Fremantle's motley crew of trade failures

With Jesse Hogan getting shipped out of Fremantle to the Giants after a litany of off-field debacles and some extraordinarily mediocre football, an era was drawn to a close.

While not inherently comparable to, you know, more successful periods, Fremantle’s 2015-2018 recruiting era is the stuff of legends, as the trio of Ross Lyon, Steve Rosich and Peter Bell attempted to rebuild the team in the aftermath of the 2015 season.

Over a four-year period, the Dockers recruited ten players through trades, with just four still left at the club – Nathan Wilson, Rory Lobb, Travis Colyer and Joel Hamling (who didn’t play a game in 2020 due to injury). The other players brought in during that time period are an All-Star team of mildly talented, often injured footballers who are as famous for their exploits off the field as they were on it.

Harley Bennell
Oh, Harley. The sole addition to the team after the 2015 season, Bennell was coming hot off the heels of a season where he was disciplined by the Suns on numerous occasions for off-field screw-ups. They included: breaching team discipline standards with teammates Trent McKenzie and Brandon Matera (more on him later) for drinking (was dropped from the team), photos emerging of him snorting cocaine (was dropped from the team) and getting into an altercation with a bouncer outside a nightclub.

So, things weren’t exactly cruising for Bennell when Fremantle traded Picks 16, 35 and 56 for him and Pick 22. Then, the calf issues began. It took until the last two games of 2017 for Bennell to finally make his debut for Fremantle, kicking two goals in a 105-point loss to Richmond (coincidentally Fremantle’s last ever game at Subiaco Oval – a fitting farewell).

By the time Bennell was delisted by Fremantle at the end of 2019, he’d repeatedly gone through the hypnotical cycle of: 1. Injure calf. 2. Make slow return to WAFL team. 3. Start playing well for WAFL team, nearing return to AFL. 4. Injure calf, return to start.

By the end, while it had appeared that his off-field issues had subsided, it was pointless keeping him around any longer.

He’s since made his return for Melbourne this season, playing five games before a COVID breach saw him suspended, fined and retired. One of the great “what if?” footballers, Bennell could’ve been an awesome mid-forward but a combination of injuries and stupidity proved costly in the end.

(Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

Cam McCarthy
After three seasons at Greater Western Sydney, McCarthy came to Fremantle alongside Picks 7, 34 and 72 for Pick 3 (Tim Taranto). His terrible tattoos, strange haircuts and abnormal facial hair quickly made him something of a tantalising player for Fremantle, where his work-rate, kicking and marking ability were contrasted with an incredible knack of disappearing off the face of the earth in the middle of games.

He played 49 games and kicked 63 goals, but that doesn’t tell the full story. He somehow led our goal-kicking in 2017 with a towering 25 goals and captured the hearts of many when he got a cool new haircut, grew a beard and kicked five goals against North Melbourne in Round 1 last year, in truly one of the most dumbfounding moments in Dockers history.

Now at the end of 2020, McCarthy and the club have mutually parted ways after just one game in 2020. He has since claimed he’d like to play for Collingwood. We’ll see how that goes.

Bradley Hill
The best player the Dockers have recruited in this time, Hill came to Fremantle to play with his brother Stephen after ripping off three flags with Hawthorn, and immediately played well on the wing. He averaged 23.5 and 25.1 touches a game each in 2017 and 2019, with injuries thwarting his 2018 season (as well as an indiscretion with police where he lied about his identity, despite being a famous football player).

He then requested a trade back to Victoria to play with St Kilda, in a trade that netted us a top ten pick and Blake Acres. Overall, Hill was the best of the lot, and the least embarrassing.

(Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

Shane Kersten
Highlights: kicking a winning miracle goal from the boundary against North Melbourne in 2017 and his slicked-back hair.

Lowlights: when Lachie Neale requested a trade to Brisbane, Fremantle’s then CEO Steve Rosich offered to ditch Kersten to try and persuade Neale to stay (I wouldn’t say that’s a glowing appraisal of Kersten’s character), getting delisted by Fremantle after developing an “irreparable rift” with Ross Lyon and after Lyon got the sack, he posted “LOL” on Instagram.

Brandon Matera
He played 43 games and kicked 46 goals as a small forward, including 30 in 2019. The ultimate irrationally confident player, Matera has never seen a shot on goal that he didn’t love, and his addiction to attempting a miracle goal at every opportunity makes Izak Rankine seem conservative.

This was much to the chagrin of a bloke who sat near me one game a couple of years ago, who nicknamed him “Mister Incredible”, and every time Matera got the ball he would announce: “Mister Incredible! What more can he do?!”

Matera’s mediocre career at Fremantle was entirely worth it just for that one day.

Jesse Hogan
Well, here we are. The pièce de résistance of Fremantle incompetence. After two seasons, Jesse Hogan has been shipped off to GWS for Pick 54, and he wasn’t just traded – he was essentially driven to the airport by Peter Bell.

When the Dockers got Hogan at the end of 2018, he was the long-awaited Pav replacement and was coming off a career-best 47 goals. The move was however soured by some injury problems and a few seeping under-the-surface off-field issues (to which Fremantle fans all collectively ignored. “How bad could it really be?”).

Very quickly the rumours about Hogan’s status as a bit of a rogue unit started to crystallise and after a 12-game, 13-goal debut season, Hogan took a break from football to deal with mental health problems.

(Photo by Will Russell/AFL Photos/via Getty Images )

He came back in 2020, kicked five goals in seven games (and if you take out the four goals against an utterly incompetent North Melbourne, just one goal in six) and found it hard to break into the side. Hogan’s precarious situation was heightened after a COVID-19 quarantine breach, where he invited a girl over to his joint during the quarantine period (his lawyer claimed that he “fell into a trap because of the attraction of a young lady” and “hadn’t been with any females in months”).

As a result, it was the final nail in a coffin in a stint at Fremantle that initially promised a lot, but ended up being a controversial off-field and uneventful on-field façade.

The most painful thing about Hogan’s period at Fremantle is that they traded Picks 6 (which was in return for Lachie Neale from Brisbane) and 23 for him, with Pick 6 turning out to be a guy called Ben King, who’s already kicked 42 goals from 31 games in contrast to Hogan’s measly 18 in 19.

Yeesh.