Burgoyne’s manager Ben Williams said.

“It nearly worked. It was going nowhere and Adrian knew he could get the deal done with Port so he just wouldn’t trade and hoped to get Shaun. Think how things could have been different for Shaun if that happened. And for Essendon.”

The deal to get Burgoyne to Hawthorn had drawn Essendon into the discussions in order to find the picks that would satisfy Port, who wanted two first round draft picks in the trade.

Essendon wanted Hawthorn premiership forward Mark Williams and, after trading midfielder Andrew Lovett to St Kilda, was prepared to trade on that first round pick they got from the Saints in order to get him.

Using Mark Williams as part of the deal had been the first sticking point to the Hawks trade. Jeff Kennett had said no.

“Mark Evans, Clarko and myself had gone to a board meeting and said we wanted to trade Mark Williams. Jeff had said ‘no you won’t. No premiership players will be traded out - they are part of Hawthorn’s legacy’,” Pelchen recalled.

“He said ‘it will not happen. Not under me’. So it took some discussions with Jeff from the three of us and Jason Dunstall, in particular, to persuade him that it wasn’t about the last premiership, it was about the next premiership and he understood that.”

But losing Mark Williams and their first round draft pick was one thing. They firstly had to agree to terms with Burgoyne before even trying to get a trade done.

What to offer Burgoyne was difficult. Everyone in Adelaide knew what a talent the Power were losing. Everyone in Victoria fretted about the knee injury he had and what a risk he was.

Pelchen said Hawthorn’s Dr Peter Baquie assessed Burgoyne’s degenerative knee and was comfortable that he would be good for at least three years but after that there was a risk.

The Hawks agreed to offer a three-year contract with a trigger for a fourth. That was at the end of 2009.

With contract terms agreed, the deal had to be done. This was the period before future picks were able to be traded and when the trade period was notoriously constipated, but even by those standards this was a negotiation that was going nowhere.

“It’s the 11th hour and we are sitting in the basement of Docklands having a discussion with Shaun and Ben because things were taking longer than we hoped,” Pelchen recalled.

“We were being stone-walled by Essendon and Shaun was really nervous.

“Shaun started to think ‘am I better off staying where I am, or going to Essendon?’ The time it took and the stone walling tactics from Essendon hoping to get him to come to them did make him have second thoughts. But credit to Shaun and to Ben - they stayed firm.”

Williams had set the clubs a deadline that if a deal couldn’t be reached by late on the penultimate day of trade period, it would have to go to mediation. So to mediation they went. It began after regular business hours and didn’t broker a result, but it did deliver the information that would crack the deadlock.

Essendon wanted a second round pick thrown in to the deal.

It was early evening and Pelchen rang Stephen Wells at Geelong and asked about their picks. Wells was open to a trade. He agreed to give up their pick No.33 and receive picks 40, 42 and 56 in return.

The deal would be done.

Under the agreement ultimately thrashed out, Hawthorn got Burgoyne and gave Port Adelaide pick nine and sent Williams to Windy Hill. The Hawks’ picks 40 and 56 both went to Geelong.

So the Power got two first-round picks for losing their 2004 premiership player and vice captain. They got Hawthorn’s pick nine and Essendon’s pick 16. They would later use No.9 on Andrew Moore and 16 on Jasper Pittard.

Essendon got Mark Williams, pick 24 from Port Adelaide (which they used in the draft on Jake Carlisle), and Geelong’s pick 33 (which they used on Anthony Long). They also traded defender Jay Nash to Port.

The Cats gave up pick 33 and got back picks 40, 42 and 56. They used 40 on Allen Christensen, 42 on Nathan Vardy, and 56 on Josh Cowan.

Hawthorn’s fingerprints had always been on Shaun Burgoyne’s career even before they traded for the soon-to-be 400-game player.

It was Hawthorn’s draft pick (12) that they traded to Adelaide to get Shaun Rehn that was eventually passed on by the Crows to Port in a second trade for Matthew Bode. The Power used 12 on Burgoyne.

[bulldogtragic]

Couldn’t agree more. A dead set gun and someone I’ve loved watching for a very, very long time.

[Mofra]

Until Dom Sheed's ice-cold kick in the 2018 GF Silk was the best clutch player in the competition.
Superstar

[bornadog]

What a great player he has been and a nice guy too.

[bornadog]

Some highlights

[Testekill]

Crazy durability. It's amazing that so many people thought he'd be done within 5 years when he went to Hawthorn.

[Dry Rot]

Sliding doors to 400: How the Hawks landed Shaun Burgoyne[/B]


“Essendon knew they were his second choice so Adrian (Dodoro, Essendon’s list manager) just stone walled the trade all week,” Burgoyne’s manager Ben Williams said.

Who would have thought?

[DOG GOD]

Seems like a very down to earth guy and a fantastic team player. Totally deserves his 400 games. Just glad it’s not against us this week

[macca]

His a champion. One of the best all time trades for the Hawks in terms of games returned and Premiership success. Not many players left after that trade currently playing in an AFL team.

[westdog54]

Silk is an ornament to the game. 400 games in any time, let alone with the rigours of the modern era, is staggering.

And an absolute gentleman to boot.

[jeemak]

I reckon it was about five years ago I asked whether he is the best ever trade in the history of the game...........

It's great that Essendon again, because of the actions of Dodo, ended up without their player and no value from anything they tried to achieve through their counter productive stone walling.

Because Dodo is so shit at negotiating he didn't even think that just plainly saying he wanted a second round pick thrown in would have left everyone satisfied. The player didn't want to go to Essendon.

[Twodogs]

His a champion. One of the best all time trades for the Hawks in terms of games returned and Premiership success. Not many players left after that trade currently playing in an AFL team.

Doc Duryea was drafted by Hawthorn in that draft.